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Segregation That No One Seeks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ryan Muldoon ,
Tony Smith  and
Michael Weisberg
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Abstract

This article examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demonstrate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states among agents of the same type. This is quite different from Schelling-like behavior and suggests (in his terms) that segregation is an instance of macrobehavior that can arise from a wide variety of micromotives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 38 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

The authors would like to thank Frank Keil, Scott E. Page, Thomas Schelling, and Daniel J. Singer for their helpful feedback and suggestions. Michael Weisberg would like to acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation grant SES-0957189.

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