Three research questions addressed by Zhou and Logan are stated in the first paragraph of their paper on residential mobility by residents of Chinatown in New York City: (1) the question of the overall scale of segregation of New York's Chinese from other social groups; (2) the degree to which decentralization and suburbanization (i.e., moving out of Chinatown) are linked to lower-level segregation; and (3) the characteristics of individual householders that are linked to decentralization and the general residential direction that these characteristics make them point. Noting that previous studies of ethnic-minority social patterns predict "gradual but progressive assimilation," the authors inevitably also intend to interrogate the adequacy of the theoretical model of research into full minority-group inclusion in society, in light of the unique characteristics of the Chinatown enclave in New York, which "has survived for more than 140 years and retains a strong ethnic economy" (389).
Patterns of social mobility have been studied in the past via models attempting to account for minority-group residential behavior and individual behavior of group members. Zhou and Logan cite research into European ethnic minority assimilations but note that it may not necessarily apply to more recent immigrant groups. They also observe that one 1987 study (Massey and Denton), which linked suburbanization to assimilation for Asians and Hispanics, did not sufficiently account for the question of whether acculturation was part of the dynamic. When describing the enclave theory, which indicates that socioeconomic status and acculturation predict assimilation, they explain that those attributes "do not operate the same for members of all minority groups," (389) for all members within groups, and in all localities. It remains to be seen whether it can be empirically demonstrated that movement away from the enclave is related to economic achi...