ABSTRACT
This research analyzes at a descriptive and exploratory level the relationship between immigration rate and a set of socioeconomic variables characterizing "urban sclerosis", as defined by Moore (1997)MOORE, Stephen. Immigration and the rise and decline of American cities. Hoover Institution: Stanford University, 1997. , in the minimum comparable areas (AMCs) between 1991 and 2010. In addition to the delimitation of ad hoc groups of AMCs propose the multivariate analysis of clusters for the definition of natural clusters, based on those variables, and the discriminant analysis to validate these natural groups in the investigation of the presence of urban sclerosis. It is not possible to show that in the AMCs with the highest immigration rates the deterioration of socioeconomic indicators is present; either under ad hoc classification or under multivariate classification. The research seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate about the net effects of excess immigration, especially regarding the classification of observation units in terms of immigration rate.
Keywords:
immigration; urban sclerosis; socioeconomic determinants; ad hoc clusters; multivariate methods