Mobility and Isolation: Latino Immigrant Adjustment in Atlanta, Georgia

In the automobile society of the United States, virtually every adult needs a car to work, shop, and participate in social institutions. However, not everyone has a car. One of the populations with low access to vehicles is the Latin American immigrant population. This study asks to what extent Latino immigrants experience spatial constraints due to lack of mobility, what mobility strategies do they use in order to function in a context of automobility, and to what extent transportation limitations are associated with another socially isolating factor – English proficiency. I investigate these questions for employed Latino immigrants in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area, which is a new Latino destination that has a particularly poor transportation system. Data sources include US Census summary files for 1980-2010, data from the Census Transportation Planning Package from 2000, and American Community Survey 2006-2010 pooled microdata.