MINORITY YOUTH EMPLOYMENT, RESIDENTIAL LOCATION, AND NEIGHBORHOOD JOBS: A STUDY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY* Tom Larson Madhu Mohanty I. INTRODUCTION This article examines the impact of residential location and neighbor- hood characteristics on teenage ~ employment in Los Angeles County. The focus is on black youth, due to the extraordinary residential segrega- tion they experience, but employment among Latino, white and Asian youth is also examined and compared. In recent years there has been much investigation of the role residence plays in determining employ- ment and this is especially relevant in addressing the problems faced by teenagers in finding employment, since they traditionally are employed in or near their own neighborhood. Because black and Latino youth experience high levels of residential segregation in large urban areas and are usually unable to choose their own residence,2 they may be especially sensitive to any adverse impacts of residential location. The hypothesis that residential segregation reduces job opportunities for black and Latino teenagers will be indirectly tested by testing the impact of current residential location. For those youth who face high levels of residential segregation (blacks and Latinos), neighborhood char- acteristics should have an impact on their opportunities in general. A common characteristic of inner-city neighborhoods with majority black populations is a small commercial sector, with few retail stores relative to the local population. 3 Since retail is the major industry of employment * The authors thank Miles Finney and two anonymousreferees for valuable com- ments. Please address correspondence to: Dr. Tom Larson, Departmentof Econom- ics & Statistics, CaliforniaState University,5151 State UniversityDrive, Los Ange- les, CA 90032; e-mail: tlarson@calstatela.edu.