Residential segregation and cultural dissemination: An Axelrod-Schelling model

TL;DR

This paper extends Axelrod's cultural dissemination model by incorporating agent mobility through empty sites, revealing how varying mobility levels influence cultural convergence and fragmentation.

Contribution

It introduces a mobility mechanism into Axelrod's model, showing how agent movement affects cultural diversity and the emergence of disconnected cultural domains.

Findings

Mobility enhances cultural convergence at low densities.

High mobility leads to persistent cultural fragmentation.

Increased initial diversity can paradoxically promote a dominant culture.

Abstract

In the Axelrod's model of cultural dissemination, we consider mobility of cultural agents through the introduction of a density of empty sites and the possibility that agents in a dissimilar neighborhood can move to them if their mean cultural similarity with the neighborhood is below some threshold. While for low values of the density of empty sites the mobility enhances the convergence to a global culture, for high enough values of it the dynamics can lead to the coexistence of disconnected domains of different cultures. In this regime, the increase of initial cultural diversity paradoxically increases the convergence to a dominant culture. Further increase of diversity leads to fragmentation of the dominant culture into domains, forever changing in shape and number, as an effect of the never ending eroding activity of cultural minorities.