The Location of Preschool Facilities: Some Spatial and Social Interactions

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Abstract
Preschool education is a growing and an important industry, remaining largely unregulated and uncontrolled. This paper examines some spatial and social variations evident in preschool education in a suburban county of New York City. The county, Nassau, although not a microcosm of the United States, is representative of many suburban areas around the country. Its median family income is very high, but it does contain some pockets of poverty. The paper will try to answer several questions: 1) How is preschool operation related to publicly-supported primary education? 2) How have the number and spatial distribution of preschools changed over the past 30 years, as Nassau County first rapidly suburbanized and later experienced slowed growth? What processes have influenced these changes? 3) Do the preschools exhibit any structure in terms of types of programs offered? 4) If such a structure exists, does it display any spatial patterns—are certain types of programs found only in certain communities or associated with specific socioeconomic characteristics? Finally, the paper examines the implications of this distribution for the provision of equitable and efficient preschool education.

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