Schelling’s Checkerboard

In a now-famous essay, Dr. Schelling instructed readers to randomly scatter dimes and pennies on a checkerboard, leaving some squares open and moving the coins to satisfy simple preferences such as “every dime wants at least half its neighbors to be dimes, and every penny wants a third of its neighbors to be pennies.” Schelling defined “neighbors” as coins in adjacent squares, and he invited readers to imagine that the dimes and pennies were two groups, such as Black and White people.

What happens? As each coin is moved closer to others in its group, small preferences at the individual level often lead to extreme segregation at the group level.

Using colored pieces rather than coins, the following exercise lets you explore Schelling’s insight, and it extends his pioneering work by suggesting an effective way to avoid segregation.