Geographical segregation

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Geographical segregation exists whenever the proportions of population rates of two or more populations are not homogeneous throughout a defined space. Populations can be considered any plant or animal species, human genders, followers of a certain religion, people of different nationalities, ethnic groups, etc.

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In social geography segregation of ethnic groups, social classes and genders is often measured by the calculation of indices such as the index of dissimilarity. Different dimensions of segregation (or its contrary) are recognized: exposure, evenness, clustering, concentration, centralization, etc. [1] More recent studies also highlight new local indices of segregation. [2]

Geographical segregation is most often measured with individuals' place of residence, but increasing geographical data availability makes it now possible to compute segregation indexes using individuals' activity space, in whole or in part. [3] [4]

Human geographical segregation

Segregation, as a broad concept, has appeared in all parts of the world where people exist—in different contexts and times it takes on different forms, shaped by the physical and human environments. [5] The spatial concentration of population groups is not a new phenomenon. Since societies began to form there have been segregated inhabitants. Either segregated purposefully by force, or gradually over time, segregation was based on socio-economic, religious, educational, linguistic or ethnic grounds. Some groups choose to be segregated to strengthen social identity. [6] [7]

Types

Segregation can be caused by legal frameworks, such as in the extreme example of apartheid in South Africa, and even Jewish ghettoization in Germany in the 20th century. Segregation can also happen slowly, stimulated by increased land and housing prices in certain neighborhoods, resulting in segregation of rich and poor in many urban cities. [6] Segregation can also be assigned arbitrarily. This can occur on a global scale, such as is seen in the Partition of India, instances in Ireland, and many other situations. Geographical boundaries were often put in place without much consideration for native peoples and natural geographic terrain and cultural limits that had long been in place.

Image of segregated water fountain during the Jim Crow era in the American South. Segregated water fountain.png
Image of segregated water fountain during the Jim Crow era in the American South.

In the United States, segregation was enforced through the law. Notably, the racial segregation between white and black racial populations in the American South during the late 1800s into the first half of the 20th century. These laws consisted of separating people of color from white people in public places, including movie theaters, restaurants, schools, shopping centers, etc. [8] The legislations were commonly referred to as Jim Crow Laws. [9] Although these laws were abolished in the mid 1960’s the impacts are still present in American communities today. Represented through the significant gap in homeownership, income status, and education levels in communities of color versus majority white. [10]  

In apartheid South Africa, segregation was very much a legal concept. Enforced by the government, black and South-Africans of color were discriminated against, and forced to comply with apartheid. Some of the legislation passed dealt with physical segregation in schools, land tenure, geographic segregation and state repression. These were very clearly legislative, but also in the case of most white South Africans, a social construct as well. [11]

Segregation can also be encouraged, using geographical boundaries, while not explicitly enforced. Public housing projects, especially in the United States, have been criticized for this. Putting cheap housing in poor black neighborhoods encouraged local African-Americans to stay in the area, keeping other richer areas white by not building public housing there. Current day, many communities within the United States are still segregated, due to the ongoing racial inequalities still present and self-segregation. [12]

Social segregation and Gentrification

Segregation can also be caused by social factors that become evident as they happen, but are not necessarily government sanctioned. This could be things like informal ghettos, or simply rich neighborhoods. In terms of land capital, over time in a given area, humans will settle down and buy or take land. Some privileged people will acquire better land (that is, more arable, proximate to potential capital, more pleasing views). Demand for these nicer habitats drives up prices, and areas deemed “better” based solely on geography become inherently exclusionary in their population makeup.

West Point Grey, an area of Vancouver Canada, is in part rich because of the views offered of Downtown Vancouver, the Gulf Islands, and its location near the water and University of British Columbia. Wealthy people had the resources to pay for advantages, and subsequently drove up prices. Examples of this can be seen all over the world. Geographical segregation is not always defined by the sightline of places. It also occurs around certain structures, or simply in areas that are specifically developed with an income bracket in mind. [13]

These social factors are commonly attributed to the impacts of gentrification. Gentrification is the process in which the makeup of a community is changed. These changes include racial identity, economic status, and level of education. [14] [15] Generally, gentrification occurs in communities that are low-income and a majority-minority population. It begins when affluent families, usually of white racial identity, move into these lower-income neighborhoods and invest their money into the community. These improvements to the community consist of reconstructing public transit, the businesses within downtown areas, and the houses in neighborhoods. This raises the overall investment value of the area, which increases the living costs. [16] Which in turn, causes the original low-income residents to be displaced, due to the unaffordability. It can also create physical health issues for the original residents. As they are segregated in areas typically near factors or construction zones, exposing them to toxins. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has issued that gentrification is a public health issue. [17]

Another segregation term, the ghetto, has been used in many different contexts over time, generally meaning any physical part of a city predominantly occupied by any particular group of people. It implies that the group may be looked down upon and segregated purposefully. This does not mean that all ghettos are built up communities and buildings specifically for a segregation purpose, although many are. In the case of the United States, segregation of the African-American community was to a degree due to white flight out of the cities, rather than forcing African-Americans to live in the downtown cores. [18]

Gated communities

Gated communities could be seen as a combination of both legal frameworks and social conventions regarding segregation. A gated community today is a controlled neighborhood, inhabited by people with common interests, such as safety, or class separation, but not necessarily of the same ethnicity or religion—it is distinct from an international community (in most cases). [19] Gated communities are very controversial, as they can be seen as encouraging distinction and separation, and therefore superiority from those who do not live with the gates community.

Self-segregation

Chinatown at night in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1967. Vancouver Chinatown.png
Chinatown at night in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1967.

Self segregation is almost as common an occurrence as involuntary segregation is. Often, immigrants coming to a new and foreign country will band together for mutual benefit, and to keep a sense of community in the new country. These can be called ethnic enclaves and can be formed by any community or people group. [20] Some well-known groups are Chinatowns, [21] Little Italys and barrios . These localized phenomena also come in the form of ethnoburbs, which are essentially the same concept as an ethnic enclave, but specifically located in suburbs, rather than the traditional downtowns, where Chinatowns and Little Italys are usually based.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial segregation</span> Systemic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life

Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Racial segregation has generally been outlawed worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gentrification</span> Urban socioeconomic process

Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has been used to describe a wide array of phenomena, usually in a pejorative connotation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redlining</span> Systemic denial of services to some areas

Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities. Redlining has been most prominent in the United States, and has mostly been directed against African-Americans. The most common examples involve denial of credit and insurance, denial of healthcare, and the development of food deserts in minority neighborhoods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghetto</span> Neighborhood inhabited by a minority group, usually when poor

A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of such restricted areas have been found across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White flight</span> Mass exodus of white people from areas becoming more diverse

White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They referred to the large-scale migration of people of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. The term has more recently been applied to other migrations by whites, from older, inner suburbs to rural areas, as well as from the American Northeast and Midwest to the milder climate in the Southeast and Southwest. The term 'white flight' has also been used for large-scale post-colonial emigration of whites from Africa, or parts of that continent, driven by levels of violent crime and anti-colonial or anti-white state policies.

Racial steering refers to the practice in which real estate brokers guide prospective home buyers towards or away from certain neighborhoods based on their race. The term is used in the context of de facto residential segregation in the United States, and is often divided into two broad classes of conduct:

  1. Advising customers to purchase homes in particular neighborhoods on the basis of race.
  2. Failing, on the basis of race, to show, or to inform buyers of homes that meet their specifications.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial segregation in the United States</span> De jure and de facto separation of whites and non-whites

Facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation have been systematically separated in the United States based on racial categorizations. Segregation was the legally or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, as well as the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority and mainstream communities. While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as prohibitions against interracial marriage, and the separation of roles within an institution. The U.S. Armed Forces were formally segregated until 1948, as black units were separated from white units but were still typically led by white officers.

The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s, when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland. The African American middle class is also prevalent in the Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Antonio and Chicago areas.

African-American neighborhoods or black neighborhoods are types of ethnic enclaves found in many cities in the United States. Generally, an African American neighborhood is one where the majority of the people who live there are African American. Some of the earliest African-American neighborhoods were in New Orleans, Mobile, Atlanta, and other cities throughout the American South, as well as in New York City. In 1830, there were 14,000 "Free negroes" living in New York City.

Residential segregation is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level". While it has traditionally been associated with racial segregation, it generally refers to the separation of populations based on some criteria.

In the United States, housing segregation is the practice of denying African Americans and other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Housing policy in the United States has influenced housing segregation trends throughout history. Key legislation include the National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the Fair Housing Act. Factors such as socioeconomic status, spatial assimilation, and immigration contribute to perpetuating housing segregation. The effects of housing segregation include relocation, unequal living standards, and poverty. However, there have been initiatives to combat housing segregation, such as the Section 8 housing program.

Exclusionary zoning is the use of zoning ordinances to exclude certain types of land uses from a given community, especially to regulate racial and economic diversity. In the United States, exclusionary zoning ordinances are standard in almost all communities. Exclusionary zoning was introduced in the early 1900s, typically to prevent racial and ethnic minorities from moving into middle- and upper-class neighborhoods. Municipalities use zoning to limit the supply of available housing units, such as by prohibiting multi-family residential dwellings or setting minimum lot size requirements. These ordinances raise costs, making it less likely that lower-income groups will move in. Development fees for variance, a building permit, a certificate of occupancy, a filing (legal) cost, special permits and planned-unit development applications for new housing also raise prices to levels inaccessible for lower income people.

Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery in 1865, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government didn't begin to take action against these laws until 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting blacks from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

In the United States, racial inequality refers to the social inequality and advantages and disparities that affect different races. These can also be seen as a result of historic oppression, inequality of inheritance, or racism and prejudice, especially against minority groups.

Visible minorities have become highly concentrated in Vancouver and its suburbs. The proportion of visible minorities in Vancouver increased from 14 percent to 55 percent of the population between 1981 and 2021. Vancouver has less residential segregation of its ethnic minorities compared to older Canadian cities such as Montreal. However, Vancouver exhibits some residential segregation, as demographic data shows visible minority concentrations vary by neighbourhood in Vancouver. In general, East Vancouver has higher visible minority concentrations than the West Side. Higher visible minority concentrations are also found in nearby suburbs such as Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby, and New Westminster. Most recent immigrants choose to locate in peripheral neighbourhoods in Greater Vancouver. It is speculated that Canada's multiculturalism policies may have prevented greater segregation from the dominant groups in both the residential location and the labour market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School segregation in the United States</span> Racial separation in schools

School segregation in the United States was the segregation of students based on their ethnicity. While not prohibited from having schools, various minorities were barred from most schools, schools for whites. Segregation laws were dismantled in 1954 by the U.S. Supreme Court because of the successes being attained during the Civil Rights Movement. Segregation continued longstanding exclusionary policies in much of the Southern United States after the Civil War. School integration in the United States took place at different times in different areas and often met resistance. Jim Crow laws codified segregation. These laws were influenced by the history of slavery and discrimination in the US. Secondary schools for African Americans in the South were called training schools instead of high schools in order to appease racist whites and focused on vocational education. After the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregated school laws, school segregation took de facto form. School segregation declined rapidly during the late 1960s and early 1970s as the government became strict on schools' plans to combat segregation more effectively as a result of Green v. County School Board of New Kent County. Voluntary segregation by income appears to have increased since 1990. Racial segregation has either increased or stayed constant since 1990, depending on which definition of segregation is used. In general, definitions based on the amount of interaction between black and white students show increased racial segregation, while definitions based on the proportion of black and white students in different schools show racial segregation remaining approximately constant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delmar Divide</span> Socioeconomic and racial divide along Delmar Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri

The Delmar Divide refers to Delmar Boulevard as a socioeconomic and racial dividing line in St. Louis, Missouri. The term was popularized outside Greater St. Louis by a four-minute documentary from the BBC. Delmar Blvd. is an east–west street with its western terminus in the municipality of Olivette, Missouri extending into the City of St. Louis. There is a dense concentration of eclectic commerce on Delmar Blvd. near the municipal borders of University City and St. Louis. This area is known as the Delmar Loop. Delmar Blvd. is referred to as a “divide” in reference to the dramatic difference in racial populations in the neighborhoods to its immediate north and south: as of 2012, residents south of Delmar are 73% white, while residents north of Delmar are 98% black, and because of corresponding distinct socioeconomic, cultural, and public policy differences.

Gentrification, the process of altering the demographic composition of a neighborhood usually by decreasing the percentage of low-income minority residents and increasing the percentage of typically white, higher-income residents, has been an issue between the residents of minority neighborhoods in Chicago who believe the influx of new residents destabilizes their communities, and the gentrifiers who see it as a process that economically improves a neighborhood. Researchers have debated the significance of its effects on the neighborhoods and whether or not it leads to the displacement of residents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American ghettos</span> Poor racially segregated urban neighborhoods in the United States

Ghettos in the United States are typically urban neighborhoods perceived as being high in crime and poverty. The origins of these areas are specific to the United States and its laws, which created ghettos through both legislation and private efforts to segregate America for political, economic, social, and ideological reasons: de jure and de facto segregation. De facto segregation continues today in ways such as residential segregation and school segregation because of contemporary behavior and the historical legacy of de jure segregation.

Gentrification in the United States is commonly associated with an influx of higher-income movers into historically divested neighborhoods with existing, working-class residents, often resulting in increases in property prices and investment into new developments. Displacement and gentrification are also linked, with consequences of gentrification including displacement of pre-existing residents and cultural erasure of the historic community. In the United States, discussions surrounding gentrification require critical analysis of race and other demographic data in examining the inequalities and disparities between existing residents, the community, new buyers, and developers caused by gentrification.

References

  1. ↑ Massey D, Denton N (1993). American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN   0674018206.
  2. ↑ Krivo LJ, Byron RA, Calder CA, Peterson RD, Browning CR, Kwan MP, Lee JY (November 2015). "Patterns of local segregation: Do they matter for neighborhood crime?". Social Science Research. 54: 303–318. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.08.005. PMID   26463550.
  3. ↑ Wong DW, Shaw SL (June 2011). "Measuring segregation: an activity space approach". Journal of Geographical Systems. 13 (2): 127–145. Bibcode:2011JGS....13..127W. doi:10.1007/s10109-010-0112-x. PMC   3106997 . PMID   21643546.
  4. ↑ Cagney KA, York Cornwell E, Goldman AW, Cai L (2020-07-30). "Urban Mobility and Activity Space". Annual Review of Sociology. 46 (1): 623–648. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054848. ISSN   0360-0572. S2CID   218819331.
  5. ↑ "Segregation". Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
  6. 1 2 "Spatial Segregation". Urban Society (PDF). UN. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 July 2019.
  7. ↑ "Division of Groups". Segregation.ch. Archived from the original on 2013-01-08. Retrieved 2013-01-04.
  8. ↑ Guffey, Elizabeth (2012). "Knowing Their Space: Signs of Jim Crow in the Segregated South". Design Issues. 28 (2): 41–60. ISSN   0747-9360.
  9. ↑ Stern, Shai (2021). ""Separate, Therefore Equal": American Spatial Segregation from Jim Crow to Kiryas Joel". RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. 7 (1): 67–90. doi:10.7758/rsf.2021.7.1.05. ISSN   2377-8253.
  10. ↑ Structural Racism in Housing Finance: Understanding the System to Change the System (Report). Poverty & Race Research Action Council. 2021. pp. 7–34.
  11. ↑ Scythe NC (1995). "Early Apartheid: Race Laws in South Africa 1652–1836". LLM Thesis, University of Witwatersrand. Johannesburg.
  12. ↑ Seguin, Charles; Nierobisz, Annette; Kozlowski, Karen Phelan (2017). "Seeing Race: Teaching Residential Segregation with the Racial Dot Map". Teaching Sociology. 45 (2): 142–151. ISSN   0092-055X.
  13. ↑ Gradecak T. "West Side Realty". Vancouver, BC.
  14. ↑ Green, Terrance L.; Castro, Andrene; Germain, Emily; Horne, Jeremy; Sikes, Chloe; Sanchez, Joanna (2023). ""They Don't Feel Like This Is Their Place Anymore:" School Leaders' Understanding of the Impacts of Gentrification on Schools". American Educational Research Journal. 60 (6): 1059–1094. doi:10.3102/00028312231191704. ISSN   0002-8312.
  15. ↑ Miller, Lindsay M. (2019). "We Need to Change How We Think About Gentrification". National Civic Review. 107 (4): 25–35. doi:10.32543/naticivirevi.107.4.0025. ISSN   0027-9013.
  16. ↑ Freeman, Lance M. (2016). "Commentary: 21st Century Gentrification". Cityscape. 18 (3): 163–168. ISSN   1936-007X.
  17. ↑ Smith, Genee S.; Thorpe, Roland J. (2020). "Gentrification: A Priority for Environmental Justice and Health Equity Research". Ethnicity & Disease. 30 (3): 509–512. ISSN   1049-510X.
  18. ↑ Massey D, Denton NA (1993). "American Apartheid" (PDF). Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Harvard University Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 November 2014.
  19. ↑ O'Sullivan M (March 4, 2005). "Behind the urban curtains". Sydney Morning Herald .
  20. ↑ Portes A, Jensen L (1992). "Disproving the Enclave Hypothesis: Reply". American Sociological Review . 57 (3): 418–420. doi:10.2307/2096246. JSTOR   2096246.
  21. ↑ "USA". Chinatownology.
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