RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION

Residential segregation refers to the geographic differentiation of two or more population groups within a city or metropolitan area. When segregation is extreme (such as when an ethnic minority is confined to a ghetto), members of each group may live almost completely apart. Normally, however, segregation is a matter of degree. Even casual observation confirms that most urban neighborhoods exhibit some amount of internal diversity in socioeconomic status, ethnicity, life cycle stage, and other attributes of their inhabitants.

Measures of Segregation

To capture the variable nature of segregation, researchers have relied heavily on the index of dissimilarity (symbolized by D). This index measures the evenness dimension of segregation by comparing the proportional distributions of two groups, X and Y, across spatial units such as census tracts or blocks in a given region, typically a city or metropolitan area. The popularity of D lies in its intuitive appeal: It can be interpreted as the percentage of members of group X who would have to move to a different tract or block in order for the regional distribution of X to be the same as Y. Another segregation dimension of interest is exposure, which indicates the likelihood that a member of X shares the same neighborhood either with someone from Y (reflecting the potential for intergroup interaction) or with other members of X (reflecting intragroup isolation). Because exposure measures take group size into account, Stanley Lieberson concluded in 1980 that they are better than D for representing how segregation is experienced by average members of X and Y.

Segregation and Inequality

This concern with experience underscores the importance of residential segregation as a sociological as well as a spatial phenomenon. During the first half of the twentieth century, human ecologists tended to view the locational circumstances of a group as a natural expression of its position or standing in society. In the United States, these ecologists noted the benefits of segregation, especially to European immigrants for whom living side by side with compatriots offered familiarity, comfort, and support. Later scholars have adopted a less benign perspective, emphasizing the profound connection between segregation and inequality. While some see segregation as an outcome of economic disparities, others argue that segregation plays a causal role, shaping the life chances of group members. In 1993, Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton contended that the development of the urban underclass could be traced to the manner in which segregation concentrates disadvantage in particular neighborhoods. Such neighborhoods are marked by physical deterioration, inadequate services, health hazards, and high rates of poverty and crime. They also limit a resident's access to the kinds of educational and employment opportunities that promote social and geographic mobility.

Segregation in U.S. Cities

The fateful nature of residential segregation in the United States has been documented most thoroughly for African Americans. In the early 1900s, members of this group were less segregated from native-born whites than were newcomers from Southern and Eastern Europe. Segregation then increased dramatically through mid-century as black migrants from the Southern states flooded into the northern industrial cities and encountered constraints on housing choices. By the latter part of the century, the most intense phase of segregation had passed. Nevertheless, data from the 2000 census revealed an average black-white dissimilarity (D) score for metropolitan areas that still exceeded 60–a level greater than that for segregation between whites and other minorities. In terms of exposure, the typical black urbanite today lives in a neighborhood containing a majority of black occupants.

The fact that even affluent African Americans are underrepresented in desirable residential settings demonstrates the inability of socioeconomic differences to explain fully black-white segregation. An alternative explanation stresses the institutional barriers that blacks continue to face in the housing market despite legislative efforts to curb discrimination (e.g., the Fair Housing Act of 1968 [amended in 1988], the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977). Several audit studies, in which purported minority and white homeseekers (actually research confederates) approach real estate agents about advertised properties, document the unfavorable treatment received not only by African Americans but also by Latinos. In 1995 John Yinger reported that, compared to whites, these groups receive less information about homes for sale or rent, are shown fewer units, and are more often steered toward lower-income areas. Audit studies of mortgage lenders and insurers provide similar evidence of discrimination.

The residential preferences of individuals help to sustain segregation. There is ongoing debate in the United States over whether African Americans prefer to live in integrated neighborhoods or whether–perhaps in response to the anticipated negative reactions of whites–they would rather live in settings where they are numerically dominant. The influence of white preferences is less ambiguous. Some white residents of an area may move out when its racial mix exceeds their tolerance for integration. More importantly, other white homeseekers elect not to move in, prompting further compositional shifts and, ultimately, avoidance of the area by a greater number of whites. Whatever the motivation, the mobility decisions of whites and blacks drive the process of neighborhood racial transition. Such decisions are thus a key micro-level mechanism through which the aggregate pattern of segregation is perpetuated.

Though that pattern remains largely intact in U.S. cities, the period since 1970 has witnessed several noteworthy changes, including at least small declines in black-white segregation across most metropolitan areas, increasing black suburbanization, and a rising number of racially integrated neighborhoods. These changes may result from the strengthening of fair housing legislation or the expansion of the black middle class, but the evidence is not definitive. Decreases in black-white segregation coincide with increases in the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States as a whole. African Americans in cities with large Asian and Latino populations tend to be less segregated, suggesting that other minority groups serve as a buffer between whites and blacks. Intergroup contact in diverse communities may also reduce ethnic antagonisms.

Asian and Latino residential experiences in the United States differ from those of blacks in several ways. Although substantial variation exists within the two broad categories (Laotian vs. Japanese, Cuban vs. Salvadoran, etc.), Asians and Latinos are generally less segregated from whites than blacks are. Moreover, their segregation appears less permanent, with clustering in enclaves–a voluntary response of immigrants to language and cultural obstacles–diminishing as higher-status households move to suburban neighborhoods or settle in them directly. Spatial assimilation of households, however, does not always reduce the level of segregation. In fact, 1990–2000 census results show approximate stability for both Asians and Latinos on the evenness dimension of segregation and increases on the isolation dimension. In the cities that serve as major immigrant gateways, such as Los Angeles, new arrivals sometimes pile up at a faster pace than their predecessors are able to disperse. The resulting concentration of immigrants and minorities in relatively few destinations could produce a balkanized landscape in which segregation is apparent farther up the geographic scale, with groups sorted by municipality or metropolitan area instead of by neighborhood.

The Future

Should racial and ethnic discrimination weaken significantly, the major constraint on locational choice would be the ability to pay, potentially leading to heightened segregation by income. Such a trend may already have begun in the United States, although Paul Jargowsky's 1996 research found that levels of income segregation remain modest when compared to black-white levels. Life cycle segregation might also intensify as young singles, families with children, and the elderly of all ethnic groups are freer to pursue housing and neighborhood packages suited to their needs. One principle governing the future is clear: As long as societies are stratified, cities will be residentially segregated on some dimension, given the different resources and preferences represented among their populations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alba, Richard D., John R. Logan, Brian J. Stults, Gilbert Marzan, and Wenquan Zhang. 1999. "Immigrant Groups in the Suburbs: A Reexamination of Suburbanization and Spatial Assimilation." American Sociological Review 64: 446–460.

Ellen, Ingrid Gould. 2000. Sharing America's Neighborhoods: The Prospects for Stable Integration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Farley, Reynolds, and William H. Frey. 1994. "Changes in the Segregation of Whites from Blacks during the 1980s: Small Steps toward a More Integrated Society." American Sociological Review 59: 23–45.

Farley, Reynolds, Charlotte Steeh, Maria Krysan, Tara Jackson, and Keith Reeves. 1994. "Stereotypes and Segregation: Neighborhoods in the Detroit Area." American Journal of Sociology 100: 750–780.

Frey, William H. 1996. "Immigration, Domestic Migration, and Demographic Balkanization in America: New Evidence for the 1990s." Population and Development Review 22: 741–763.

Iceland, John, Daniel H. Weinberg, and Erika Steinmetz. 2002. Racial and Ethnic Segregation in the United States: 1980–2000. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Jargowsky, Paul A. 1996. "Take the Money and Run: Economic Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas." American Sociological Review 61:984–998.

Lieberson, Stanley. 1980. A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and White Immigrants since 1880. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1988. "The Dimensions of Residential Segregation." Social Forces 67: 281–315.

——. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Yinger, John. 1995. Closed Doors, Opportunities Lost: The Continuing Costs of Housing Discrimination. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

INTERNET RESOURCE.

Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, State University of New York at Albany. 2001. "The New Ethnic Enclaves in America's Suburbs." <http://www.albany.edu/mumford/census>.