Segregation. Eric Fong
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homogeneous within an environment may lead to exclusionary practices that are unfair, unkind, and even unlawful. Exclusionary practices can take place through individual behavior, or by entities that act in one group’s interests against another. As mentioned in Chapter 1, an example of the latter is the former exclusionary practice by the US Federal Housing Administration (FHA) of refusing to insure mortgage loans to homebuyers in or near African American neighborhoods (Rothstein 2017). The FHA sought to minimize the risk of default on home mortgages through the practice of “redlining,” which classified neighborhoods into zones and denied loans to people in the riskiest “red” (or sometimes “pink”) zones: usually older neighborhoods in the city with a high concentration of African Americans. This exclusionary practice fortified black–white segregation and the urban–suburban divide.
The status and power differences between groups mean that these processes of inclusion and exclusion often occur in ways that generate and maintain social stratification in society. The greater the status, cultural, and linguistic differences of groups, then the greater the potential protective effect of voluntary segregation, and the greater the potential harm of involuntary segregation.
Voluntary segregation suggests that members of a group, such as ethnic or immigrant minorities, make a conscious decision to live with their own group. For example, sharing a language, cultural understandings, and an ethnic economy can be a protective lifeline for new immigrants. The preferences that shape voluntary segregation have an important overall effect of segregation for all groups. Schelling (1971) found that people have different preferences for the extent to which they are willing to share neighborhoods with other groups, and a change in racial composition may trigger those who are less tolerant of other groups to move out. Thus, individual preference for racial composition can result in substantial segregation of groups (Clark 1992).
Segregation where a group is involuntarily excluded from neighborhoods has also drawn considerable attention because it contributes to important social issues of inequality and discrimination. A variety of factors can create involuntary segregation, including constrained choice due to discrimination, prejudice, or other variables that limit access, such as income. Furthermore, sometimes the exclusion is explicit and overt (e.g. redlining) and other times it is implicit and covert (e.g. making people feel unwelcome through a cold reception). However, as Lieberson and Carter (1982) pointed out, a clear distinction between voluntary and involuntary segregation is often not made in the research literature. A group may experience discrimination from other groups in certain neighborhoods and thereafter prefer to stay elsewhere with their own group. Sometimes both forces operate at the same time, or one precedes the other. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary segregation also reveals that the sorting process is not always governed by maximizing preferences within constraints. People may choose certain neighborhoods despite having the resources to make other choices.
In short, segregation is among the most important social problems because of its relevance to stratification and inequality in the broader society. It is related to stratification in society because it is shaped in part by exclusionary behaviors of groups with more economic, social, and political power over marginalized groups. These patterns of segregation are considered involuntary, and groups who are marginalized and isolated by these practices often have lower well-being and fewer life chances.
Segregation and Boundaries
Over the past few decades, newer explanations for residential segregation have been offered to complement and extend older ones. The classic human ecology view is that the uneven distribution of resources in space is the result of competition among groups. Some groups have more resources to secure locations associated with better resources. Alba and Logan (1991) suggested that it is not just a matter of which groups are more resourceful, but that some groups are more capable of converting their socioeconomic resources into more favorable locations. These observations explain how groups are segregated in space with different resources, but they do not explain why resources are distributed unevenly in space. Lefebvre (1991 [1974]) argued that urban patterns reflect different modes of production. For example, in cities where the manufacturing industry provides employment for residents, low-income neighborhoods with inexpensive housing are usually located close to factories as a result of factory workers trying to reduce their travel cost to work. The current state of the economy and capital actively shapes space for its exchange value, because space is increasingly lucrative. That is why many treat purchasing a house as an investment. To achieve a location with higher exchange value, some neighborhoods with better physical and social amenities have to be appropriated (Molotch 1993).
Another recent body of research seeks to conceptualize the different boundaries that create and maintain segregation. In Chapter 1, we described segregation based on the extent of physical and social distance between groups. Groups living in separate neighborhoods are segregated through physical distance. Being segregated through physical distance usually implies there is also social distance because physical distance constrains opportunities for social interaction. Most conventional research into residential segregation focuses on situations where groups live in separate neighborhoods (i.e. physical and social distance). However, scholars are increasingly studying segregation where there is social distance despite physical closeness between groups. This kind of segregation is created and maintained through a variety of boundaries and processes of exclusion.
How can we conceive of the boundaries of segregation? Alexander (1988) offered one approach by conceiving boundaries as consciously and unconsciously drawn in both the internal (“soft”) and external (“hard”) environments. Hard boundaries are relatively objective and measurable components of the external environment, such as the physical and social structures that make someone distinctive or locate where they spend time and with whom. These boundaries tend to distinguish status groups and prevent resource sharing. For example, a hard boundary may be a rigid physical divide (e.g. a gate separating rich and poor communities), an embodied (physical) difference (e.g. tattoos, religious insignia), or a social structural division with deep historical roots (e.g. racially segmented labor markets) (see Table 2.1). Hard boundaries in place today are likely to have been built up over time, engrained through pervasive socialization, reproduced in daily routines, and visible through clear signposts (e.g. manifested in spatial, temporal, and ecological patterns, organizational affiliations, explicit contracts, legal restrictions, and physical embodiments). For example, social media are considered to have hard boundaries because only those who are registered and/or approved can participate in their activities. Communication occurs only within the networks of registered participants.
Table 2.1 Segregation and boundaries
| Physical segregation | Social segregation | |
| Soft boundaries | Ethnic neighborhood | Friendship pattern |
| Hard boundaries | Gated communities, racially segmented labor market | Social media (e.g. WhatsApp groups) |
Soft boundaries are cultural, symbolic, and personal. They are less observable than hard boundaries because they are drawn within people’s minds. Soft boundaries include individual and collective representations, classifications, attitudes, and personae, including stereotypes, scripts, and schemas that guide actors in their daily interactions and responses to routine situations. Soft boundaries are often rooted in exposure to different processes of socialization and social control. Based on past experience, groups assign their own valuations to objects, people, practices, and settings. Soft boundaries are subjective, contingent, and interpretative (Alexander 1988),