The Divide of Metropolitian Secregation

Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating

Is gentrification causing segregation in urban cities? The majority of modern day cities are in a state of steady gentrification. Many people believe that gentrification is making the city more modern, safe, and appealing to other people. However, these people in their naivety fail to comprehend the hidden consequences and impact of gentrification on various ethnic groups and low-income families. Gentrification is a master of disguise that hides itself with assumed correlations to everyday people. One such assumption is that gentrification will increase the socioeconomic diversity of a neighborhood.

The socioeconomic inequality in america creates disadvantage which perpetuates in the life of people of color with scarce resources. Some of the many factors of inequality in america are segregation and discrimination in the educational system. The United States has a high population of minorities segregated throughout all fifty states, this reflects on the economic and educational inequality in neighborhoods of different races, this the reason segregation plays an important role in today's unequal society. In modern America, gentrification maintains racial and low income segregation to keep low income African Americans and immigrants in specific parts of cities throughout the United States. This system makes people of color move out of their old neighborhoods into low income areas that have low income educational system.

According to Massey and Denton (1988), residential segregation “is the degree to which two or more groups live separately from one another, in different parts of the urban environment”(282). Now this is a pretty general definition, but it gives basic but good insight as to what residential desegregation is talking about. In this paper, I will mostly be focusing on residential segregation as it relates to the black and white populations in relation to one another, although I will be referencing some other races briefly to create a better understanding of concepts or ideas.

Inequality has been the country’s timeless struggle. Throughout the course of the United States’ history, there have been processes that have given a certain group of people the upper hand in a circumstance, thus fueling inequality in our nation. An ongoing process that negatively effects the lower-class and benefits the upper-class is called gentrification. Gentrification has been defined as “the replacement of the low-income, inner-city working-class residents by middle- or upper-class households, either through the market for existing housing or demolition to make way for new upscale housing construction” (Hammel and Wyly, 1996, p.250). Gentrification is deleterious because it “revitalizes” areas where low income residents reside in, thus causing the displacement and allows affluent residents to flood the given area whilst changing the entire environment from its original state. In my paper, I will be discussing how the process of gentrification begins and what it entails, define longtime residents, and describe the feelings of displacement felt by these residents.

The study of urban spaces, especially with respect to gentrification, has increased dramatically in significance and relevance in the past several decades. With the resurgence of city living’s popularity, urban revitalization has occurred in neighborhoods across the United States and brought with it significant economic and social change.

He found that some of the main determinants of ethnic residential segregation- family income, human capital, and ethnic capital-have a negative correlation (higher levels of any or all three= lower levels of segregation). This ethnic segregation also persists intergenerationally. The model, in fact, suggests that greater

Gentrification presents itself when outsiders enter an urban community, commonly densely populated with people of color, and through complicit actions wards off the residents within. As the area begins to gain popularity and appeal, the soaring property prices create an incentive for the property owners to rid of the tenants to make room for the newcomers. Furthermore, corporations begin to supersede homes and exploit defenseless communities. Although the newcomers do tend to improve these previously indigent neighborhoods, it comes at the destruction of the cultures that exist within said neighborhoods. Therefore, the amenities of the communities of color enervate in the name of gentrification.

Gentrification occurs in under-privileged areas where it’s dominated with Hispanic and African When gentrification occurs, there are no color lines taken into account. How does Gentrification affect low income families and does it fall under inequality? Gentrification may presume to be the solution to rebuilding communities where economic growth and development is needed; however, the bottom line is that it prevents people of color from

Residential segregation exists because of personal choice, segregation by law, and discriminatory practices (Walker, 2007). Some neighborhoods have kept their racially homogenous identities, initiated by lawfully enforced segregation during the pre-Civil Rights era and many choose to live with those who look like them or whom they share similarities. Others have been victims of discriminatory housing practices by real estate agencies, banks and financial institutions, such as Wells Fargo, who offer minorities sub-prime loans and steer them toward non-white neighborhoods (Class Video, 2014). These discriminatory policies are also a reason that racial inequality exists between whites and minorities.

The Articles of the “Boyd Defensive Development” and “Hwang & Sampson Gentrification” discuss the idea of Gentrification through analytics, examples, and deep research through the city of Chicago during a relative time. The Boyd Defensive Development uses historical and ethnographic research to strategically protect total control of their neighborhoods by white residents and developers. Hwang and Sampson Gentrification uses many social observations with examples from google maps, census data, etc. to reflect effects on Gentrification throughout communities.

In this article, Ingrid Gould Ellen, Keren Horn, and Katherine O’Regan investigates the changes in racially integrated neighborhoods by using decennial census tract data. The authors wanted to explore three research questions: How frequent are racially integrated neighborhoods had become between 1990 and 2010? What caused integrated neighborhoods to increase? and What were the types of neighborhoods that became integrated and remained stably integrated over time?. Through their research Ellen, Horn, and O’Regan found that there has been a significant increase in the number of integrated neighborhoods. Between 1990 and 2010 the percentage increased from a little less than 20 percent to just above 30 percent. The authors claim that residential

Gentrification is not always seen as bad, there are many arguments that push for change and the bettering of spaces but always at the cost of the people of color and lower class citizens. The structure of society pushes them to the bottom, never in the media is there a clear wrong doing from gentrification, at worst it is a necessary evil to better communities and cities. “These alternative geographies are predicated on difference and the spatialization of non-dominant groups; alternative geographies are points of struggle which highlight the tension between dominant geographies and difference. Thus, imaginary geographies which do not neatly align themselves with conventional geographies, knowledges which reconfigure established geographical meanings, and resistant political locations, all suggest that difference is indicative of alternative geographies and geographic struggles.” (McKittrick & Peake, 13) Difference defines space and racism, by pointing out the difference groups can gain control of the system and have power over other groups. Gentrification is the middle class using their privilege to “better” a neighborhood and displace anyone of lower class that can not afford

Viewing the complex matter of gentrification succinctly, it helps to uncover how multifaceted it is; in that gentrification involves the oppression, marginalization, displacement of vulnerable populations, particularly, the poor, and the black who are often already negatively impacted by the effects of classism, and racism. Gentrification threatens to erode the communities and livelihood maintained by these set of people because their displacement becomes a precondition for the total transformation of the area.

In addition, housing areas have been historically segregated by race and income. The United States has as history of health disparities that is highest in minorities (LaVeist 2005). Income segregation occurs when high-income populations refuse to live in neighborhoods where assisted housing units are available (Owens 2015). This action keeps high income areas segregated because only those who can afford to live in those places tend to do so. It was found that deconcentrated neighborhoods (neighborhoods that contain a mix of high-income housing and public housing units) reduce the segregation mentioned above. In the United States, the rise in economic segregation corresponded with a rise in neighborhood segregation which has caused areas of town to be marked by affluence or poverty (Owens 2015). Housing segregation has not caused as a dramatic shift in neighborhood quality at the local level. Furthermore, Owens noted that race caused neighborhood segregation (2015); minorities often times made less than their white counterparts make and thereby could not afford to live in the same areas. The strong association between race and income can be seen in Bexar County where the concentration of high-income people corresponds to living in areas with a lower Hispanic population, lower obesity rate, and higher health