Residential Segregation

Today we live in a society where it is acceptable for a white and black family to be neighbors, even close friends. This situation has not always been the case. During the 1950’s, the time that the Younger family was living in Chicago, whites and blacks were living completely separate lives and a majority of the blacks were living in poverty. Although there are significant improvements we have made, there are still things that remain the same. Many African Americans in Chicago today are still living in poverty, just like they were over 50 years ago. Two important changes have occurred during these years. Our race relations between whites and blacks have improved tremendously. Today it is completely acceptable for two different colored families to be living next door to each other. The second significant change is not as positive. The homicide rates per 100,000 people have gone up by almost 10 times the amount it was in the 50’s. Many sociologist believe that the cycle of multigenerational poverty causes violence in the mostly black communities, therefore raising the homicide rates. Even though as a city we have improved our race relations there are still problems such as the rising homicide rates and percent of people living in poverty.

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

What I learned this week which I found most interesting is the evolving situation of housing segregation in this country. If I would have been asked why our country is still so segregated I would say that this situation is due to the fact that we had Jim Crow laws in effect only 60 years ago and many communities have just not changed that much since then. What I wouldn’t have guessed is the widespread extent to which the races intentionally segregate themselves. Less than 50% of both blacks and whites say they want to live in a community of people who look like them. However when people actually choose their home 74% of whites end up in white communities and 66% of blacks end up living in black communities. (Chang, Alvin) Whether it is basic

Different areas of the private sector took control of the racial segregation. Areas such as real estate, banks, labor, and toxic waste locations have participated in some way to continue the segregation and inferiority of people of color. “African Americans and other communities of color are often victims of land-use decision making that mirrors the power arrangements of the dominant society” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). The land-use decisions are used by the real estate industry. The real estate industry along with the bank industry have worked together in order to make it almost impossible for people of color to acquire their own homes. When individuals of color do obtain their own homes the real estate industry corrals them all into one zone. Then the banks charge homeowners in these zones high interest rates on the mortgages needed to maintain their home ownership. “Zoning is probably the most widely applied mechanism to regulate urban land use in the United States” (Bullard [1994]2004:269). When people of color are corralled into a neighborhood the quality of the neighborhood is diminished. The

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.

One issue that we discussed in class that is important and interesting is housing segregation. Housing segregation has been an ongoing issue in the past and still continues to this day since certain races are looked down upon at when buying a house in certain areas. America is always known as a racialized society and being any other race besides white has not carried out any advantages. We watched a documentary, In Race: The Power of an Illusion Part 3, in class that points out that less than two percent of housing in certain areas went to non-white in the past. This percent has obviously increased over time, but it is still not stabilized around fifty percent or higher, which it should be at. The documentary claims “what we perceive as race is what we first notice about each other”, which is false since physical differences don’t make up

This isn't techincally segregation because there's no rule saying that the races cannot be mixed in these areas, but it ends up being that white people won't want to move to black neighborhoods, black people won't want to move to white neighborhoods, and the neighborhoods remain separated. There are also many cases of racial profiling today by police officers. Data shows that young black men are more likely to be stopped and frisked on the street than young white men. There are many cases where police officers have gone too far in terms of force in relation to a incident involving young black men. In big cities, it's quite dangerous to be a young black man, for often times you'll be the subject to unfair stops and unneeded force by police officers. Race also can judge whether or not you'll even be hired at a job. There are often times where, if you're black and have a nearly identical resume as a white person, that person will get the job over you. Racism is still very present in today's society despite laws that pervent segregation and discrimination based on

In the article “Does Race Matter in Residential Segregation” a look at the continuing pattern of segregation expressed by whites in their avoidance of neighborhoods with minorities is examined. Although this phenomenon can be seen as a racially influenced action alone, it is strongly debated that differences in socioeconomic status between minorities are causing whites to make their decisions to leave. To determine if this is correct, the writers of this article conduct a factorial experiment, where they used phone calls to ask respondents a hypothetical scenario regarding the purchase of a home, while controlling variables that were uncontrollable in other experiments. The experiment offered the respondent a randomly generated combination

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.

Racial segregation has had a long history in Chicago. While separation by nationality had always been apparent in the city, with neighborhoods typically being dominated by a certain ethnicity, no group of Chicagoans experienced the degree of segregation that African Americans faced in everything from the housing districts to public services. Forced to live only in designated areas by de facto segregation, redlining, and other tactics, they had limited chances to escape the cycle of danger and discrimination of the city. Confined to only their deteriorating neighborhoods,they had little chance.

It was a way to constraint African Americans to areas that were far away from those with status, class, and power. Segregation led to discrimination in economic opportunities, housing, and education. The black culture has suffered from the barriers that were placed through segregation. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 tried to limit some of the discrimination associated with segregation. It was discovered that even a “rising economic status had little or no effect on the level of segregation that blacks experience” (Massey and Denton 87). The authors imply that “black segregation would remain a universal high” (Massey and Denton 88). The problem with the continuing causes in Segregation is that even though the Fair Housing act was placed, many realtors still discriminate against blacks “through a series of ruses, lies, and deceptions, makes it hard for them to learn about, inspect, rent, or purchase homes in white neighborhoods” (Massey and Denton 97). Segregation and discrimination have a cumulative effect over time. Massey and Denton argued that the “act of discrimination may be small and subtle, together they have a powerful cumulative effect in lowering the probability of black entry into white neighborhood” (98). William Julius Wilson had

Racial segregation born from white Americans belief that African-Americans and any other ethnicity should be in a subordinate state and denied equal access to everything they believed made them superior. With the laws passed 60 and 50 years ago, transition to improve segregation in public schools and other areas. Within the last 20 years the progress made improving our school

article reflects the reality of our segregated society and its effects on our behavior, education, and

Most colored people have it hard in the first place, but to top it off, access to sufficient housing is unfair. In Chicago, the city is ranked in the top ten of residential segregation for housing. Despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, this is still occurring.

presents an exploration of how federal, state and local governments explicitly and persistently regulated and reinforced residential segregation. The premise of this exploration was that the American government neglected a commitment it made with the adoption of the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments to ensure that African-Americans could be equal members in American society. Through this assessment, Rothstein invalidates many contemporary myths about neighborhood segregation. Rothstein argues that racial separation was not only government policy in the Jim Crow South, but rather a norm, within the government, throughout the United Sates. He tackles the