Reconsidering Race,Class, and Residential Segregation in American Cities

Scholars have often discounted social class as a substantial contributor to residential segregation by race, in part as a result of using the dissimilarity index, which is likely to show high levels of uneven group distribution regardless of socioeconomic status (SES), and in part as a result of using limited categories of SES. This study expands on prior research by examining residential segregation between black-alone and white-alone households in 36 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with 2000 decennial census data, using both spatial unevenness (dissimilarity) and two types of experiential indicators (exposure indices), measuring SES across income levels and accounting for the presence of other races. Findings show that black households with higher incomes live in neighborhoods with greater exposure and lower isolation than do black households with lower incomes. Additionally, while the dissimilarity of black households decreases with income, unevenness is not as strongly connected to income as are the experiential measures. While race remains a primary determinant of residential segregation, results indicate substantial class differences.     

The Ambiguous Roles of Suburbanization and Immigration in Ethnic Segregation: the Case of San Antonio1

The traditional spatial assimilation model, though still operative, has proven inadequate to explain new trends in urban residential location in which, for example, disadvantaged and newly arrived groups move directly to the suburbs where they may re-segregate rather than disperse. Understanding residential patterns after 1990 often benefits from a micro-level approach, looking at specific cities and disaggregating traditional measures (e.g., the dissimilarity index) to examine changes within areas and neighborhoods of the city. This study takes such an approach. It analyzes segregation by means of the residential micro-patterns that give rise to it, and examines their relationship to suburbanization and immigration in greater San Antonio (Bexar County) during the 1990s for four ethnic groups: Hispanics, Blacks, non-Hispanic Whites, and Latino immigrants. The results reveal that segregation patterns in San Antonio have deep historic roots—the result of ongoing processes of urban job and housing availability, minority political power, and economic mobility. They show that the dissimilarity index declined for all groups in the 1990s, a decline chiefly attributable to deconcentration (lessening overrepresentation) in the inner city. By contrast, in the outer suburban city, incursion (moving into new areas) was offset by hyper-concentration (concentrating with fellow ethnics) such that the dissimilarity index neither increased nor declined. A typology is developed to explain the different pathways by which the dissimilarity index may increase or decrease in a metropolis. Finally, the results show that Latino immigration increased the overall dissimilarity index for Hispanics as well as for other groups in San Antonio.     

Segregation and Problem Accumulation in the Netherlands: The Case of the Hague

Segregation-or, more specifically, the spatial sorting of population categories and the problems resulting from this phenomenon—has been an important policy issue in the Netherlands since the early 1990s, particularly with regard to the four biggest Dutch cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht. This article offers some insight into why many Dutch policy-makers are concerned about increasing segregation. We establish that different conclusions may be drawn, depending on which spatial scale and population characteristics are used in the analysis. Specifically, in terms of the demographic and ethnic profile, the differences between the city and the surrounding area tend to increase, whereas this is not the case for the socioeconomic profile. We also underpin that the problems of The Hague are growing. Even those districts that had managed to remain free of undesirable developments—notably unemployment and absenteeism in schools—are now confronted with the negative effects of such situations. Problems have accumulated more rapidly in the early post-1945 districts than in the traditionally deprived areas. Nevertheless, the problems remain the most urgent in those parts of the city that have traditionally been the worst off.     

The Interpretation of Segregation Indices in Context: The Case of P in Singapore

The article argues that the interpretation of segregation indices has been deeply conditioned by U.S. and U.K. studies. Using an empirical example of the P index on data pertaining to Singapore's public housing residents, the article investigates the “exposure” dimension of segregation for Singapore's three main ethnic groups: Chinese, Malay, and Indians/Others. While the figures yielded are low in comparison to those in Western studies, the article demonstrates that low index values are nonetheless sociologically significant. The figures generated for Malay isolation in higher–quality public housing were argued to be qualitatively different from those for Indian isolation in lower–quality public housing. The former demands an appreciation of household structure and kinship ties, while the latter involves atomized individuals in a highly urbanized setting. Blind application and interpretation of indices run the risk of coming to erroneous conclusions. A contextual approach is needed for a better appreciation of the diverse ways in which segregation is manifested and experienced.     

Contingent Urban Geographies of Violent Crime: Racial Segregation and the Impact of Public Housing in Atlanta

Neighborhood variations in crime incidence rates are most commonly interpreted through the lens of social disorganization theory, or a "communities and crime" perspective. This approach typically articulates explanation for crime by focusing on the characteristics of communities—a unitary scale most commonly equated with neighborhoods. We argue that this perspective fails to recognize the importance of broader urban geographic contexts, and offer an extension that sees geographically contingent processes functioning at multiple scales simultaneously. We develop this perspective applied to the "spread effects" of public housing on violent crime in surrounding neighborhoods: these spread effects are conditioned by the nature of the urban contexts through which they operate. Specifically, deeply divided and racialized patterns of residential segregation at least partially define the contexts that condition public housing's effect on crime. We examine our perspective using early 1990s block group data for the City of Atlanta and find substantial evidence in support of our perspective. In particular, we find that Techwood Homes, the nation's first federally constructed public housing project, exerted different geographic spread effects in predominantly White than in predominantly Black portions of the city. By failing to recognize the complexity and contingency of public housing's geographic effect on crime in surrounding neighborhoods, previous approaches substantially overestimate crime in White areas, and underestimate crime in Black areas.     

The concentration of urban crime in space by race: evidence from South Africa

Crime inequality in neighborhoods by race is blamed on social inequalities borne out of segregation and economic discrimination. South Africa is a country synonymous with racial-spatial segregation and discrimination as a result of legislatively enforced policies of the former apartheid government. This study examines whether urban crime inequalities by race exist in the city of Tshwane, South Africa and identifies the empirical causes of these crime inequalities. Violent and sexual crime was found to concentrate in Black African neighborhoods, while property crime was concentrated in neighborhoods classified as “Mixed”. The causes of crime in neighborhoods were found to vary across racial groups with results suggesting non-uniformity in the extent to which the various constructs impact crime based on race. The results challenge the notion that segregation and economic discrimination uniformly impacts affected communities. Explanations for the findings are provided in the context of an increasingly eclectic post-apartheid South African city.     

Spatial Segregation of the Poor in Southern California: A Multidimensional Analysis

Poverty segregation increased in Southern California during the 1990s. A comparison of four indices reflecting various dimensions of segregation (e.g., evenness, concentration, isolation, and clustering) suggests that poor people are increasingly concentrated and isolated. However, cities within the region experienced different levels and types of segregation, with significant changes over time. Regression analysis using 1990 and 2000 census data highlights the role of demographic, economic, and fiscal variables in explaining the changing landscape of poverty. Whereas historically poor and older cities have seen a rise in poverty that translated into an increase in concentration and isolation, newer suburban communities have evolved differently. Cities where poverty has been high and increasing often maintained a high level of clustering and unevenness, but experienced higher levels of concentration and clustering in 2000. In contrast, wealthier cities typically faced a rise in unevenness and clustering as small pockets of poverty population emerged in the midst of high-income neighborhoods.     

Resource Struggles and the Politics of Place in North Lampung, Indonesia

This paper considers the difficulties inherent in countering the negative effects of globalisation in Indonesia through an enhanced recognition of place-based cultural communities, which are seen to offer an alternative and more progressive path towards development. Focusing on the local history of resource struggles involving Javanese migrants and local people in North Lampung, the paper examines the ways that different groups of migrants and local Lampung people have dealt with changing resource control mechanisms in the context of the local transmigration ( Translok ) programme and large-scale agro-industrial development in the region. Whilst elites have been able to develop their personal wealth by capitalising on political and economic uncertainty, poor people from both groups have had to contend with conflict and increasing livelihood vulnerability that, if anything, has been intensified through the reassertion of place-based cultures of resource control. In challenging populist narratives of resistance to transmigration that pit migrants against "indigenous" local people, the paper identifies the class-related ambivalences towards development and structures of authority that cut across community and locality in the Translok zone     

地方自治背景下印度尼西亚空间规划面临的挑战

空间规划通过协调区域活动,合理地利用空间,辅助国家政治、经济和社会等事务的治理。印尼的空间规划由总统制定、落实,它体现着国家政治层面的发展愿景和任务。当国家治理结构改变时,各区域的空间规划及其具体的实施过程也随之改变。分权化和地方自治是2001年以来印尼政府体制的重大变革。通过相关规划法律条文和文献分析,发现空间规划开始面临一系列问题,主要表现为资金和专业人员的缺乏、政策交叉现象和空间规划违规行为等。此外,印尼的地方自治制度对空间规划产生了一定的积极影响：首先,在地方自治的背景下,地方政府通过系统的管理增加了区域收入,以支持空间规划的实施;其次,地方政府开始优先聘用空间规划的专业人员,制定更加有效的空间规划政策;最后,各地区加强了对空间规划违规者的执法力度,增强了区域间团结意识,从而促进地区繁荣发展。目前中央与地方之间在权力和利益分配上仍存在着大量的博弈和冲突,应加强上下级政府之间的沟通与合作,保障地方对地方相关事务决策时的参与权,建立地方利益表达与平衡的机制,提高中央决策的科学化和民主化水平。     

Encountering a multidimensional assemblage: The case of Norwegian corporate social responsibility activities in Indonesia

A vociferous debate on socio-spatial formations is ongoing between those advocating a geography of scales and those advocating flat ontologies and assemblages, yet a middle ground has not been properly addressed. The author argues for an empirically driven, multidimensional assemblage approach whereby the processes constituting an assemblage and the different socio-spatial organisation of heterogeneous entities form the analytical basis for geographical analyses of particular empirical events. He shows how Norwegian companies in Indonesia encounter different stakeholders constituting a multidimensional (situated, scaled, and networked) ‘assemblage of national interests’ with multitudinous motivations and drivers but quite specific converged influence. He examines the territorialising forces employed during such encounters, the de-territorialising forces challenging the assemblage, and how the evolution of the ‘assemblage of national interests’ resulted in 2012 in the world's first law on corporate social responsibility (CSR), which has more or less forced Norwegian companies to make social investments in local communities within a CRS framing. The findings are that assemblages are scaled and networked, but also uncoordinated and ‘chaotic’. Norwegian companies in Indonesia are subject to a joint but dispersed, multidimensional assemblage of national interest, where stakeholders on different scales, with multiple motivations, mobilise to persuade them to run social investment programmes.     

Enclaves and ethnic ties: The local impacts of Singaporean cross‐border tourism in Malaysia and Indonesia

Cross‐border tourism is often proposed by governments as an incentive for economic growth, but critics have suggested that its impacts are, in fact, overplayed. This paper presents research in the Indonesia‐Malaysia‐Singapore Growth Triangle (IMS‐GT). It examines the broad economic impacts of Singaporean cross‐border tourism on local host communities in two locations: Kukup, a traditional Malaysian fishing village in Johor, southern Peninsular Malaysia, and Bintan in Riau Islands Province in western Indonesia. The study found that cross‐border tourism generated income, employment and some local economic linkages. In Kukup clear economic benefits with increased income and employment were unevenly distributed between ethnic groups. The Bintan enclave development had some linkages to the island economy but was reliant on immigrant labour. Cross‐border ethnic ties, particularly Chinese, also played an important role in the growth of tourism in the IMS‐GT. The paper shows that cross‐border tourism can be a useful addition to more conventional forms of international tourism within national tourism planning and could lead to significant economic benefits for local communities.     

The divergent city: unequal and uneven development in St. Louis

In St. Louis, as in many other cities, decline and displacement occurred when key policies, prejudices, and plans interacted with broad economic restructuring to devastate poor and minority communities, while leaving White and middle-class communities largely intact. Amidst overall population loss and neighborhood decline are pockets of prosperity and gentrification within the central city. In this article, we analyze three significant planning interventions in St. Louis, Missouri, that spurred displacement of populations—urban renewal, triage, and the foreclosure crisis. We argue that the differential experiences of Black and White during each of these periods represent two faces of development: one in the north of the city that is largely Black, experiencing vacant land, high crime, and crumbling infrastructure; another in the south of the city that is largely White, enjoying pockets of vibrant commercial development, larger homes, and stable real estate markets. We analyze each period through a framework of uneven and unequal development and displacement, which we call the Divergent City Theory. Based on this theory, planners face an ethical obligation to plan for the future of their cities in a way that seeks to reconcile the structured race and class inequalities of the divergent city.     

Beyond slash-and-burn: The roles of human activities,altered hydrology and fuels in peat fires in Central Kalimantan,Indonesia

Near-annual landscape-scale fires in Indonesia's peatlands have caused severe air pollution, economic losses, and health impacts for millions of Southeast Asia residents. While the extent of fires across the peatland surface has been widely attributed to widespread peatland drainage for plantation agriculture, fires that transition from surface into sub-surface soil-based fires are the source of the most dangerous air pollution. Yet the mechanisms by which this transition occurs have rarely been considered, particularly in diversely managed landscapes. Integrating physical geography methods, including active fire scene evaluations and hydrological monitoring, with qualitative methods such as retrospective fire scene evaluations and semi-structured interviews, this article discusses how and why sub-surface peat fire transition occurs in an intensively altered peatland ecosystem in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province. We demonstrate that variable water table levels and flammable surface vegetation (fire fuels) are co-produced socio-political and biophysical phenomena that enable the conditions in which surface fire is likely to transition into peat fire and increase landscape vulnerability to ongoing, uncontrollable annual fires. This localized understanding of peat fire transition counters normative causal narratives of tropical fire such as ‘slash-and-burn’, with implications for the management of new fire regimes in inhabited landscapes.     

The variable impact of ENSO events on regional dengue/DHF in Indonesia

Although studies have demonstrated significant associations between ENSO events and dengue fever, few have explored regional impacts on dengue fever of separate events. This study explores the impacts of two ENSO events on regional patterns of dengue/ dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) incidence in Indonesia. Data consist of monthly cases of dengue/DHF from 1992 to 2001 for each of Indonesia's 27 provinces, and monthly figures for rainfall, rainfall anomalies, temperature, relative humidity and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). We conducted Pearson correlation analyses for each independent variable against dengue/DHF incidence, using a direct month‐by‐month correlation and applying a lag of between one and six months to each variable with respect to dengue/DHF incidence. Based on the SOI value, we identified two ENSO events between 1992 and 2001. To explore each event, we created two dummy variables and in regression analyses for eight provinces. The variance of between 12.9 per cent and 24.5 per cent in provincial dengue/DHF incidence is explained by two or three climate variables in each of the provinces (p < 0.01 to 0.1). During the 1997/98 event, the explained variance increased by between 7 per cent and 15 per cent in provinces whose climate regimes were most affected by this event. This study demonstrates that indicators of ENSO such as the SOI may assist in the forecast of potential dengue/DHF incidence and distribution in Indonesia.     

东南亚华人族群融入移入国主流社会的比较研究——以印尼与泰国作对比分析

东南亚是海外华人华侨社会历史最悠久、人口最多、经济角色十分突出的地区。总体上,华人华侨与所在国原住民和睦相处,已逐步融入主流社会,为当地社会进步做出了贡献。但由于各国历史发展不同,华人与所在国原住民融合程度大不相同。本文以印尼与泰国相比较,探讨华人与原住民融合状况,并从政治经济和社会文化因素等方面对造成悬殊差别的原因进行了分析