Critical Urban Studies by Davies Jonathan S.;Imbroscio David L.;Stone Clarence N.; & David L. Imbroscio

Author:Davies, Jonathan S.;Imbroscio, David L.;Stone, Clarence N.; & David L. Imbroscio [Davies]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3407216
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2010-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

The State and Residential Segregation

People choose to live in homogenous neighborhoods for several reasons. First, most individuals want to spend time with people they like, which means spending time with people with whom they share important values and ideals. We know that people with similar interests talk to one another; in other words, people tend to selectively expose themselves to people who do not challenge their world view (Mutz 2006, 9). Second, children drive the housing choices of many families. Many parents care about the schools that their children attend; they want good schools that are safe. If they can afford to live in a neighborhood with such schools, they will make this choice. It is hard to argue with parents caring about their children's schools, but the inevitable result of such choices is that many subpar schools lack the resources that middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods can give to their schools—money, parental involvement, a critical mass of scholastically minded students and good, well-paid teachers (see Williamson Chapter 11, this volume). Third, in a home-owning country like the United States, homeowners frequently want to live in places where they can be reasonably assured that their property values will rise, not decline. It may be easy to dismiss such concerns as an example of the crass materialism of soulless suburbs, but it surely is normal for people to be concerned with the largest investment that most will make. We may want to decry a society that places such value on money, but we should not readily dismiss the fact that people want to protect the value of their property.

It should be noted as well that the benefits of integration are not unalloyed: Diversity can lead to a decline of social solidarity, social capital, and trust (Putnam 2007); disagreement often causes ambivalence and sometimes political withdrawal (Mutz 2002; see also Mansbridge 1980; Morrell 1999). Still, it also is the case that when we to talk to people with different views than our own, our understanding and tolerance of others increases and prejudice decreases, and there is some evidence that diverse neighborhoods translate into less prejudice against members of different ethnic groups (Oliver and Ha 2008; Oliver and Wong 2003; Stolle, et al. 2008). Many scholars also argue that when the poor are concentrated in certain areas, predictable patterns emerge: little capital investment, few good jobs, a weak infrastructure, underachieving schools, and high crime rates. All of these conspire to make life difficult for poor citizens. Segregation sometimes means separation of the rich and poor, but because the poor often contain certain minorities in high percentages, this segregation has clear racial overtones (Dreier, et al. 2001; Jargowsky 1997; Wilson 1987).

The solution to the problem of segregation, many political theorists and urban specialists agree, is to change public policies to foster more diverse living arrangements, which usually means having more Blacks and Whites, and rich and poor, live near one another (see DeFilippis and Fraser Chapter 9, this volume). The focus on public policies suggests

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