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ignored powerful forces of racialization
involved in the creation and maintenance of
enclaves generally, and that they particularly
downplayed theracismthat forced African-
Americans into ghettos. A helpful intervention
distinguished between slums, neighbour-
hoods ofpoverty, and ghettos, places where
racialized groups are trapped in poverty, which
is transmitted intergenerationally (Philpott,
1979). Recent social geographers have been
far more attentive to the ‘constraint’ side of
segregation, perhaps to the detriment of under-
standing the degree of social organization
within marginalized communities.
The consequences of urban ethnic segrega-
tion have been discussed at length by geog-
raphers and sociologists. In early statements
by the Chicago School, enclaves were deemed
beneficial as long as individuals only resided in
them temporarily. Further, those who
remained in enclaves were seen as insuffi-
ciently assimilated (see assimilation) and
therefore at fault. Since then, assessments
have been more complex, with several basic
strands of thought. Some continue to see seg-
regation as indicative of a reluctance to assimi-
late, and believe that enclaves and ghettos
reproduce social exclusion because their
inhabitants adopt a ‘culture of poverty’ asso-
ciated with laziness, reliance on welfare, and
crime (cf. Lewis, 1969a). Another, more crit-
ical, interpretation focuses on the institutional
practices that perpetuate segregation and
therefore the harm that it causes (Massey
and Denton, 1993). From this point of view,
segregatedlandscapesare both the result of
inequality and also a mechanism for the repro-
duction of inequality. Other scholars have
sought to reconcile the classic view of the
Chicago School, that residents of segregated
areas gain certain benefits, with these later
critical perspectives, arguing that segregation
can have both beneficial and deleterious
effects (Peach, 1996; Logan, Alba and
Zhang, 2002). Moreover, planned dispersion
of marginalized residents of segregated neigh-
bourhoods does not necessarily raise their
level of opportunity or standard of living
(Musterd, 2003).
The issue of segregation has become par-
ticularly charged ineurope, where prominent
commentators have linked race riots in the UK
and France to the effects of segregated urban
environments (cf. Amin, 2003; Haddad and
Balz, 2006). Those affiliated with the political
right see concentrated minority/immigrant
neighbourhoods as the result of a deliberate
choice made by their inhabitants to embracecultural isolation, an attempt to lead lives
separate from mainstream society (for which
the term ‘parallel lives’ is invoked: Amin,
2002a), while progressive critics believe that
segregation is a response to racism and
economic marginalization. Regardless, socio-
spatial segregation is seen as an ingredient in
social unrest.
The link between racialization andclass
division, which is so obvious in the riots just
discussed, is generally under-theorized in the
literature on segregation. To a large degree,
this omission reflects another legacy of the
Chicago School. Over the past century, in
geography at least, studies of segregation
have been dominated by a concern for
cultural forms of segregation rather than
class. However, socio-spatial divisions based
on class have been equally pervasive, and were
first theorized in the mid-nineteenth century,
as this famous statement by Friedrich Engels
testifies:
Every great city has one or more slums,
where the working-class is crowded to-
gether.. .. And the finest part of the arrange-
ment is this, that the members of [the]
money aristocracy can take the shortest
road through the middle of all the labouring
districts to their places of business, without
ever seeing that they are in the midst of the
grimy misery that lurks to the right and the
left. (Engels, 1987 [1845], pp. 70, 86)
Arguably, the situation is exactly the opposite
in contemporary cities: poverty is exposed, but
affluence is hidden behind walls in gated
communities, protected by private security
systems and electronic surveillance (le Goix,
2005). As in the past, the privileged protect
themselves, though the mechanisms of this
process, and the detailed spatial patterns that
are generated, vary.
Recently, scholars have explored the rela-
tionship between different forms of segrega-
tion, such as socio-economic class and ethnic
origin (Clark and Blue, 2004). Research has
also shown the relationship between residen-
tial segregation and the educational system
(Burgess, Wilson and Lupton, 2005; Denton,
1996), and the fact thatchildrenraised in
highly segregated neighbourhoods experience
lasting difficulty as students, even when they
are in universities outside their home city
(Massey and Fischer, 2006). dhSuggested reading
Kaplan (2005); Massey and Denton (1993);
Peach (1996c).Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_S Final Proof page 674 1.4.2009 3:23pmSEGREGATION