US Southern Command (Central and South
America and the Caribbean). sd
gerrymandering The deliberate drawing
of electoral district boundaries to produce an
electoral advantage for an interested party. The
term was coined by enemies of Massachusetts
Republican Governor Elbridge Gerry, who
created a district in 1812 that his party would
win: it was shaped like a salamander – hence
the neologism and the widespread (if false)
belief that gerrymandering necessarily involves
odd-shaped district boundaries. Although
gerrymandering has long been practiced in
the USA, it has only recently – and in specific
conditions – been interpreted by the courts
there as a constitutional violation (cf.dis-
tricting algorithm;electoral geography;
redistricting). rj
Suggested reading
Monmonier (2001).
ghetto An extreme form of residential con-
centration: a cultural, religious or ethnic group
is ghettoized when (a) a high proportion of the
group lives in a single area, and (b) when the
group accounts for most of the population in
that area. Although the practice of ghettoiza-
tion – forcing a group to live separately within
a city – originated in the urban quarters of
pre-classical cities, the first use of the term
occurred in late medieval Venice, where city
authorities required Jews to live on a separate
island (calledgheto), which was sealed behind
walls and gates each night (Calimani, 1987).
social exclusionwas imposed by the domin-
antcultureand, as such, reflected and re-
inforced the marginalization of the Jewish
minority. However, while the ghetto was over-
crowded and prone to fire and disease, Jews
also gained some benefit from their enforced
isolation, especially the right to practice their
religionand legal system and, perhaps, a
degree of protection from more drastic forms
of persecution (Wirth, 1928).
Instances of complete ghettoization have
been rare (two modern exceptions are the
Warsaw Ghetto, established as a way-station
to the Naziholocaustand designated areas
for Black residential settlement in South Afri-
can cities during theapartheidregime). Early
in the twentieth century, the term came to be
used indiscriminately for almost any residen-
tial area identified with a particular group,
even when it did not form a majority, and
even whensegregationwas not the result of
discrimination. This ambiguity was especially
prevalent in the influential work of the
Chicago sociologists (seechicago school),
who even referred to a wealthyneighbour-
hoodin the city as the ‘gilded ghetto’.
Researchers began in the 1970s to call for
more analytical precision. Philpott (1991
[1979]), for example, distinguished between
‘slums’, areas of poverty where residents (fre-
quently immigrants) leave as they acquire the
means to do so, and ghettos, areas where resi-
dents are trapped in permanent poverty (also
see Ward, 1989). Also, ghettos should not be
confused with ethnicenclaves, areas domin-
ated by a single cultural group. Ghettos em-
erge when political and/or other institutions,
such as thehousing market, operate to re-
strict the residential choices of certain groups,
channelling them to the most undesirable nei-
ghbourhoods (Thabit, 2003). They are the
product ofracialization(see alsoethnicity;
race), where particular minority groups are
judged by the majority to be genetically and
socially inferior (Wacquant, 2001). There is al-
ways a degree of involuntary behaviour in the
formation of ghettos, whereas ethnic enclaves
arise when members of a group choose to live
in close proximity (Boal, 1976; Peach, 1996ab).
The situation of African-Americans in the
USA is typically seen as the defining example
of contemporary ghettoization (see Darden,
1995; Wacquant, 2001). In the 1960s, some
American social scientists began to assert that
ghetto environments are so debilitating that a
‘culture of poverty’, associated with high
crimerates, substance abuse, broken families
and a reliance on social services, is transmitted
from parents to children (cf.cycle of pov-
erty). These alarming views were instrumen-
tal in the ‘war on poverty’ declared by the US
government, and were important ingredients
in the inauguration of urban redevelopment
programmes, increased social spending, edu-
cational reform, and heightened policing and
surveillance of the inner city (cf. urban
renewal). These initiatives were largely
withdrawn in the conservative 1980s, but the
argument that ghettos should be the focus of
public policywas revived later in the decade,
as part of the underclass debate. Again,
proponents of this thesis believe that ghettos
are not just places of grinding poverty, but
alsoplaceswherepoverty is institutionalized
(Wilson, 1987). Racialization and stigmatiza-
tion combine to sharply circumscribe the
opportunities available to residents of ghettos,
sochildrenare locked into the same circum-
stances as their parents, if not worse. Similar
arguments have surfaced in the UK (e.g. Rex,Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_G Final Proof page 303 2.4.2009 6:30pmGHETTO