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7 - America’s Unequal Metropolitan Geography

Segregation and the Spatial Concentration of Affluence and Poverty

from Part II - Places

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2021

By
Douglas S. Massey  and
Jacob S. Rugh
Edited by
Frances McCall Rosenbluth  and
Margaret Weir
Frances McCall Rosenbluth
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Margaret Weir
Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island
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Summary

This chapter examines temporal trends and geographic patterns of class segregation and class isolation using a consistently defined dataset of 287 metropolitan areas for 1970-2010. We document changes in class distribution and class segregation over time and demonstrate the increasing spatial isolation of the affluent within neighborhoods of metropolitan areas that are embedded in the global economy and the spatial isolation of the poor in neighborhoods in those bypassed by globalization. The residential isolation of affluent whites and Asians and their spatial segregation from the poor are intensified by the persistence of racial segregation, which simultaneously exacerbates the concentration of poverty experienced by African Americans and Hispanics while increasing the concentration of affluence for whites and Asians. Our analysis suggests the current polarization of politics and well-being in the United States are grounded in America’s entrenched ecology of racial and class segregation.

Keywords

segregationraceinequalityconcentrated povertyconcentrated affluence
Type
Chapter
Information
Who Gets What?
The New Politics of Insecurity
 , pp. 161 - 187
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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