Income differences alone generate low-to-moderate residential segregation

Evidence

In many towns and cities, especially in the Southern United States, African Americans are no longer in the minority. Large portions of a city are the almost exclusive preserve of ethnic minorities. In this context, the tendency is to identify the ghetto with the poorest sector, usually the inner city, where so-called urban renewal worked in conjunction with highway construction and misguided housing policies to destroy the integrity of the old black neighborhoods. Because many of the black middle class moved either to the suburbs or to the housing stock formerly occupied by whites before the latter left the city, there is no longer the same range of wealth in the historically black areas of the city as there had been in the past. Nevertheless, it remains true that even though the black middle class have left the inner-city ghetto there is still much less class separation among African Americans than among either whites or Hispanics. Furthermore, the black middle class, even in the suburbs, remain segregated to an extent that is not true of any other group. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2389 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Segregation produced massive inequality in Atlanta’s public recreational land per capita — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 178; Whites redefined neighborhood worth as racial homogeneity plus amenity self-sufficiency — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 187; Gated rich communities and ghettos are mirror images sustaining segregation (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Black middle-class suburbanization reduced wealth diversity yet class separation among African Americans remains low #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2389