Sociology naturalized spatial segregation instead of recognizing it as historically contingent.

Evidence

It should come as no surprise that sociologists “discovered” the spatially segregated city at the same time and in the same place that the spatially segregated city was coming into its own: early twentieth century America. For some peculiar reason, however, sociologists came to believe that spatial segregation was an inevitable “given” in urban development. They even produced a special subarea to handle one of nature’s social “constants”; they called it ecology. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 1123

Categorization

• XREF: A cautionary parallel to how the reader is treating urban anonymity as an object of study—mirrors the point that intellectual categories can reify what is actually a recent social arrangement. — connects to: Segregation was deliberately engineered through planning policy, not emergent preference. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 21; Residential segregation was deliberately constructed, not natural or market-driven — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 340