Racial/Ethnic Residential Segregation

Abstract

Racial/ethnic residential segregation refers to the relegation of racially or ethnically discriminated groups to separate areas within cities. Although the causes of such discrimination and the intensity of spatial divisions are different in each historical, socioeconomic, and political context, segregation is one of the most common problems in all cities of the world, and thus it may be the most discussed subject in urban studies' history. Residential segregation, based on externally imposed physical categorizations (race) or on collectively ratified and expressed identities (ethnicity), has existed since cities were established, as an urban division to reinforce political and economic inequalities and dissections in a given society. Depending on the degree of voluntariness and the function that a given zone fulfills for its residents, racial/ethnic segregation has taken several forms in world history, ranging from the “classic” ghetto, through ethnic enclaves, to gated communities, to name some of the most famous.