Segregation in spatially structured cities

Abstract

Half of the world population resides in cities and urban segregation is becoming a global issue. One of the best known attempts to understand it is the Schelling model, which considers two types of agents that relocate whenever a transfer rule depending on the neighbor distribution is verified. The main aim of the present study is to broaden our understanding of segregated neighborhoods in the city, i.e. ghettos, extending the Schelling model to consider economic aspects and their spatial distribution. To this end we have considered a monetary gap between the two social groups and five types of urban structures, defined by the house pricing city map. The results show that ghetto sizes tend to follow a power law distribution in all the considered cases. For each city framework the interplay between economical aspects and the geometrical features determine the location where ghettos reach their maximum size. The system first steps shape greatly the city’s final appearance. Moreover, the segregated population ratios depends largely on the monetary gap and not on the city type, implying that ghettos are able to adapt to different urban frameworks.