Socioeconomic Residential Segregation Research Articles

Relationship between body mass index and residential segregation in large cities of Latin America

BackgroundObesity is a global health problem, and its connection with social and environmental factors is well-established. Social factors, such as urban segregation, may impact obesity through various mechanisms, including food and physical activity environments, as well as social norms and networks. This multilevel study aims to examine the effect of socio-economic residential segregation of Latin American cities on the obesity of individuals within those cities.MethodsWe analyzed data from national surveys for a total of 59,340 individuals of 18–70 years of age, conducted in 156 cities across Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico between 2007 and 2013. We adjusted two-level linear mixed models for body mass index (BMI) stratified by sex and country, controlling for age, educational level and poverty. Separate models were built for dissimilarity and isolation segregation indices.ResultsThe relationships between segregation indices and BMI were mostly not statistically significant, and in some cases, they were opposite to what was expected. The only significant relationships were observed in Colombian men, using the dissimilarity index (-7.5 [95% CI: -14.4, -0.5]) and in Colombian women, using the isolation index (-7.9 [95% CI: -14.1, -1.7]).ConclusionsWhile individual-level factors cannot fully explain differences among people in the same city, segregation indices may help. However, we found that in some cases, the relationship between BMI and segregation indices is opposite to what is expected based on prior literature. This should be considered in examining the phenomenon. Further research on obesogenic environments in segregated neighborhoods could provide valuable evidence.

Neighborhood-level factors associated with COVID-19 vaccination rates: a case study in Chicago

IntroductionChicago’s deeply-rooted racial and socioeconomic residential segregation is a pattern mirrored in other major cities, making it a prototype for studying the uptake of public health interventions across the US. Residential segregation is related to availability of primary care, sense of community, and trust in the healthcare system, components which are essential in the response to crises like Covid-19 in which vaccine rollout was primarily community-based. We aimed to evaluate the association between rates of access to primary care and community-belonging with Covid-19 vaccination within Chicago’s neighborhoods.MethodsData from Chicago Department of Public Health (12/2020-6/2022) on Covid-19 vaccination rates, race/ethnicity (% Black and % Hispanic/Latinx residents), age (% >65), gender (% female), socioeconomic status (% below the federal poverty line), access to needed care rate, and rate of self-reported sense of community-belonging on the neighborhood level were analyzed. Linear mixed models (LMMs) were used to study the impact of variables on vaccination; each neighborhood was added as a random effect to account for with-community association.ResultsThe average Covid-19 vaccination rates across Chicago’s neighborhoods was 79%, ranging from 37 to 100%, with median 81%. We found that Covid-19 vaccination rates were positively correlated with access to needed care (p < 0.001) and community-belonging (p < 0.001). Community areas that had lower vaccination rates had greater percentage of Black residents (p < 0.0001) and greater poverty rates (p < 0.0001). After adjusting for poverty, race, gender and age in the models, the association between vaccination rates and access to care or community-belonging were no longer significant, but % Black residents and poverty remained significant.ConclusionsThough access to needed primary care and community-belonging are correlated with vaccination rates, this association was not significant when controlling for demographic factors. The association between poverty, race and vaccination status remained significant, indicating that socioeconomic and racial disparities across Chicago drive Covid-19 vaccine recommendation adherence regardless of care access. Understanding how poverty, and its intersectional relation to race and primary care access, affects vaccination should be a priority for public health efforts broadly.

Social inequality and residential segregation trends in Spanish global cities. A comparative analysis of Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia (2001-2021)

Over the last three decades, the most populated Spanish cities have experienced significant spatial, social, and economic changes. The new urban economies have played an essential role in the acceleration of such transformations, entailing a range of both positive and negative impacts at the spatial, social, economic, and environmental levels. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of how the advancement of the globalization and deindustrialization processes has encouraged social polarization in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, as well as a significant increase in intra-urban socioeconomic residential segregation. The article concludes by arguing that the increase in levels of social inequality and residential segregation reflects the trend towards polarized urban models, which reproduce in urban space the differences observed in the social structure.

Is socioeconomic residential segregation associated with sleep problems? Insights from ELSA-Brasil

Several factors influence sleep, which is essential for health. While the role of neighborhood socioeconomic context on sleep health has been studied in recent years, results are inconsistent. The study aimed to investigate the association between socioeconomic residential segregation and sleep problems, using data from the second evaluation (2012-2014) of 9,918 public servants participating in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil). Socioeconomic residential segregation was assessed using the Getis-Ord Local Gi* statistic. Sleep duration and deprivation, complaints of insomnia, and daytime sleepiness were obtained through interviews. Binomial and multinomial logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratio (OR). Regarding sleep, 49% had short duration and 3% long duration, 23% reported complaints of insomnia, 45% sleep deprivation, 42% daytime sleepiness, and 48% reported ≥ 2 sleep problems. In the model adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic variables, there was an association between high socioeconomic residential segregation and short sleep duration (OR = 1.22; 95%CI: 1.07; 1.40), sleep deprivation (OR = 1.20; 95%CI: 1.05; 1.37), daytime sleepiness (OR = 1.17; 95%CI: 1.03; 1.34) and ≥ 2 associated sleep problems (OR = 1.24; 95%CI: 1.08; 1.41). Individuals living in neighborhoods with high socioeconomic residential segregation are more likely to have short sleep duration, sleep deprivation, daytime sleepiness, and ≥ 2 associated sleep problems. This information reinforces that public policy measures to reduce socioeconomic inequalities can improve the population's sleep health.

School and residential segregation in the reproduction of urban segregation: A case study in Buenos Aires

The link between residential and school segregation is widely recognised as a key to explaining urban inequalities. However, most studies have focused on countries of the Global North. This paper attempts to identify to what extent socio-economic residential segregation explains secondary school segregation in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Based on a linear programming method, the study proposes a hypothetical pupil allocation model that takes into account the capacity of schools and is used as an ideal typus to compare with the real socio-economic school composition. Using a ‘decompose method’ of segregation differences to analyse the differences in segregation indices and a local segregation analysis, this paper finds that in a residential context with low segregation but high social inequalities, school segregation is a social mechanism that allows maintaining spaces of differentiation and distancing between groups. In discussion with the idea of a ‘vicious circle of segregation’, this article argues for the potential of a multi-domain approach to segregation, to understand how different domains work in articulated and complex ways to reinforce urban segregation.

A Window Into the European City: Exploring Socioeconomic Residential Segregation in Urban Poland

AbstractIn this paper, we build on a long research effort aimed at identifying the specific conditions, functional and structural characteristics of urban areas, that produce different levels of residential segregation across cities. We explore segregation levels in Poland's 87 largest cities, cities with more than 50,000 residents, by measuring indices of dissimilarity relating to socio‐professional status. We then proceed by examining core structural determinants of the revealed segregation levels, including city size, and housing market characteristics. The results suggests that the structural characteristics of urban regions are indeed significant predictors of the level of socio‐spatial disparities in urban Poland. As expected, larger cities are more segregated than the smaller ones; higher shares of public housing also appear to contribute to more pronounced socioeconomic spatial divisions. Intriguingly, the share of new housing stock alone is not related to strong residential segregation.

Segregation and Life Satisfaction.

Our aim is to cast light on socioeconomic residential segregation effects on life satisfaction (LS). In order to test our hypothesis, we use survey data from Chile (Casen) for the years 2011 and 2013. We use the Duncan Index to measure segregation based on income at the municipality level for 324 municipalities. LS is obtained from the CASEN survey, which considers a question about self-reported well-being. Segregation’s impact upon LS is not clear at first glance. On one hand, there is evidence telling that segregation’s consequences are negative due to the spatial concentration of poverty and all the woes related to it. On the other hand, segregation would have positive effects because people may feel stress, unhappiness, and alienation when comparing themselves to better-off households. Additionally, there is previous evidence regarding the fact that people prefer to neighbor people of a similar socioeconomic background. Hence, an empirical test is needed. In order to implement it, we should deal with two problems, first, the survey limited statistical significance at the municipal level, hence we use the small area estimation (SAE) methodology to improve the estimations’ statistic properties, and second, the double causality between segregation and LS; to deal with the latter, we include lagged LS as a regressor. Our findings indicate that socioeconomic segregation has a positive effect on LS. This result is robust to different econometric specifications.

Changing occupational structures and residential segregation in New York, London and Tokyo.

Based on data from the 1980s, Sassen's influential book 'The Global City' interrogated how changes in the occupational structure affect socio-economic residential segregation in global cities. Here, using data for New York City, London and Tokyo, we reframe and answer this question for recent decades. Our analysis shows an increase in the share of high-income occupations, accompanied by a fall in low-income occupations in all three cities, providing strong evidence for a consistent trend of professionalization of the workforce. Segregation was highest in New York and lowest in Tokyo. In New York and London, individuals in high-income occupations are concentrating in the city centre, while low-income occupations are pushed to urban peripheries. Professionalization of the workforce is accompanied by reduced levels of segregation by income, and two ongoing megatrends in urban change: gentrification of inner-city neighbourhoods and suburbanization of poverty, with larger changes in the social geography than in levels of segregation.

Segregación residencial en la Región Metropolitana de Córdoba en el nuevo modelo de urbanización en Argentina: Censos 2001 y 2010

Córdoba, al igual que otras ciudades de Argentina y del mundo, expande su territorio más rápido que su población y como consecuencia su densidad bruta residencial ha caído un 1% anual en los últimos veinticinco años. En este contexto de expansión del entorno metropolitano, la construcción de urbanizaciones cerradas en la periferia se consolida como el uso de suelo predominante en este nuevo modelo de urbanización, donde predomina la polarización y fragmentación socioterritorial como consecuencia de la valorización del suelo urbanizable. Esta investigación tiene por objetivo analizar el fenómeno de la segregación residencial socioeconómica, a partir de la variable años de escolaridad promedio del jefe de hogar, en la Región Metropolitana de Córdoba en 2010, y las modalidades en las que ella opera en este nuevo modelo de urbanización; como así también indagar dicho fenómeno al interior de los municipios que componen este espacio metropolitano.

Segregación residencial socioeconómica e inserción laboral: el caso de San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina

Socioeconomic residential segregation (SRS) can be considered one of the main obstacles for an adequate urban integration in Latin American cities, since it is related to different social problems and contributes to their intergenerational reproduction. This article carries out an exploratory research on the links between SRS and the incorporation into the workplace of the population in San Carlos de Bariloche city, Argentina. Through a combination of multivariate analysis techniques and data from the last population census (2010), we obtain a typology that classifies the neighborhoods of the city and, then, we analyze the labor integration of the population located there. The results are in line with previous work from Latin America, which shows that those who live in segregated environments tend to have greater difficulties in accessing the workplace and, with it, in achieving social integration and economic progress. On the other hand, part of the evidence not only seems to contradict the traditional thesis of spatial mismatch or neighborhood effect, but also shows some of the limits of public policies used to influence urban integration if they are only limited to give access to housing and basic services.

County-level socioeconomic factors and residential racial, Hispanic, poverty, and unemployment segregation associated with drug overdose deaths in the United States, 2013–2017

PurposeThe purpose of the study was to evaluate overdose death rates in relation to socioeconomic characteristics and measures of socioeconomic residential segregation at substate geography. MethodsCounty overdose deaths were linked to socioeconomic characteristics that are related to social vulnerability. Dissimilarity and isolation segregation (comparing individual counties to the adjacent counties and state) and diversity were calculated for race, Hispanic ethnicity, poverty, and unemployment. Negative binomial regression was used to compare county characteristics to death rates. ResultsPercent civilian disabled was positively associated with mortality across race and Hispanic ethnicity groups. Some discordant associations included racial and unemployment diversity (null for White, inverse for Hispanic and Black), percent unemployment (positive for White, inverse for Hispanic), percent crowded housing (positive for Black), uninsured (null for White, inverse for Black and Hispanic), and per capita income (positive for Black, inverse for Hispanic). Several residential segregation measures were also significantly associated with overdose death rates, and different magnitudes and directions of associations were observed by race and Hispanic ethnicity. ConclusionsThese results provide future directions, including roles of civilian disability, diversity, and evaluating differential impacts of segregation across racial and ethnic groups. Individual-level data, drug overdose incidence, or larger studies to evaluate interactions may help to elucidate mechanisms.

Disparities in accessibility to neighborhood facilities from perspectives of socio-economic residential segregation in Japanese metropolitan area

Disparities in accessibility to neighborhood facilities from perspectives of socio-economic residential segregation in Japanese metropolitan area

Neighborhood structural characteristics and Mexican-origin adolescents' development.

Ethnic-racial and socioeconomic residential segregation are endemic in the United States, representing societal-level sociocultural processes that likely shape development. Considered alongside communities' abilities to respond to external forces, like stratification, in ways that promote youth adaptive functioning and mitigate maladaptive functioning, it is likely that residence in segregated neighborhoods during adolescence has both costs and benefits. We examined the influences that early adolescents' neighborhood structural characteristics, including Latino concentration and concentrated poverty, had on a range of developmentally salient downstream outcomes (i.e., internalizing, externalizing, prosocial behaviors, and ethnic-racial identity resolution) via implications for intermediate aspects of adolescents' community participation and engagement (i.e., ethnic-racial identity exploration, ethnic-racial discrimination from peers, and school attachment). These mediational mechanisms were tested prospectively across three waves (Mage w1-w3 = 12.79, 15.83, 17.37 years, respectively) in a sample of 733 Mexican-origin adolescents (48.8% female). We found higher neighborhood Latino concentration during early adolescence predicted greater school attachment and ethnic-racial identity exploration and lower discrimination from peers in middle adolescence. These benefits, in turn, were associated with lower externalizing and internalizing and higher ethnic-racial identity resolution and prosocial behaviors in late adolescence. Findings are discussed relative to major guidelines for integrating culture into development and psychopathology.

¿Contribuye la migración interna a reducir la segregación residencial?

En el marco del debate sobre las denominadas mutaciones metropolitanas, la diversificación social de la periferia y las tendencias de la segregación socioeconómica residencial, se estima el efecto de la migración interna sobre la composición educativa de ámbitos intrametropolitanos y la segregación residencial, medida con el índice de disimilitud de varios grupos educativos, en Santiago, Chile. Se usa una metodología novedosa desarrollada en CELADE que utiliza microdatos censales. Los resultados indican que la migración contribuye a diversificar socioeducativamente a la periferia y es decisiva para la emergencia de núcleos de alta educación en zonas históricamente desaventajadas de la periferia. Pero, contra la narrativa predominante, la migración no reduce la segregación residencial, principalmente porque disminuye los niveles educativos en el pericentro, más bien pobre y en proceso de pauperización y, en cambio, los aumenta en la zona acomodada.

A Divided Capital: Residential Segregation In Ankara

Turkey has undergone large-scale structural changes in social, political, and economic spheres in 2000s. In changing political climate of 2000s, not only social and political geographies, but also residential patterns of cities have been subject to abrupt changes. The development of construction sector reached a speed never seen before in country’s urbanisation history. Growing numbers of transformation and renewal projects took place mainly in older and historical central areas and former gecekondu sites of many greater cities. The relationship of new “upper” and “lower” classes both with rest of society and city has also radically changed. But, despite dynamism of this new era, our knowledge about extent of this transformation process is still relatively poor. Our knowledge on bases, scale and possible impacts of this transformation is still limited and partial. On these grounds, this article attempts to understand of this transformation process in year of 2000 through socio-economic residential segregation in capital city of Turkey, Ankara, where this transformation process is heavily felt. It is claimed that as one of most debated issues in Turkish public agenda, examining segregation in analytical ways can provide useful insights and valuable clues as to understanding socio-economic structure of cities. The findings of study show that Ankara is a highly divided city in socio-economic lines and urban dynamics of recent years are highly correlated with characteristic divisions of city. The study, in this sense, not only provides an extended look into segregation dynamics of city, but also sheds light on the roots of this active and dynamic period of 2000s, and thereby reveals last picture of city before great transformation . Key words: Socio-economic segregation, residential segregation, status groups, transformation, Ankara.

Segregación residencial socioeconómica en la Gran Área Metropolitana de Costa Rica. Niveles y patrones entre 1984 y 2000

The paper examines the socio-economic residential segregation indices in three scales, and analyzed the levels and patterns of segregation and its trend over time by comparing the indices1984 and 2000. Among the most notable findings, is the correspondence with the trends in residential segregation in other Latin American cities: greater segregation on a smaller scale and a decrease in the time of the levels of segregation. Furthermore, the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM) has lower overall rates of segregation that several Latin American cities, particularly Santiago de Chile, a difference that is explained by the origin and historical structure of the city, because GAM is characterized as an urban space less polarized, more heterogeneous, with a concentration of elites in small areas scattered throughout the city and a more dispersed distribution of a large middle class.

The Challenges of Community Building: Land Use Regulation and Residential Segregation in Santiago, Chile

Despite decades of economic development and the general improvement in the quality of life of its people, Santiago, the capital of Chile, presents high levels of residential segregation along socioeconomic lines. A debate about legal reforms to address this phenomenon is currently occurring.Chile has an expansive regime of housing assistance programs based on demand-side individual subsidies especially targeted to low-income families. These programs have provided massive access to formal housing, but have routinely failed in addressing the problem of class-based segregation. These subsidies operate in a highly regulated market, where many interrelated institutions exercise urban policy powers. The objective of this paper is to analyze whether and how the land use governance regime that governs Santiago’s urban development has an impact in the pattern of social segregation.The paper finds that Santiago’s metropolitan area presents a complex regulatory scenario in the realm of land use, mainly involving the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism (MHU) and its fifty-two municipalities. The research also finds that through the exercise of multiple ad- ministrative and regulatory mechanisms, municipalities are increas- ingly using their power to guide the urban development in their corresponding districts. However, this is largely contingent on the bu- reaucratic and financial situation of the local government, its social needs, and the political pressure it faces. Some municipalities are subject to intense lobbying from real estate developers, landowners, and residents’ organizations. Therefore, the regulatory possibilities among Santiago’s local governments vary dramatically.This fragmented scenario impacts the way public officials perceive the relationship between land use governance and segregation. Some observe that the law establishes strong obstacles to residential integration. Others emphasize the lack of incentives to produce inclusion- ary housing projects. Finally, a third group considers that segregation is beyond the scope of their concern. This is especially observed in high-income districts.The findings of this paper support the idea that social housing policies based on subsidies cannot be the only remedy for socioeconomic residential segregation. Without addressing the institutional choices and incentives created by Chilean land use regulatory framework and how this institutional structure operates in practice, social integration within Santiago’s metropolitan area will remain an unattainable ideal.

PROCESOS DE MEJORAMIENTO BARRIAL PARTICIPATIVO EN ASENTAMIENTOS INFORMALES: Propuestas de integración en la ciudad de Ibagué (Colombia)

Rapid urban growth has caused, among other things, the increase in number of informal settlements in Latin American peripheries. In many cases, an increasing inequality results in socioeconomic residential segregation, generating gaps among the different groups of a community. This phenomenon is expanding in Latin America. In cities of considerable size, experiences from integration and improving interventions in slum areas are mostly enriching. However, what kind of strategies should be used in intermediate cities, with low financing possibilities and limited budget? This article analyzes the development of these processes in Ibague, Colombia, and tries to find applicable strategies derived from a university cooperation project. The article establishes an approach to the aspects that contribute towards the formation of informal settlements and its possible links to socioeconomic residential segregation. It also studies, by using Las Delicias neighborhood as reference, the development of slum areas in Ibague. The article concludes proposing a cooperation project for neighborhood improvement in those areas.

La persistencia de la segregación residencial socioeconómica en Argentina / The Persistence of Socio-Economic Residential Segregation in Argentina

Este documento se refiere a uno de los aspectos de la dinámica de la segregación residencial socioeconómica: su persistencia en el tiempo. Se analiza el tema en el contexto de la recuperación económica que experimentó Argentina luego de la crisis de 2001. Durante este periodo la pobreza y la desocupación disminuyeron notablemente, y aminoró la desigualdad de la distribución del ingreso en los primeros años para luego mantenerse estable. Mediante la confección de cohortes ficticias se procedió a evaluar si quienes se encontraban en entornos expuestos a mayor privación socioeconómica mejoraron su situación en términos relativos durante esos años. Los resultados sugieren que el patrón de segregación residencial socioeconómica no se modificó. Ello obliga a avanzar hacia la formulación de una agenda de políticas públicas que tome en cuenta explícitamente tales aspectos del bienestar de la población. AbstractThis document explores one of the aspects of the dynamics of socio-economic regional segregation: its persistence over time. The topic is analyzed in the context of the economic recovery undergone by Argentina after the 2001 crisis. This period saw a sharp drop in poverty and unemployment, while there was a decrease in income distribution inequality improved in the early years before leveling off. Fictitious cohorts are used to assess whether those in environments exposed to higher levels of socio-economic deprival improved their situation in relative terms during this period. The results obtained suggest that the pattern of socio-economic residential segregation was not modified. This forces one to advance towards the discussion of a public policy agenda that will specifically take into account these aspects of the population’s welfare.

Implications of Income-Based School Assignment Policies for Racial School Segregation

A number of public school districts in the United States have adopted income-based integration policies—policies that use measures of family income or socioeconomic status—in determining school assignment. Some scholars and policymakers contend that such policies will also reduce racial segregation. In this article this assumption is explored by computing upper and lower bounds on the possible and probable levels of racial segregation that would result from race-neutral income-based school assignment policies. The article finds that, in general, income integration is no guarantee of even modest racial desegregation. In particular, the extent of ancillary racial integration produced by an income-integration policy will depend on the size of racial income disparities within a given district, the specifics of an income-integration policy, and the patterns of racial and socioeconomic residential segregation in a school district. Data on racial income inequality and income segregation in urban districts throughout the United States indicate that very high levels of racial segregation are possible under any practical income-integration policy. The authors conclude that, given the extent of residential racial segregation in the United States, it is unlikely that race-neutral income-integration policies will significantly reduce school racial segregation, although there is reason to believe that such policies are likely to have other beneficial effects on schooling.