Urban Segregation Research Articles

Living and Planning on the Edge: Unravelling Conflict and Claim-Making in Peri-Urban Lahore, Pakistan

In Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, high population growth rates, decades of rural-urban migration, and rampant land and real-estate speculation have contributed to the rapid urbanization of peri-urban land and the engulfing of pre-existing rural settlements. Lahore’s spatial transformation goes hand in hand with an increasingly complex urban governance framework. Historically shaped by colonial planning institutions and decades of political instability as power alternated between military and civilian regimes, Pakistan’s governance practices have contributed to increasing levels of urban segregation and inequality. This raises questions around the in- and exclusionary role of planning in fostering or constraining residents’ access to housing and services. Comparing three vignettes and drawing upon insights gained from extensive fieldwork, this article employs the concept of ‘access-assemblages’ to analyze how access to urban resources—i.e., land, housing, and services—is experienced, disputed, and negotiated in the rapidly urbanizing peri-urban fringe of Lahore. The cases represent different spatial and socio-political configurations brought about by a variety of actors involved in the planning and development of the city’s periphery as well as in contesting development: private developers, the army, the city development authorities, and the residents of affected villages. The analysis unpacks the planning rationalities and mechanisms that reinforce inequalities of access and exclusions. Unfolding practices that enable or hinder actors’ ability to access resources sheds light on the complex layers assembled in urban planning in Lahore and serves as a basis to rethink planning towards a more inclusive approach.

Segregation or integration? Exploring activity disparities between migrants and settled urban residents using human mobility data

AbstractDue to the difficulty of tracking large numbers of new migrants, how their daily activity behaviors differ from those of settled residents has not been well investigated, leading to a lack of understanding of new migrants' integration. Meanwhile, existing research largely emphasized residential space and ignored other activity disparities. To obtain a more comprehensive picture of urban segregation, we identified new migrants and two settled urban groups from two kinds of human mobility data. A S‐T‐A‐D‐I interactive framework was proposed to measure segregation from multiple activity dimensions, including spatial colocation, temporal coexistence, accessibility, activity diversity, and social interaction. Two‐scale analysis of spatial colocation patterns reveals residential segregation by both residential location and housing type, suggesting the effectiveness of the mobility data in profiling socioeconomic groups. The temporal disparity in undertaking activities was unveiled by identifying temporal coexistence patterns. Moreover, the groups presented significant inequality in accessibility owing to the use of different travel modes, leading to a notable disparity in activity diversity. Jointly determined by the disparities in space, time, and diversity, the three groups generated a high level of self‐segregation, and new migrants and transit users presented very low interaction potentials with the car group.

A systematic review of gated communities and the challenge of urban transformation in African cities

Globalization and the spread of neo-liberal models of urban restructuring have resulted in the rise in gated communities worldwide, including in Africa. The on-going scholarly debate revolves around the drivers of gated communities, their impacts and implications on the planning and management of cities. To contribute to and advance scholarly debate on gated communities and the challenge of urban transformation, we used standard systematic procedures to synthesize findings from 31 peer reviewed journal articles from 1990 to 2020, that examine the phenomenon of gated communities in African cities. Despite the differences in study settings, key findings emerge from gated community studies in Africa. Majority of the reviewed studies attribute the emergence of gated communities to the rise in crime and the search for good quality living environment. Globalization also plays an important role in facilitating new market-oriented gated communities. The globalization of lifestyles of the urban elite has also found expression in African cities. Reviewed studies are critical of gated communities for promoting spatial fragmentation, privatization of public space and local governance and for propagating socio-economic inequality and urban segregation. These issues have implications for the planning and management of cities; in terms of balancing between the need for secure neighbourhoods and promoting inclusive urban societies. The systematic review makes a case for re-thinking urban models that inform the production of new urban spaces; with a view to balance between private capital interests and the need for spatial justice.

Quito’S Urban Imaginaries: Between Conserved and Intervened Green Spaces

This manuscript presents the results of field research aimed to identify the perceptions that condition the urban imaginaries addressing the green spaces in Quito, Ecuador. Two focus groups were carried out with experts in designing green spaces. The results were evaluated through discourse analysis, applying the dialectical hermeneutical method, to finally establish open, axial, and selective categories. Six categories allow the understanding of the imaginaries associated with the city’s green spaces: conserved or intervened spaces, public and private spaces, and individual and collective subjectivity in relation to green areas; also relevant are the interventions of actors such as the state, the real estate market, and the community in the management of these spaces. In the city, conserved green spaces, such as urban and peri-urban forests, are for contemplative use and would be less attractive to the population than provoked green spaces, the latter of which are characterized by facilitating human interaction and by having the direct intervention of public institutions. The identification of public and private green spaces was related to potential forms of urban segregation. Participants stated that privileged social groups have direct access to customized architectural designs, whereas community organizations manage these spaces through social action.

Fractal urbanism: City size and residential segregation in India

We present the first ever large-scale snapshot of urban residential segregation in India at the neighborhood-scale. Our analysis from 147 largest cities in contemporary India shows how caste-based residential segregation is independent of city size (our sample includes all cities in India with at least 0.3 million residents in 2011). The extent of segregation in the largest metropolitan centers with over ten million residents closely tracks cities that are nearly two orders-of-magnitude smaller. We also show how residential segregation across a large swathe of urban India mirrors the spatial geometry of rural India. Our findings call into question one of the central normative promises of modernization in India and elsewhere — the gradual withering of traditional ascriptive identities such as caste. Our paper also contributes to the emerging debates in urban segregation by developing an interdisciplinary framework for analytical and empirical operationalization of a neighborhood unit.

Investigating the relationship between environmental quality, socio-spatial segregation and the social dimension of sustainability in US urban areas

This work is intended to assess the relationship between the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social) and residential segregation broadly across US urban areas. Multivariate indices of segregation and sustainability are created using data aggregated to 933 US Census Core-Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs). The relationship between segregation and sustainability (and dimensions, independently) is analyzed across the CBSAs using correlation and spatial analyses. Results show an inverse relationship between segregation and sustainability, where increasing urban segregation corresponds to decreases in sustainability. Social and economic dimensions of sustainability are negatively correlated with segregation while the environmental dimension is positively correlated. Spatial analysis reveals regional associations between the measures with most of the lower sustainability scores and higher segregation scores occuring mainly in the South. The findings demonstrate an inverse relationship between segregation and sustainability as well as between the environmental and social dimensions. These correlations indicate a need to consider inequalities, and the social dimension of sustainability more broadly, when planning urban revitalization efforts. Spatial scale is also imperative to understanding and improving the social outcomes for all members of the community.

Venues and segregation: A revised Schelling model.

This paper examines an important but underappreciated mechanism affecting urban segregation and integration: urban venues. The venue- an area where urbanites interact- is an essential aspect of city life that tends to influence residential location. We study the venue/segregation relationship by overlaying venues onto Schelling's classic (1971) [1] agent-based segregation model. We show that a simulation world with venues makes segregation less likely among relatively tolerant agents and more likely among the intolerant. We also show that multiple venues can create spatial structures beyond their catchment areas and that the initial location of venues shapes later residential patterns. Finally, we demonstrate that the social rules governing venue participation alter their impacts on segregation. In the course of our study, we compile techniques for advancing Schelling-style studies of urban environments and catalogue a set of mechanisms that operate in this environment.

Surname affinity in Santiago, Chile: A network-based approach that uncovers urban segregation

Based on a geocoded registry of more than four million residents of Santiago, Chile, we build two surname-based networks that reveal the city's population structure. The first network is formed from paternal and maternal surname pairs. The second network is formed from the isonymic distances between the city's neighborhoods. These networks uncover the city's main ethnic groups and their spatial distribution. We match the networks to a socioeconomic index, and find that surnames of high socioeconomic status tend to cluster, be more diverse, and occupy a well-defined quarter of the city. The results are suggestive of a high degree of urban segregation in Santiago.

Measuring and Visualizing Patterns of Ethnic Concentration: The Role of Distortion Coefficients

The paper provides numerical measures and visualizations of urban segregation based on a new index, the Distortion coefficient. Distortion coefficients are derived from trajectories of contact with the city’s population as an individual will encounter an increasing number of persons in a growing distance from their original location. They can be interpreted as measures of how different, or in technical terms, how distorted the view of the city is from any one location. In this paper, we present the theoretical rationale and the procedure leading to the computation of the Distortion coefficients. Through a detailed illustration using Chicago as a case study, we provide the general framework for analyzing and visualizing Distortion. We show that these measures are able to capture complex demographic changes over time and paint a more complete picture of segregation than indices based on imposed scales.

Urban Social Waste and Urban Solid Waste in Brazil: Problems, Consequences and Possible Solutions

Brazil is a country of continental dimensions, with a surface area of 8,510,296km2 , which is distributed among 26 federal states and a federal district. However, due to an extremely unequal income distribution, one of the major social problems that the country still faces is urban segregation, experienced by a large part of its almost 212 million inhabitants, who still find severe problems with housing, public transportation, security, health, employment, education and infrastructure, especially with regard tothe process of collecting and the treatment of waste generated. In the case of solid urban waste (SUW), approximately 190,000tons are produced daily, which implies a per capita production rate of 0.90kg(inhab.day)-1. Of the total generated, a fraction greater than 90% (w/w) is collected and, of this fraction, a percentage of 25% is still disposed of in open dumps, generating environmental impacts of different magnitudes. In addition, of the quantity of SUW generated in Brazil, about 55% (w/w) corresponds to putrescible organic matter, which could be fully used as an alternative source of energy (methane gas, for example), which normally does not occur. In these terms, Brazil becomes a country with strong social, economic and public health problems, and with regard to basic sanitation, there are still great demands, especially when considering the collection and treatment of the various types of waste generated.

The housing renovation in the metropolitan cities of Lithuania

The paper analyzes the spatial differentiation of housing renovation processes in Lithuania and in its metropolitan cities – Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda in particular. Based on scientific, legal, and other literature related to the topic, the study identifies the general features of the Lithuanian housing renovation policy and distinguishes the main factors influencing the spatial differences of housing modernization processes. The analysis carried on secondary statistical data allowed to reveal huge differences of housing renovation at the level of Lithuanian municipalities. The spatial differentiation of renovation does not correspond to existing differences of economic development and incomes of population in municipalities. The territorial differentiation of renovation processes inside Lithuanian metropolitan cities is analyzed in the second part or the paper. The results of the analysis revealed the tendencies of spatial processes of housing policy in the three largest cities of the country. The renovation processes are highly differentiated in urban space and the socially least successful areas have the lowest share of renovated housing stock. The renovation policy has essentially no territorial priorities, therefore it’s impact on urban segregation and urbanized landscape is accidental and potentially negative.

¿Hacia una ciudad dual? suburbanización y centralización en las principales ciudades españolas

Las principales metrópolis están siendo transformadas por diferentes procesos migratorios, económicos y también, de manera relevante, por la movilidad residencial. Este trabajo se centra en esta última, analizando los perfiles de los participantes en los movimientos de centralización y suburbanización en Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla y Bilbao, a partir de los datos del censo de 2011. Utilizando modelos de regresión logística binomial, se ha constatado la mayor tendencia a buscar los centros urbanos de las clases medias, con estudios y en hogares no convencionales, frente a una creciente suburbanización de jóvenes, de clase trabajadora y embarcados en proyectos familiares. La combinación de ambos movimientos (que tratados individualmente podrían considerarse avances en la convivencia social) ocasiona un incremento de la segregación urbana, pero ahora a escala metropolitana.

Luz Marina has left us like lightning

Luz Marina García Herrera, professor at the University of La Laguna, colleague, teacher and friend, passed away in June 2020. A reference in Spanish Urban Geography, her contribution to the debate on the shaping of the city and the social dynamics inherent to it has opened up timely and necessary lines of work. She anchors her background in the interpretation of urban social processes under capitalism, focusing on key issues such as marginal developments, gentrification mechanisms or different facets of urban segregation. In addition she also approaches other issues in which we have been able to share time and space with her. Among them the constant and changing conditioning between physical and social environments in the city and consequences, or the reading of public spaces, their use and appropriation keys, as an indicator of cohesion as well as an instrument for the transformation of specific realities. All of this, and even more his commitment and his profound humanity, which we are proud to have learned from, motivate these lines.

Social Inclusion and Physical Activity in Ciclovía Recreativa Programs in Latin America.

Ciclovía Recreativa is a program in which streets are closed off to automobiles so that people have a safe and inclusive space for recreation and for being physically active. The study aims were: (1) to compare participant’s spatial trajectories in four Ciclovía Recreativa programs in Latin America (Bogotá, Mexico City, Santiago de Cali, and Santiago de Chile) according to socioeconomic characteristics and urban segregation of these cities; and (2) to assess the relationship between participants’ physical activity (PA) levels and sociodemographic characteristics. We harmonized data of cross-sectional studies including 3282 adults collected between 2015 and 2019. We found the highest mobility for recreation in Bogotá, followed closely by Santiago de Cali. In these two cities, the maximum SES (socioeconomic status) percentile differences between the neighborhood of origin and the neighborhoods visited as part of the Ciclovía use were 33.58 (p-value < 0.001) and 30.38 (p-value < 0.001), respectively, indicating that in these two cities, participants were more likely to visit higher or lower SES neighborhoods than their average SES-of-neighborhood origin. By contrast, participants from Mexico City and Santiago de Chile were more likely to stay in geographic units similar to their average SES-of-origin, having lower overall mobility during leisure time: maximum SES percentile difference 1.55 (p-value < 0.001) and −0.91 (p-value 0.001), respectively. PA levels of participants did not differ by sex or SES. Our results suggest that Ciclovía can be a socially inclusive program in highly unequal and segregated urban environments, which provides a space for PA whilefacilitat physical proximity, exposure to new communities and environments, and interactions between different socioeconomic groups.

Daughters of Africa and the Gender Politics of Urban Segregation in Durban, 1935–1937

In 19351 the Durban Town Council announced a policy that would require all ‘Native women’ to apply for permission to come to town as part of a system of compulsory registration, which also required proof of legitimate residency for those African women who already lived within municipal boundaries. This article considers how organised African women from the local kholwa (mission-educated Christian) elite asserted themselves as participants in the public sphere of local government. Tensions about the new plans to enforce a system of passes for African women came to a head in 1937 when police conducted raids on homes in the city. In their response, African women's welfare societies organised as part of Daughters of Africa pushed the boundaries of the politics of petitioning through vocal and public protest. I consider the gendered politics of urban segregation through the prism of official, municipal documentation; through reportage in the public forum that constituted Ilanga lase Natal – a newspaper still dominated by men who often expressed ambivalence about ‘their’ women's presence in town – and also through life history interviews conducted many years later with a key organiser of the protests, Bertha Mkhize.

Urban segregation and infrastructure in Latin America: A neighborhood typology for Bariloche, Argentina

The problem of urban segregation has been extensively studied among developed and developing countries. However, in Latin America this phenomenon presents some particularities, such as the role of access to urban infrastructure. Based on data from the latest population census and multivariate analysis techniques, we provide a neighborhood typology for Bariloche, Argentina, which, among other things, enables us to reveal a complex relationship between the socioeconomic level of the population, its residential location, and infrastructure availability. Unlike previous research on Latin American cities, in this case the lowest correlation between these issues seems to indicate that, although urban infrastructure and equipment are important to address urban segregation, public policies should not be limited to only such dimensions.

Pandemic's Accentuations: Theoretical Reflection On The Politics Of Neglect Within Cairo's Urban Context

Right after WWII, informalities within Cairo evolved gradually, forming 70% of today’s urban spaces and 50% of the Egyptian economy. This paper aims to review the policies that triggered this growth over time, arguing that the incrementally implemented Politics of Neglect in Cairo shapes today’s severe urban segregation in the city. Furtherly, adopt the current pandemic crisis to address the effect of informal labourlabor on the city as a whole: the rich and the poor. Thus, asserting that the pandemic crisis must be a junction to reassess the Egyptian urban policies’ approaches and target groups, in contemplation of attaining Social Inclusion in Cairo. The paper is developed through analyszing the historicalhistoric trajectory and evolutional map analysis of Cairo’s urban growth, and examining the quantitative data of informal economy growth rates in Egypt. Accordingly, correlating data in the wayto ofin a way of understanding the evolution of informal labourlabor and informal ity settlements in relation to the cumulative policies applied in the city.

SEGREGAÇÃO URBANA E RACIAL NA CIDADE: O “LUGAR” DA POPULAÇÃO NEGRA EM LONDRINA

The objective of this study is to analyze the mechanisms that act to cause the segregation of the black population in poor and stigmatized territories of the city, with the research field of Londrina, a municipality located in the north of Parana. To study this phenomenon, in addition to the theoretical approach, we used as a methodological procedure the analysis of qualitative interviews conducted with black people living in different neighborhoods of the city. The results of this study show that the devices that operate in the production of urban segregation of the black population in Londrina are multiple and correlated, since they involve economic, social, racial, political and cultural issues. However, the central thesis is that racial segregation in the city, more than a mere reflection of the concentration of blacks at the base of the class structure, is a dimension of Brazilian structural racism.

Multiscale environmental determinants of Leishmania vectors in the urban-rural context

BackgroundIn South America, cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) and visceral leishmaniasis (VL) are emerging diseases, expanding in the border area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Outbreaks of CL were reported since the 1990s, with Nyssomyia whitmani as the main vector in this region. Regarding VL, urban reports started in 2010 with Lutzomyia longipalpis as the main vector. The aim of this study was to evaluate environmental determinants related to the main vectors of leishmaniasis, to contribute to the prevention and control response to the emergence of VL and CL in the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay border region.MethodsThe cross-sectional survey includes two cities and two close rural areas in the Argentinean Northeast Region, between November 2014 and January 2015, with a total of 95 sampling sites. REDILA-BL traps were set for three consecutive nights, and a total of 68 meso- and microscale environmental and landscape characteristics were surveyed. The association between vector abundance with different variables was evaluated using a generalized linear model with zero-inflated negative binomial distribution. We analyzed females for detection of Leishmania DNA.ResultsThe analysis for Lu. longipalpis indicates an excess of absences when the mean NDWI around the sites were higher. The abundance of Lu. longipalpis at mesoscale level was higher when more urban services were present, and when blood sources such as chickens or dogs at the microscale level were present. For Ny. whitmani, no variable was found to be associated with the absences, while its abundance increased in association with the following variables: percentage of tree cover, presence of garbage collection service, hosted people and, at microscale, the presence of poultry. Leshmania infantum DNA was detected in 2/49 (4%) Lu. longipalpis.ConclusionsThe abundance of both species is influenced by variables at different scales, their influence probably has a hierarchy and they are acting on different aspects of the biology of these vectors. The urban spatial segregation of Lu. longipalpis and the peri-urban and rural segregation of N. whitmani increase the risk of VL and CL. The selection of the better variables for each scale will allow the design of appropriate control strategies depending on species.

FROM RELIGIOUS SEGREGATION TO CULTURAL HERITAGE.THE CASE OF THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY IN BUCHAREST

Religious segregation is a process with a very long history, but which has been little analyzed within the Romanian scientific literature. The paper proposes a detailed discussion of how the Armenian community in Bucharest was geographically segregated because of religious reasons by the rest of the Orthodox inhabitants of the city almost five centuries ago. The analysis made by the national and international literature on this subject reveals substantial gaps, with multiple theoretical difficulties in explaining how religious segregation can end up in cultural heritage. Incorporating the urban segregation theory and urban culture, the research proposes an exploratory case study as a conceptual basis for future similar studies. The analyzed data have shown that, in time, due to the expansion of urban space and to certain religious concessions, cities can be the beneficiaries of high-value physical elements with an impact on urban culture, architecture and landscape, all thanks to religious segregation.