Abstract
Segregation is undeniably an important phenomenon whose salience has only increased in recent years as economic polarization across much of the world has risen. The collection Social-Spatial Segregation: Concepts, Processes and Outcomes brings a particularly geographical lens to bear on the topic. Editors Christopher D. Lloyd, Ian Shuttleworth, and David W. Wong are each prominent among geographers who have investigated segregation in a variety of settings. For readers of a more sociological bent, the mix of study sites—Northern Ireland, London, Sweden, and New Zealand, along with a number of U.S. cities both past and present—should be of interest, given the distinctly North American bias of much published research in this field. This collection’s distinctive geographical insistence on the value of closely examining the details of individual sites, rather than on more generalized comparative or cross-sectional studies of many sites across national urban systems, may also intrigue.
The editors frame the contributions in their introductory and concluding chapters and in the book’s subtitle as bearing on “concepts, processes, and outcomes” of social segregation. They do not make entirely clear that the chapters were developed out of contributions to paper sessions entitled “Conceptualising and Measuring Segregation: Spatial Scale, Population Structure and Population Dynamics.” These origins likely explain why, in my reading at least, a more accurate subtitle might be “measures, dynamics, and effects.” This is not to downplay the value of these pieces, but merely to suggest that papers so firmly grounded in detailed expositions of often involved (and impressive) quantitative and computational methods for measuring segregation cannot also be expected to make deep conceptual and theoretical contributions. That general disclaimer aside, there is a great deal to enjoy and to learn from here.
The relative emphasis given to each of thethree sections—seven chapters on “concepts,” five on “processes,” and three on “outcomes”—reinforces a sense that a fascination with novel, spatially explicit approaches to the measurement of segregation and changes in segregation over time is the dominant theme. As in the wider literature, there is a tension here between the development of a Babel of ever more sophisticated approaches to measuring segregation and a need, particularly if change over time is to be tracked, or if international comparisons are to be made, to focus on established, already existing approaches that do not require richly detailed data.
With few exceptions, contributors to this volume overcome any such reservations and err on the side of developing new approaches, often depending on the availability of detailed or specific data sources. The most notable exceptions are Pablo Mateos, who discusses how the racial, ethnic, and cultural categories deployed by different national censuses and statistical agencies deserve closer attention from segregation scholars, a case that is well-made and itself a formidable project on which his chapter makes a start; and Ron Johnston, Michael Poulsen, and James Forrest, who present a more qualitative classificatory approach to the “measurement” of segregation based on the degree to which different groups live in places that are more or less dominated by “charter” populations or mixes of non-charter populations of their own or other categories. While this approach is hardly new (it was first presented by these authors in 2001), it is not as widely discussed as it might be and has the potential to move descriptions of segregation on from rather sterile arguments about individual indices. Taken together, these two chapters make for an interesting antidote to conventional approaches to conceptualizing and measuring segregation.
Other papers under the “concepts” heading offer methodological novelties of note. In one of three chapters in the book focused on Northern Ireland, the intriguing idea of using inter-area migration flows as a proxy for the degree to which those areas can meaningfully be considered “neighbors” is proposed as an alternative to more topological or geometric approaches. The conclusion, as is so often the case with methodological innovations, is that the approach is viable, although interpretation and portability to other settings remain challenging.
Two chapters, one working with historical U.S. census data, the other with present-day Swedish data, demonstrate the potential that intensive computation in tandem with highly detailed individual-level data offers to segregation researchers to move beyond arbitrary, census-delineated areas. The possibilities of such new data sources to move beyond a “census-eye view” of segregation is an emergent theme developed further in the “processes” section of the book. This is most convincing in two chapters exploring how marketized provision of social goods (public schooling and social housing) in London may have implications for segregation outcomes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tentative conclusion is that while school “choice” likely has marginal effects, similar systems applied to social housing can substantially drive the process. Of course, such conclusions are particular to the specific policy frameworks in the London context under examination, but detailed examinations of similar frameworks in other settings would be a welcome development for segregation research more generally. The degree to which individual choices drive segregation is also a focus of another Northern Ireland-focused study in the “processes” section, and it contributes to another surprisingly neglected subset of the segregation literature connecting quantitative empirical work to the often overly ambitious claims made for Schelling’s dynamic models of segregation.
The final short section of the book on “outcomes” is its least compelling. Danny Dorling is characteristically accessible and breezy in railing against the increasing class polarization of the UK over recent decades, but this chapter and another piece in this section describing various impacts of segregation in Milwaukee feel like misplaced pages from another book.
Edited collections can be a bit of a jumble atthe best of times. This one has more coherence than most; and perhaps dipping in and out rather than reading straight through (as a reviewer is almost duty-bound to do), these two chapters would seem less out of place. Their slightly discordant notes follow a chapter much more in tune with the overall tenor of the book and with the “outcomes” theme of the final section: a careful if inconclusive investigation of the health implications of segregation in Northern Ireland. Once again, one is struck by the challenges of disentangling demography, life experience, and geography when we examine “neighborhood effects.”
In sum, there is much food for thought here, especially for the methodologically adventurous; and while, as a geographer, I am biased, the cumulative impact of the materials the editors have assembled is the idea that geographical details matter a great deal to building a nuanced understanding of segregation. On that note, it is curious that, given the geographical emphasis, how scale cuts across our attempts to measure segregation is largely absent from consideration; but perhaps that is a subject for a different book, one that might also bring to bear a greater variety of methods such as interviews, focus groups, or ethnography. Nevertheless, as a snapshot of recent geographical research in segregation, for researchers inclined to quantitatively explore spatial aspects of segregation at an urban scale, this book would be a good place to begin.