Urban segregation: contexts, domains, dimensions and approaches

Abstract

Collective outcomes of individual behaviour, whether driven by individuals themselves or by structural forces in wider global, economic and political settings, tend to produce certain levels of inequality, which in their turn impact certain types of spatial segregation. Although there would seem to be a general tendency for households to segregate themselves from one another based on a range of demographic, socioeconomic and cultural differences (Schelling, 1971; McPherson et al., 2001; Musterd et al., 2016; van Gent et al., 2019), this tendency also appears to be firmly affected by historical placespecific legacies in different contexts, as well as other contextual factors. In this regard, it is import to state that the relationship between households and their environment is mutual: households shape their environment, while environments trigger certain household behaviours. Apart from the historically grown, place-specific context, the economic context and the prevailing political economy also impact (spatial) inequality in cities. The influence of historical, economic and political contexts is reflected most clearly in the activity or inactivity of various institutions that play a role in supply-side interventions. The (lack of) interventions may stimulate segregation, or possibly reduce it, depending on the legacies at play and the willingness to intervene, the kinds of interventions used, the urban economic past and present, and the type of welfare state in which the city is embedded. Such welfare regimes range from liberal conservative to so-called social democratic, with various types in between (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Musterd and Ostendorf, 1998; Burgers and Musterd, 2002; Arbaci, 2019). Finally, and related to the abovementioned factors, the general societal atmosphere as expressed in diverse discourses, the public climate, and the way in which ‘problems’ are framed in public debates – and by whom – are also likely to contribute to the development of inequality, dualism and segregation. This may be firmly embedded in democratic governance, but it might also be driven by discrimination, stigmatisation or other motives. All of these issues will be dealt with in this volume. This volume consists of this Introduction (Chapter 1) and a concluding Epilogue (Chapter 24), with three parts in between. The first part focuses on the variety of segregation issues addressed worldwide; the second looks at the domains and dimensions of segregation that are manifest and discussed; the third part focuses on measuring and conceptualising segregation. The boundaries between these parts are not rigid but rather highly permeable, or even open, since many contributions pay attention to aspects of all the spheres that are central to the three parts. Nevertheless, this crude division helps us to address the wide variety of segregation in terms of contexts, domains, dimensions and approaches in a structured and comprehensive way.