Desegregating the City: Ghettos, Enclaves, and Inequality

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION The book is divided into two parts. The six chapters in part I attempt to answer questions specific to enclaves: How do the ethnic enclaves emerging in North American cities today differ from the enclaves occupied by Eastern and Southern European immigrants earlier in the twentieth century ? What are the functional and dysfunctional aspects of current ethnic enclaves in cities as varied as Chicago, Toronto, London, and Amsterdam ? How can American planners develop policies to deal with the ghetto problem while at the same time recognizing the legitimacy and desirability of most ethnic enclaves? The final six chapters, part II, switch our attention to ghetto remediation strategies and seek to determine how much emphasis should be given to (1) eliminating patterns of housing discrimination, (2) removing zoning and other regulatory devices that restrict low-income housing from the suburbs, (3) creating mixed-income communities in the city, and in the suburbs, and (4) reducing disparities in wealth through, for example, a more progressive income tax structure. In chapter 1, Peter Marcuse distinguishes between acceptable and unacceptable residential clustering. Clustering that results from voluntary decisions, those that lead to the formation of ethnic enclaves, is generally acceptable, whereas involuntary clustering, that which segregates lowerincome people into class ghettos, “is generally objectionable and should be countered by policy measures” (p. 15). Marcuse notes that in the past, the federal government, as well as state and local governments in the United States, imposed policies that prompted the segregation of low-income people. Examples of such policies included large-lot zoning and prohibitions against multifamily construction , the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) appraisal criteria, which provided the basis for redlining (the denial of financing to property owners in certain designated areas), and the construction of high-rise public housing in ghetto areas. Therefore, it is “the state” that must play Varady: Desegregating the City page 1 a key role in reducing patterns of segregation. Some of Marcuse’s suggestions , such as the dispersal of public housing throughout metropolitan areas, fall within the political mainstream and have a good chance of being implemented. He uses the term “public housing” in its broadest sense to include housing vouchers and subsidized private developments as well as publicly managed projects. While Marcuse’s more radical proposals (an expansion of the welfare state, the banning of competition among cities, and the legalization of squatting) may not be presently politically feasible, they do highlight the need for the federal government to play the leading role in addressing the fundamental causes of poverty and spatial segregation, in particular, limited education and training, unemployment, single-parenthood, among others. In chapter 2, Ceri Peach criticizes the Chicago School of sociologists for failing to make a distinction between ghettos and ethnic enclaves, and for incorrectly assuming that the ghetto, the enclave, and suburban dispersal are three spatial stages in the inevitable process of ethnic assimilation . The experience of Blacks in Chicago and elsewhere in the United States refutes this three-stage model. First, black residential concentrations have been different in scale and in kind from those of ethnic Whites. White European immigrants typically lived in ethnically mixed areas, while urban Blacks typically lived in predominantly black areas. As for suburbanization, “in the case of African Americans, outward movement did not always equate to dispersal. The ghetto moved out with them like the tongue of a glacier” (p. 37). Second, the Chicago School failed to predict that some white ethnic groups, such as Orthodox Jews, would continue to maintain high levels of segregation even as they shifted to the suburbs. Unlike Blacks, however , these high levels of residential segregation reflected voluntary choices and were not (as was the case for Blacks) a function of discriminatory practices. Not only do we need to distinguish between enclaves and ghettos, we need to understand that there are three different types of enclaves apparent in North American and European cities. The first type is the “persistent enclave” as exemplified by Chinatown in New York City. The second type is the “voluntary plural relocated model” an example being the relocation of Jews from the impoverished East End of London to the northern Varady: Desegregating the City page 2 2 Desegregating the City affluent suburb of Golders Green. Finally, the “parachuted suburban” model refers to an area that receives affluent ethnic members directly from the home country; for instance, Hong Kong Chinese in...