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Concept
Residential segregation in the United States
Summary
Residential segregation is the physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods—a form of segregation that "sorts population groups into various neighborhood contexts and shapes the living environment at the neighborhood level". While it has traditionally been associated with racial segregation, it generally refers to the separation of populations based on some criteria (e.g. race, ethnicity, income/class).
While overt segregation is illegal in the United States, housing patterns show significant and persistent segregation along racial and class lines. The history of American social and public policies, like Jim Crow laws and the Federal Housing Administration's early redlining policies, set the tone for segregation in housing that has sustained consequences for present-day residential patterns.
Trends in residential segregation are attributed to discriminatory policies and practices, such as exclusionary zoning, location of public housing, redlining, disinvestment, and gentrification, as well as personal attitudes and preferences. Residential segregation produces negative socioeconomic outcomes for minority groups, influencing disparities in educational opportunity, access to health care and food, and employment. Public policies for housing reform, like the Housing Choice Voucher program, attempt to promote integration and mitigate these negative effects, but with mixed results.
In the early 1900s, U.S. cities were largely integrated, with working-class, typically immigrant, White families living in the same neighborhoods as working-class Black families. However, the early 1930s marked the beginning of discriminatory housing policies. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted New Deal reforms that involved segregating some of these integrated working-class neighborhoods. To combat a housing shortage due to the Great Depression, FDR started public housing projects for working-class families, all of which were segregated, and most of which were limited to White people.
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