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American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
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1990
Year
EducationRacial DisparitiesRacial Segregation StudiesAfrican American HistoryBlack ExperienceSocial SciencesRaceContemporary RacismUrban SocietyPoverty ConcentrationAfrican American StudiesRacial EquityHousingSocial InequalityPublic PolicyUrban PolicyRacial JusticeDisadvantaged BackgroundJim Crow HistoryUrban UnderclassRacial ViolenceAfrican American SlaverySociologyUrban EconomicsAmerican Apartheid
Rising poverty and high residential segregation together explain where, why, and among which groups the urban underclass emerged. The article argues that racial segregation is crucial to explaining the emergence of the urban underclass during the 1970s. The argument is tested with simulations that replicate 1970s metropolitan economic conditions for blacks and whites under varying levels of racial and class segregation. Simulations show that a modest rise in minority poverty dramatically increases poverty concentration in segregated cities, leading to deteriorated neighborhoods with high crime, poor schools, excessive mortality, and welfare‑dependent, female‑headed families, implying that anti‑poverty policies alone will fail without addressing housing discrimination.
This article argues that racial segregation is crucial to explaining the emergence of the urban underclass during the 1970s. A strong interaction between rising rates of poverty and high levels of residential segregation explains where, why and in which groups the underclass arose. This argument is developed with simulations that replicate the economic conditions observed among blacks and whites in metropolitan areas during the 1970s but assume different conditions of racial and class segregation. These data show how a simple increase in the rate of minority poverty leads to a dramatic rise in the concentration of poverty when it occurs within a racially segregated city. Increases in poverty concentration are, in turn, associated with other changes in the socioeconomic character of neighborhoods, transforming them into physically deteriorated areas of high crime, poor schools, and excessive mortality where welfare-dependent, female-headed families are the norm. Thus, policies to solve the socioeconomic problems of minorities will fail unless they are accompanied by measures for overcoming the disadvantages caused by racial discrimination and prejudice in the housing market.