Social-Spatial Segregation: Concepts, Processes and ...

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Christopher D. Lloyd, Ian G. Shuttleworth, and David W. S. Wong. Bris- ... Mark Ellis, and Steven Holloway reveals new forms of white concentra- tion using a ...
American Journal of Sociology Social-Spatial Segregation: Concepts, Processes and Outcomes. Edited by Christopher D. Lloyd, Ian G. Shuttleworth, and David W. S. Wong. Bristol: Policy Press, 2014. Pp. xiv1438. $110.00. Marco Garrido University of Chicago Social-Spatial Segregation: Concepts, Processes and Outcomes began in conversations among geographers about how best to measure residential segregation. Editors Christopher D. Lloyd, Ian G. Shuttleworth, and David W. S. Wong remain true to its origins throughout, falling squarely within the tradition of geographers “focusing on spatilizing segregation measures that were originally introduced mostly by sociologists” (in the words of one of its editors, p. 47). Empirically, the book treats cases of segregation in the United Kingdom and the United States, with one chapter on Sweden. Substantively, the book is focused on better documenting the spatial patterns of segregated groups and on dealing with issues of spatial scale, notably the modifiable areal unit problem—the pesky MAUP (the problem being that segregation levels change depending on the population size of statistical areas). The authors take advantage of new population data and employ new methods drawn from econometrics and geostatistics. The book is divided into three sections: “Concepts,” (i.e., conceptualizing segregation with an eye to better measuring it), “Processes,” and “Outcomes.” The chapters in the concepts section focus on constructing finer and more spatialized measures of segregation. The sections by Wong (chap. 3) and Lloyd, Gemma Catney, and Shuttleworth (chap. 4) use measures of, respectively, spatial proximity and spatial interaction. The chapter by Antonio Páez et al. constructs a microgeography of segregation using a statistical measure of spatial colocation, and the one by Richard Wright, Mark Ellis, and Steven Holloway reveals new forms of white concentration using a neighborhood racial taxonomy. The chapter by John Östh, Bo Malmberg, and Eva Andersson uses GIS to reconceptualize neighborhoods in a way that takes individuals into account (in order to circumvent the difficulties associated with the MAUP), and the one by Pablo Mateos deploys a multidimensional measure of ethnicity in order to more precisely delineate the population groups being segregated. The processes section considers the impact on segregation of various generally understudied mechanisms: internal and age-differentiated migration, the flow of students from primary to secondary school, choice-based social housing, and housing submarkets. In the outcomes section, chapters consider the impact of segregation on health in Northern Ireland; class segregation at urban, national, and global scales; and the “good” and “bad” effects of segregation in two midsize U.S. cities. 614

Book Reviews Ultimately, the book is distinguished by its methodological innovations (in all sections). It makes no overarching substantive argument about segregation. The empirical findings of its various chapters are modest and seem incidental compared to their novel and sophisticated use of spatial techniques. The book succeeds in bringing spatial considerations to bear on the problem of measuring segregation. This constitutes a contribution, to be sure, but a very specific one. The larger issue is that the study of segregation is disarticulated, and so it would be easy to mistake this volume as representing the field as a whole. Thus I feel compelled to restate a point made by Robert Park some time ago. Segregation is foremost a social fact, and it is for this reason that spatial patterns have sociological meaning. “It is because social relations are so frequently and so inevitably correlated with spatial relations; because physical distances so frequently are, or seem to be, the indexes of social distances, that statistics have any significance whatever for sociology” (Human Communities [Free Press, 1952], p. 177). From my perspective as an ethnographer, this point seems to have become obscured by a focus, abetted by new techniques, on getting the boundaries right—a focus largely divorced from the more substantive questions of why and how these boundaries matter in the first place. More important than documenting spatial patterns ever more precisely is establishing what these patterns say about social divisions. Viewing segregation more broadly as the correlation of social and spatial distances requires thinking more deeply about how segregation affects social groups—for instance, whether it plays a role in constituting, and not merely reinforcing, group identity. Taking the broader view requires articulating different ways of thinking about and approaching segregation. This means bringing disparate research areas into conversation—urban demography, urban ethnography, social exclusion, social boundaries, space and place, and urban fragmentation in the global South—partly in order to establish a common research agenda. The urban fragmentation literature is largely concerned with the segregation of the poor in slums and the middle class in residential enclaves, but it tends not to use the term segregation, probably because the term connotes a very particular urban experience: “ghettoes” in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia. It is as if segregation only happens in northern cities and sociospatial exclusion in southern ones. Looking at cities like Manila, São Paulo, and Mumbai in terms of segregation will broaden both our conceptualization of segregation and our understanding of how it works. In short, I am calling for segregation to break out of its boxes—conceptual (not spatial patterns but spatialized social divisions), methodological (articulating quantitative and qualitative research), and empirical (also looking at southern cities in terms of segregation).

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