Racialized Topographies: Altitude and Race in Southern Cities

Abstract

ABSTRACT. This study examines altitudinal residential segregation by race in 146 cities in the U.S. South. It begins by embedding the topic in recent theorizations of the social construction of nature, the geography of race, and environmental justice. Second, it focuses on how housing markets, particularly in the South, tend to segregate minorities in low‐lying, flood‐prone, and amenity‐poor segments of urban areas. It tests empirically the hypothesis that blacks are disproportionately concentrated in lower‐altitude areas using gis to correlate race and elevation by digital elevation‐model block group within each city in 1990 and 2000. The statistical results confirm the suspected trend. A map of coefficients indicates strong positive associations in cities in the interior South‐where the hypothesis is confirmed‐and an inverse relationship near the coast, where whites dominate higher‐valued coastal properties. Selected city case studies demonstrate these relationships connecting the broad dynamics of racial segregation to the particularities of individual places.

Flooding the Vote: Hurricane Katrina and Voter Participation in New Orleans

“…It is important to keep in mind that our population is registered voters, not the potentially larger population of New Orleans residents. We might anticipate a different racial distribution of flood depth given the existing analysis of aggregate data on race, residents, and susceptibility to flooding (Ueland & Warf, 2006). Our data indicate that non-White registered voters were not more susceptible to high flood depths than non-Whites as seen in appendix Table A3.…”

Urban Lightning: Current Research, Methods, and the Geographical Perspective

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Geography, Race, and Quantification

“…A segment of subprime lenders is targeting segregated neighborhoods with high cost loans. (NCRC 2007, 9) Residential housing and race are also the subjects of Ueland and Warf's (2006) work. In a creative study, they examined the relationship between altitude and race.…”