Segregation as a multiscalar phenomenon and its implications for neighborhood-scale research: the case of South Seattle 1990–2010

Abstract

Neighborhoods and neighborhood change are often at least implicitly understood in relation to processes taking place at scales both smaller than and larger than the neighborhood itself. Until recently our capacity to represent these multi-scalar processes with quantitative measures has been limited. Recent work on “segregation profiles” by Reardon and collaborators (Reardon et al., 2008, 2009) expands our capacity to explore the relationship between population measures and scale. With the methodological tools now available, we need a conceptual shift in how we view population measures in order to bring our theories and measures of neighborhoods into alignment. I argue that segregation can be beneficially viewed as multi-scalar; not a value calculable at some ‘correct’ scale, but a continuous function with respect to scale. This shift requires new ways of thinking about and analyzing segregation with respect to scale that engage with the complexity of the multi-scalar measure. Using block level data for eight neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington I explore the implications of a multi-scalar segregation measure for understanding neighborhoods and neighborhood change from 1990 to 2010.

The scale of segregation: ancestral groups in Sydney, 2011

“…We first illustrate cartographically the veracity of Fowler's argument regarding the multi-scalar nature of residential segregation there, and then report results of the modelling -rigorous statement of the extent to which each of the groups analysed is segregated at each scale, nett of any segregation at higher scale levels. Fowler (2015) and Lee et al (2008, 785) also argued that their findings indicated 'an even greater need for scale-specific theorizing' -though neither undertook this task -and in a final section we essay a preface to such a theorization.…”

“…But it may have wider application. One criticism of some segregation studies is that their descriptive value is not backed up by a comparable (theoretical) appreciation of processes -a challenge that applies in particular, as Fowler (2015) has stressed, to studies of segregation as a multi-scalar phenomenon. This study of Sydney has addressed that challenge by outlining an explanatory framework that explicitly addresses the multi-scalar processes leading to the observed patterns.…”

Spatial scale and measuring segregation: illustrated by the formation of Chicago’s ghetto

“…It has directly addressed an issue raised explicitly by Fowler (2015), though implicit in a number of other studies, that segregation is a multi-scalar concept, not only in the spatial patterns that it displays but also in its underpinning processes. Using both an idealised set of cities and then data on the distribution of Black and White Chicago residents at four early-twentieth-century censuses, it has deployed a newly-developed, multi-level modelling strategy that identifies the intensity of segregation in the distribution of a population group at any spatial scale independent of its intensity at any larger scale within which the smaller areal units analysed are nested.…”

“…Fowler (2015) has however recently argued that segregation patterns result from the operation of location-decision processes at a number of spatial scales, and that analyses should take this into account. (This point was first made some sixty years before - Kish, 1954 -but largely ignored since.)…”

“…(The scale issue was formally addressed by Haggett, 1964, 1965-following Krumbein and Slack, 1956 -but not in the context of residential segregation.) It argues that if segregation is studied at one scale in the context of any segregation at a larger scale, then it may not be the case that the finer the spatial scale analysed the greater the observed intensity of segregation; it may be that -reflecting the location-decision-making processes discussed by Fowler (2015) -members of a group are strongly concentrated within a few segments of a metropolitan area but that, within those segments, they are fairly evenly distributed. Whether that -or some other situation -is the case is exemplified first here by a set of ideal type exemplars, and then by an empirical analysis of Black segregation in Chicago at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.…”