Residential Kaleidoscope

1
Residential Kaleidoscope
Geo309 Urban Geography
Instructor Jun Yan Geography Department SUNY at
Buffalo
2
Last Class

• Foundations of Residential Segregation
• Social interaction determined by social distance
  and physical distance
• Social distance influenced by social status,
  household types, ethnicity, lifestyle

3
Outline

• Theories In Residential Segregation Residential
  Ecology
• The Chicago School Human Ecology
• Factorial Ecology

4
Roots of Human Ecology

• Ecology, particularly social ecology
• Introduced by sociologists in University of
  Chicago in 1920s Chicago School
• Benchmark of urban social theory
• Attempt to explain residential segregation using
  ecological ideas
• City as a kind of social organism
• Consists of distinctive ecological units a
  particular mix of people in certain social niche
• They compete and struggle for existence much
  like their biological counterpart
• Social Darwinism Natural Selection

5
Natural Areas

• Natural Areas
• Much like its biological counterpart, Habitats
• which are dominated by a certain group of people
• The result of competition for living space by
  different social groups
• Each exhibits different physical and social
  attributes and life style of their inhabitants
  the field study by Harvey Zorbaugh -- The Gold
  Coast and The Slum in Chicago

6
Natural Areas

• Natural Areas
• Dynamic, change over time
• Penetration ? Invasion ? Succession ? Piling up
• S-shaped curve describes the assimilation
  process of invasion group (migrants or immigrants)

7
Burgesss Concentric Zone Model

• By Ernest Burgess in 1920s, based on observations
  in Chicago
• Two important ecological processes
• Centralization the result of agglomeration
  force in the center
• Decentralization losers move out the periphery
• A series of concentric zones An alternative land
  use model
• CBDZone in TransitionZone of Workingmans
  HomesResidential ZoneCommuters Zone

8
Burgesss Concentric Zone Model

• CBD
• Core concentration of commercial, office, civic
  activities
• Fringe manufacturing, warehousing/wholesaling,
  transportation terminal
• Zone in transition
• Invaded by commercial activities, thus
  deteriorated
• Once high-class neighborhood, taken over by much
  lower class (migrants or immigrants)
• Slum areas, high density

9
Burgesss Concentric Zone Model

• Zone of independent workingmans homes
• Blue-collar escaped from Zone in Transition
• Usually 2rd generation of migrants or immigrants
• Zone of better residence
• Middle-class or upper, single family homes, large
  yards
• Zone of Commuters
• Upper-class, most expensive single family houses
• Exurban areas, little industry, satellite towns
  or villages

10
Burgesss Concentric Zone Model
11
Burgesss Concentric Zone Model

• Burgess is more interested in the assimilation
  process of migrants or immigrants S-shaped
  curve
• 1st generation zone in transition
• 2nd generation zone of workingmans homes
• 3rd generation high-class residential or
  commuters zone
• Highly descriptive more a metaphor than a map

12
Critics of Human Ecology

• Its study area - Chicago
• The Burgess s model can only apply to cities
  with similar background a dominant core, huge
  migrants or immigrants
• Its strong ecological roots, thus lack of other
  dimensions cultural, ethnic, political,
  lifestyle
• Its Biotic analogy natural selection?Nazi/Fascist
  
• New approaches
• With less crude mechanistic/biotic analogies
  replace the termnatural areas by social areas
  or neighborhood types
• The use of statistical methods to analyze the
  patterns of the distribution of socioeconomic
  attributes within a city, part of Quantitative
  Revolution in Geography
• Most important Factorial Ecology

13
Factorial Ecology

• Comes from the term -- Factor Analysis A
  family of multivariate statistical methods
• Attempt to measure or locate the patterns of
  residential segregation based on multiple
  socioeconomic characteristics
• Various findings suggest
• Order of importance (descendent) social status ?
  household status/lifestyle ? ethnicity
• Each also has different spatial forms of
  residential patterns
• Social status sectoral
• Household status zonal
• Ethnicity clustered
• Consistent over space and time

14
Robert Murdies Diagram

• Social space
• Characterized by 3 factors socioeconomic
  status, family(household) status, and ethnicity
• Physical space
• The actual geographic space, independent from
  social space
• Social space then superimposes itself onto
  physical space
• The result a spiders web of sectoral-zonal
  lattice

15
Robert Murdies Diagram
16
Berry and Reess Model

• On top of the spiders web, there are several
  modifying factors
• Inner structures in ethnic areas additional
  differentiation based on household status and
  lifestyle

17
Berry and Reess Model

• On top of the spiders web, there are several
  modifying factors
• Star shaped growth pattern urban growth epochs
• Multiple foci commercial and industrial centers
  in periphery

18
Star-Shaped Urban Growth In Buffalo
19
Dynamics of Factorial Ecology

• The importance of various factors do change over
  time
• Types of residential factor structures
• Preindustrial family-related, kinship/social
  rank first, ethnicity second
• Colonial social rank/ethnicity/migration status
  first, family status second
• Immigrant social rank, age, gender, ethnicity
  more dominant than family status
• Industrial income (based on occupation), social
  rank/ family status first, greater heterogeneity
  in race and ethnicity second Human Ecology,
  Factorial Ecology
• Postindustrial much more fragmented, multiple
  foci, mixed result

20
Next Class

• Contemporary Residential Segregation since 1970s
• Reading chp 8. pp 217230