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. Burgess’s 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 • CBD—Zone in Transition—Zone of Workingman’s Homes—Residential Zone—Commuter’s Zone

8. Burgess’s 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. Burgess’s Concentric Zone Model • Zone of independent workingman’s 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. Burgess’s Concentric Zone Model

11. Burgess’s 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 workingman’s homes • 3rd generation = high-class residential or commuter’s 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 term—”natural 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 Murdie’s 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 spider’s web of sectoral-zonal lattice

15. Robert Murdie’s Diagram

16. Berry and Rees’s Model • On top of the spider’s web, there are several modifying factors: • Inner structures in ethnic areas: additional differentiation based on household status and lifestyle

17. Berry and Rees’s Model • On top of the spider’s 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 217~230