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Spatial Patterns of Residential Segregation in a Southern City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Robin Flowerdew
Robin Flowerdew
Affiliation:
Geography at the University of Lancaster, Bailrigg, Lancaster.This study was completed with the assistance of a grant from the Nuffield Foundation Social Sciences Small Grants Scheme.
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Extract

The black population of an American city is usually thought of as concentrated in the inner city, close to downtown, in areas characterized by ageing housing, high population density and slum conditions. General treatments of black residential areas in American cities tend to make little distinction between conditions in different parts of the country. But although it is true that the black ghetto is a ubiquitous and surprisingly similar feature of Northern and Western cities, there are good grounds for regarding the experience of Southern cities as significantly different. This distinction has been noted by the Taeubers and by Rose, but has not yet been developed in detail.

The main objective of this paper is to develop an alternative model of the spatial pattern of residential segregation appropriate to Southern cities, and to describe its applicability to Memphis, Tennessee. First the standard model of ghetto development will be outlined, and some reasons suggested why it may not be applicable in the South. After developing a model applicable to Southern cities, some of its practical consequences for ghetto residents will be indicated. Then Memphis will be examined to see how far the suggested model reflects experience there. In addition to a discussion of the spatial form of black residential areas in Memphis, some of the historical and contemporary processes controlling their development will be outlined.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , April 1979 , pp. 93 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 Taeuber, Karl E. and Taeuber, Alma F., Negroes in Cities (Chicago, 1965)Google Scholar; Rose, Harold M., “The Origins and Patterns of Development of Urban Black Social Areas,” Journal of Geography, 68 (1969), 326–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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12 Ibid.

13 Taeuber and Taeuber, p. 104.

14 Morrill, Richard L., “The Negro Ghetto: Problems and Alternatives,” Geographical Review, 55 (1965), 339–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rose, pp. 326–32.

15 Figure 4 is based closely on Figure 1.2 in Rose, Harold M., The Black Ghetto: A Spatial Behavioral Perspective (New York, 1971), p. 9Google Scholar.

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