Social Isolation of Disadvantage and Advantage: The Reproduction of Inequality in Urban Space

In this article, we extend research on neighborhood social isolation by (1) examining residents of disadvantaged and advantaged communities and (2) considering the character of neighborhoods where people conduct routine activities away from home. We contend that social isolation is experienced by residents of both highly disadvantaged and highly advantaged neighborhoods because the two groups spend time in largely nonoverlapping parts of the city. Individual and neighborhood race-ethnic dynamics exacerbate such social isolation. Data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey show that social isolation is experienced by residents of all areas of the city, whether highly disadvantaged or advantaged. African Americans, Latinos and residents of areas with many Latinos suffer additional penalties in the social isolation of disadvantage in where they conduct routine activities.

[1]  G. Green,et al.  SOCIAL ISOLATION OF THE URBAN POOR: Race, Class, and Neighborhood Effects on Social Resources , 1997 .

[2]  Mary E Pattillo-McCoy,et al.  Black Picket Fences: Privileges and Peril among the Black Middle Class , 1999 .

[3]  C. Luk,et al.  The Logic of Ethnic Business Distribution in Multiethnic Cities , 2008 .

[4]  I. Luckey : American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass , 1995 .

[5]  Barrett A. Lee,et al.  Racial Diversity and Change in Metropolitan Neighborhoods. , 2011, Social science research.

[6]  W. Wilson,et al.  The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy. , 1988 .

[7]  W. Wilson More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City , 2009 .

[8]  B. Reskin The Race Discrimination System , 2012 .

[9]  J. Vallejo,et al.  The immigrant narrative and 'giving back' among the Mexican-origin middle class , 2009 .

[10]  John R. Logan,et al.  Segregation of minorities in the metropolis: two decades of change , 2004, Demography.

[11]  Mary J. Fischer,et al.  The Geography of Inequality in the United States, 1950-2000 , 2003 .

[12]  Erica R. Edwards Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class , 2002 .

[13]  M. Lagory,et al.  Unhealthy Cities: Poverty, Race, and Place in America , 2010 .

[14]  Sean F. Reardon,et al.  The geographic scale of Metropolitan racial segregation , 2008, Demography.

[15]  Rima Wilkes,et al.  Hypersegregation in the twenty-first century , 2004, Demography.

[16]  Maria Krysan,et al.  The Residential Preferences of Blacks: Do They Explain Persistent Segregation? , 2002 .

[17]  D. Pager,et al.  The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets. , 2008, Annual review of sociology.

[18]  John R. Hipp Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-Spatial Divide , 2011 .

[19]  Mary J. Fischer The Relative Importance of Income and Race in Determining Residential Outcomes in U.S. Urban Areas, 1970-2000 , 2003 .

[20]  Christopher Winship,et al.  Sampling Weights and Regression Analysis , 1994 .

[21]  John R Logan,et al.  The Geography of Inequality , 2012, Sociology of education.

[22]  Rachel E. Dwyer Expanding Homes and Increasing Inequalities: U.S. Housing Development and the Residential Segregation of the Affluent , 2007 .

[23]  Mei-Po Kwan,et al.  VISUALISATION OF SOCIO‐SPATIAL ISOLATION BASED ON HUMAN ACTIVITY PATTERNS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS IN SPACE‐TIME , 2011 .

[24]  M. Kwan The Uncertain Geographic Context Problem , 2012 .

[25]  Douglas S. Massey,et al.  The age of extremes: Concentrated affluence and poverty in the twenty-first century , 1996, Demography.

[26]  W. Wilson,et al.  Book Review: When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor , 1997 .

[27]  Bruce H. Rankin,et al.  Neighborhood Poverty and the Social Isolation of Inner-City African American Families , 2000 .

[28]  J. Logan,et al.  Global Neighborhoods: New Pathways to Diversity and Separation1 , 2010, American Journal of Sociology.

[29]  M. Small Racial Differences in Networks: Do Neighborhood Conditions Matter? , 2007 .

[30]  John Hagan,et al.  Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-Spatial Divide , 2010 .

[31]  Robert J. Sampson,et al.  Durable effects of concentrated disadvantage on verbal ability among African-American children , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[32]  Claude S. Fischer,et al.  Appendices to : “ Distinguishing the Geographic Levels and Social Dimensions of U . S . Metropolitan Segregation , 1960-2000 , 2004 .

[33]  A. Harrell Drugs, Crime, and Social Isolation: Barriers to Urban Opportunity , 1994 .

[34]  R. Sampson,et al.  ASSESSING "NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS": Social Processes and New Directions in Research , 2002 .

[35]  D. Massey,et al.  The Spatial Concentration of Affluence and Poverty during the 1970s , 1993 .

[36]  D. Massey American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass , 1993 .

[37]  S. Smith Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System , 2008 .

[38]  Susan Clampet-Lundquist,et al.  “Everyone Had Your Back”: Social Ties, Perceived Safety, and Public Housing Relocation , 2010 .

[39]  Douglas S. Massey,et al.  Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System , 2007 .