Artikel

Residentiële segregatie in een stedelijk milieu

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Abstract

Residential segregation in an urban environment — During the last decade, local governments have been changing the way in which urban redevelopment took place during the 6o’s. Men and the city as a place where men live have become one of the more central aspects in urban renewal processes. The establishment of residential areas where rich and poor, old and young live together is assumed by local government to promote residential integration. This is in contradiction with the evolution during the last thirty years when segregation reached its climax. The present article deals with the question of social integration in conflict with some established aspects of residential segregation. It is believed that residential segregation has some institutionalized aspects, which throws doubt on the success of moves towards integration acts. Residential segregation is defined as follows: when in a territorial environment, on the grounds of positional characteristics (profession, degree of schooling, age) and/of way of living, some categories of people are located preponderantly in individual, separate living areas or are using individual, separate services. The first part of the article gives an idea of the growth of residential segregation in the course of time. It is interesting to note that the process of segregation starts after the Industrial Revolution, because of the increasing complexity of our social organization and our social life. The perception and knowledge of the position of people declined. In retrospect, the location of the house was one of the possibilities, maybe the only one, to make visible one’s status position. In the first decades after the Industrial Revolution the way of building the house was sufficient, and this remained so until the Second World War. After the war, as a result of increasing prosperity, many people were able to afford a respectable house. Extreme residential segregation reflected a need to make obvious the differentiation among people of diverse social strata. It is a fact that since the war, and especially during the sixties, residential segregation has become an interesting phenomenon for people interested in urban sociology. The second part of the article deals with five institutionalized or established aspects of residential segregation. The first illustrates residential segregation as a process of adaptation. In our society, everyone has a social position, evaluated differently and hierarchically. Society expects in accordance with one’s social position a certain way of life. In that way residential segregation can be an adaptation to the wishes of society. On the other hand, people believe in status. Segregation can then be an adaptation to their own wishes. The second aspect concerns residential segregation as an indicator of status. People having the same characteristics and living together create a mental map of the city. The constituent element of the map indicates one’s status. Every city dweller knows the map. The third aspect relates to the fact that residential segregation helps people, if they are mobile, on the social ladder. The fourth aspect shows the relationship between segregation and neighborhood integration. This integration is very important in lower class neighbourhoods in the inner towns. It is therefore a firmly established aspect in people’s lives. The final aspect is that residential segregation has the possibility to minimize social conflicts. The introduction of a lot of people of another social status into a homogeneous neighbourhood can create conflicts, thus disturbing the established social position and power relations. Our conclusion is that from a theoretical point of view, success is not guaranteed by creating differentiation in a neighbourhood in terms of social status. It will be interesting to conduct empirical research into the actual values of these aspects.

How to Cite:

De Decker, P., (1982) “Residentiële segregatie in een stedelijk milieu”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 27(3), 263–281. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.94825