Hypersegregation
Hypersegregation is a term used to describe the severe physical and social separation of racial or ethnic groups, particularly in urban environments. This phenomenon often confines minority groups, particularly African Americans and Latinos, to neighborhoods characterized by inadequate educational resources and limited economic opportunities. As a result, individuals in hypersegregated areas face significant challenges in accessing essential services, including healthcare, which can adversely affect their overall well-being.
The concept encompasses various dimensions of segregation identified by sociologists Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, such as evenness, exposure, clustering, centralization, and concentration. When multiple dimensions of segregation are present simultaneously, hypersegregation becomes evident. According to research, nearly one-third of Black metropolitan residents lived in hypersegregated areas as of 2010, although some statistics indicate a slight decline in hypersegregation among Black individuals in more recent census data. Conversely, some minority groups, such as Asian Americans, have seen an increase in hypersegregation.
The roots of hypersegregation are often attributed to systemic issues like housing discrimination, which disproportionately impacts low-income minority families. Understanding hypersegregation is crucial for addressing the broader social inequalities and driving meaningful change in urban policy and community development.
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Hypersegregation
The term “hypersegregation” refers to the excessive physical and social separation of a class, ethnic, or racial group by forcing the group, usually through institutional arrangements, to reside in a limited area or neighborhood with low-quality educational facilities and few economic opportunities.
According to sociologists Norman A. Anderson and Cheryl Armstead, many minority group members, especially African Americans and Latinos who live in large metropolitan areas in the United States, experience hypersegregation. This phenomenon creates a state of extreme isolation from resources that allow people to improve their social and economic well-being. The isolation also diminishes people’s ability to obtain adequate healthcare and thus negatively affects their health.
Hypersegregation is the result of a number of factors, one of the most prominent being pervasive housing discrimination against low-income minority group members. Noted sociologist William J. Wilson has shown that low-income people of color are more likely to live in impoverished residential areas than are low-income White Americans.
In 1989, sociologists Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton established five dimensions of segregation: evenness, or how well the percentage of minority group members in residential areas reflects their percentage of the city’s population; exposure, or how likely minority and majority group members are to come in contact with one another; clustering, or whether minority neighborhoods are distributed throughout the city or grouped together in one large ghetto; centralization, or how many minority group members reside in urban centers rather than more affluent suburbs; and concentration, or the physical space occupied per minority group member. Low degrees of evenness and exposure and high degrees of clustering, centralization, and concentration are all indicators of segregation. Hypersegregation, according to Massey and Denton, is when several of these dimensions occur at once.
According to demographers Douglas Massey and Jonathan Tannen in 2015, approximately one-third of all Black metropolitan residents in the United States lived in a hypersegregated area in 2010. Data from the 2020 census showed declines in hypersegregation for some minorities such as Black individuals from White individuals. However, the number remains high at almost one-quarter of Black residents living in hypersegregrated areas. The data also showed a rise in hypersegregation for other minority groups, such as Asian Americans.
Bibliography
Denton, Nancy A. “Segregation and Discrimination in Housing.” A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda. Ed. Rachel G. Bratt, Michael E. Stone, and Chester Hartman. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2006. 61–81.
Eitle, David. “Dimensions of Racial Segregation, Hypersegregation, and Black Homicide Rates.” Journal of Criminal Justice 37.1 (2009): 28–36.
Elbers, Benjamin. “Trends in U.S. Residential Racial Segregation, 1990 to 2020.” Socius, vol. 7, 2021, doi.org/10.1177/23780231211053982. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
Massey, Douglas, and Jonathan Tannen. “A Research Note on Trends in Black Hypersegregation.” Demography, vol. 52, no. 3, 2015, pp. 1025–34. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=heh&AN=103187599&site=eds-live. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. “Hypersegregation in US Metropolitan Areas: Black and Hispanic Segregation along Five Dimensions.” Demography 26.3 (1989): 373–91.
Oliver, J. Eric. The Paradoxes of Integration: Race, Neighborhood, and Civic Life in Multiethnic America. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010.
Wilkes, Rima, and John Iceland. “Hypersegregation in the Twenty-First Century.” Demography 41.1 (2004): 23–36.
Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012.
Yinger, John. Closed Doors, Opportunities Lost: The Continuing Costs of Housing Discrimination. New York: Sage, 1995.