Summary: White Donuts Around Black Holes

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Hunter College – Spring 2013 Urban Politics – Prof. Cohen Reading Analysis 2 – Apr 23, 2013 Rita Geladze White Donuts around Black Holes A Geographical Perspective on Segregation in the Unites States The twenty first century has achieved an unprecedentent milestone in American History by electing the first African American president of the United States. The significance of this event can only be viewed in retrospect, when only a century ago blacks were legally lynched in the south at a rate of “about one person per week” (Judd and Swanstrom, 2012, p144). The shift in racial politics of America can only be understood through a careful analysis of the twentieth century and the turmoil which led to what many people like to call a “post…show more content…
al. (2004) analyzed how randomness played a role in the distribution of populations based on three characteristics – race, class, and life cycle – across various geographic levels. Segregation was measured as a value of randomness using a Theil’s H scale, where 0 was a value of complete randomness and 1 as completely intentional. The authors specifically focused on the cumulative four decade change of segregation across different geographical levels. It is important to note that the choice to analyze census data from 1960 was intentional, since it marks the onset of the civil rights movement as well as a decade following the onset of federal Housing and Highway…show more content…
al. indicate that race is the strongest factor in segregation, followed by class, and then life cycle. Even though racism is a strong determining factor, it is steadily declining whereas class segregation is increasing. Judd and Swansrom (2012) place these finding in a historical context arguing that many federal provisions enacted prior to 1960 and early in the decade contributed to these trends. As white flight incurred after World War II, sending white veterans and their families to suburbs, coupled with the expansion of highwys, the geographical makeup of the city became that of “white suburban donuts” surrounding “black inner city holes”. Judd and Swanstrom points to the 1949 Housing Act, later introduced as an Urban Renewal legislation, as a way to combat the highly segregated “slums”, dominated by poor African Americans, in order to beautify the city under the guise of affordable housing (2012, p180-191). By 1960, an “urban crisis” (Judd and Swanstrom, 2012, p139) was declared and de-segregation measures were taken by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 (Judd and Swanstrom, 2012, p187). Following the post 1960 analysis of Judd and Swanstrom, it coincides with the findings of Fischer et. al. in the sense that it declares that segregation was eased due to the high influx of immigrants, which made segregation an issue similar to that of the 1920’s – natives (whether black or white) are segregating themselves form immigrants (mainly Hispanics
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