Prananda,

Furnivall was perhaps the first to notice segregation by residence in his Colonial Policy and Practice. Whether this sorting was by dynamic external or internal to each community is unknown. Certainly there were areas of early cities with ethnic/religious diffrentiation such as the Sur Lawati in Matrah, Oman for Khoja Muslim traders and their families (it was even protected by walls and a gate). Elsewhere the sorting process may have occurred for functionality and perceived security. In the U.S. where ethnic segregation has occurred in response to migration, it was often the realtors who "red lined" neighborhoods and either refused to show houses in some areas or channeled migrants into other areas. This has been illegal for some time now. Harold Rose found that as neighborhoods received more black migrants, then there seemed to be a tipping point at which non-black residents left the neighborhood. Gentrification in modern times is also a way that housing value/lifestyle is used in market terms to change the pre-existing social mix of residents. This latter is largely a function of market dynamics rather than planners, since planning in the U.S. is mostly of an advisory (rather than a regulatory) nature.

Thank you for sharing your insight, David. I agree with you on functionality and perceived security; during the colonial times, the Chinese in Indonesia were confined in the Chinese quarters and were allowed access to the interior using an access pass. I reckon it would make an interesting investigation: questioning whether sorting was by dynamic external or internal factors to each community.

Prananda.

The main feature that is used for Public Managers and urbanists to perpetuate this true crime, relocation of populations to more remote areas and far of the places prized, is the absence of area to build social equipment for the population rehoused.

But all this is just a pretext and do not represent reality. The only way to combat this is through a participative democracy, the social mobilization of groups most socially disadvantaged and give the real name of these policies, ie, calls them clearly as hygienists and eugenics policies. This is not a technical problem of Architects and Urbanists, it is a political issue.

In Brazil there has never been an explicit policy to create ethnic enclaves or ghettos, but until the 80s were employed implicit when implementing for slums urbanization. Until this time there was a criminal practice and unscrupulous socially disadvantaged populations move to urban areas, but away from the central regions.

But returning to the main point, it is not a technical problem but a political problem and political problems should be solved by political solutions.

Profs. Navitas and Maestri,

The importance of the political dimension cannot be underestimated. When ethnic enclaves/"ghetto-ization" occurs it is not likely the choice of the residents so segregated. This is a particular problem of modern times -- 20th century to present. As scholars we have not carefully documented what has been happening. We have used measures such as dissimilarity index numbers -- easy to use and to comprehend. Please see my colleague, Joe Darden's, work on U.S. cities. A partial work-around is calculating a "replacement index" that gives a numeric value to the proportion of the minority group that would have to move neighborhood jurisdictions to make an equal distribution of social groupings. At the same time, we need to recognize that censuses (or other institutions funded by the status quo) must provide the data to calculate these measures. But it is entirely possible that in selected countries it was not recognized that published data give good clues to geo-social transformations that have been forced. Best to you!

I Prananda and David, we have a problem without a solution. A problem of definition and quantification of a social reality. Prananda proposed an question into the reality of India, I know that little bit the Indian reality (only via information from third parties, which is the most dangerous of all), and David, who I've been looking his work, have an excellent insight of Indian history through the eyes of an Occidental.

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These three people, who seem extremely concerned with the same problem, take different paths. Prananda describes a reality that seems to me the anguish.

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I tried to trace a parallel with the reality that I live, and have tried to show the significance policy as a solution to the problem, David, as a good scientist in the field of geography, uses mathematical parameters (dissimilarity and replacemente indices ) to quantify and establish public policies . Ie, three different views and three approaches of the same problem. .

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So we are dealing with a difficult problem to contextualize, define and physical quantification. I think we arrived at a conceptual gridlock. Any physical quantification taken of reality from different country, describing the level of ethnic or social enclaves, has to be read differently.

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Perhaps the major obtained conclusion is that unfortunately we do not have much to say Prananda, but on the other hand we can talk about what our problems and virtues, and Prananda choose the better.

Hi David, hi Rogerio..

I must say this is turning out to be quite a discussion. If I'm not mistaken, Joe Darden's "replacement index" sounds a lot like what the Singaporean government has done to create an integrated/mixed society. However, some literatures mention that spatial distance does not equal social distance. Hence spatial integration does not (always) equal social integration. I have to say that I agree to a certain extent with the idea.

Rogerio, I appreciate your pointing out the political dimension on ethnic enclaves. If we look at historic data we may find numerous indicators of the political dimension. I'd like to quote David: the sorting process may have occurred for functionality and perceived security. You viewed this as "hygienist" and "eugenics". It may be so during colonial times and/or times of political unrest.

Let's say that ethnic enclaves are things of the past. For instance, in Australia there are many Chinatowns that are no longer Chinese. They are still occupied by a predominantly Asian population (namely Vietnamese), but it is still known as Chinatown, and Chinese culture is still celebrated in the area (Chinese New Year). For memory's sake?

It might be interesting to see how migrant communities engage in the process of place-making in their non-native environment, and then observe what happens to that very place once the original migrant community no longer occupy the space.

Just to illustrate something that arrives to be anecdotal. Until the early twentieth century Paris was a city with a comparatively small social stratification. In the XX century that people began to redistribute in "arrondissements" (rich or poor). And you know what has changed the scenario? The spread of elevators!

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Before the existence of the elevators, the upper floors were occupied by the poorest people, and the ground floor or the first floor by the wealthiest!

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David. What is the coefficient that would be used for this? :)

As Rogerio illustrates I would recommend looking at the "Red Vienna" (1919-1932) projects and the trends of Social democrats (SD) in Vienna since then in providing subsidised housing. The important thing is how the Municipality owns land and when land has a price equal or close to "0" housing developments can be political, economic and socially developed. It is not "a golden panacea" but there are many answers in how for almost a 100 years SD have developed an interesting scenario. Today it seems that new visions are required but Red Vienna and many Hof-buildings build throughout many years have tied together the city with an important way of addressing city and urban growth; urban design, architectural solutions, mixed uses, mixed social groups.

Our Latin American cities suffer from segregation, and many other syndromes which, as cities grow become less and less addressable and investments plus political will are not at hand.