Residential Segregation And Social Construction

Historically, Americans have always been segregated by race, ethnicity, and income (Walker, Spohn, and DeLone 109.) With different perceptions, stems social construction for different communities. Social construction is a theory that holds the development of social attached labels as understandings of the world (Boghossian). Furthermore, ascribed or written labels onto society. Ascribed labels written onto society forms segregation within society. A socially constructed example is residential segregation. Residential segregation is the physical separation of two or more clusters of people into different areas. Different areas and environments of living foster images of inequality. The existence of residential segregation results from housing discrimination, personal choice, systematic steering, and realtor bias, which in turn impacts opportunities for non-whites with regard to assets, social interaction, education and employment. In addition, the effect of residential segregation has a relationship to crime. Despite federal and state laws outlawing housing discrimination, segregation is still in existence (Walker, Spohn, and Delone 110). With housing discrimination, there are constant norms. For suburban areas, homes tend to have stable foundation building, adequate infrastructure, adequate landscape grooming, and a cooperative community of the majority, with little to no crime; whereas low income areas have pollution, high crime rates, and poor infrastructure, mainly of minorities. Personal choice plays a role in residential segregation, with regards to the cross-race effect. A theory that holds people are more comfortable with recognizing faces from their own race than others (Bornstein et al). Applied to residential segregation, people prefer to live around their own race versus another because there is a sense of belonging. An example of systematic steering playing a role in explaining residential segregation is redlining. Redlining is the practice of denying and limiting financial resources to specific neighborhoods because those neighborhoods fall within the minority community (Encyclopedia). Although this governmental practice of systematic steering is outlawed, it’s still covertly present through, where the use of a subprime or prime loan is required if one cannot purchase a home wholesale. A subprime loan is a high interest rated loan given to people who have financial difficulty; whereas a prime loan has a low interest rate given to credit worthy applicants. Realtor bias plays a factor in residential segregation by navigating a minority or majority from a residential area based on their racial and ethnic class. Residential segregation places a burden on minorities by limiting education, employment, social integration and asset building. Education is limited due to poor learning, the lack of encouraging teachers, extracurricular activities, and tools for social advancement. Residential segregation affects asset building because accumulation of wealth is key to survival, as it serves as collateral. A distinct way to accumulate wealth is through homeownership. However, with systematic discrimination, minorities cannot buy a house …show more content…
Residential segregation inhibits the advancement of education, employment, social integration and asset building. These factors contribute to the deterioration of neighborhoods, directly linking to crime (Walker, Spohn, and DeLone 111). Creation and perpetuation of racial inequalities present in residential segregation, hinders the progress for cultural advancement. If cultural advancement is stagnated, communities cannot obtain cultural (education, knowledge, skills/trade) and social (network of friends, family and contact) capital. Obtaining social and cultural capital fosters a well-being society that produces quality economically and