URBAN GEOGRAPHY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

URBAN GEOGRAPHY - Essay Example This study takes a look at the concept of segregation and its implication in the city of Detroit. By taking a look at the history of segregation in Detroit, the study also tries to understand the segregation patterns and the current day scenario of segregation in the city. As mentioned earlier, geographic segregation or more appropriately, residential segregation is the level or extend to which particular groups reside separately from one another, in a particular geographic area such as a city or state (Low, 2004). Segregation, in itself, is a complex phenomenon, where the groups are segregated in a number of ways. For example, people from a minority community reside in such a way that they are often overrepresented in some particular areas and underrepresented in some others (Yinger, 2001). In addition, the same community may be residing in such a manner that their exposure to the other groups is minimized (Yinger, 2001). Similarly, particular groups may be either concentrated or centralized in a certain limited space or clustered in one particular section (Yinger, 2001). There are also particular reasons because of which segregation takes place. For example, South Africa saw legal separation because of Apartheid. Similarly, in many other countries, segregation happens because of the social status in the society or the ethnicity of the people (Johnston and Poulson, 2005). Voluntary segregation is where immigrants prefer to live in a segregated set up so that they could mutually benefit from one another (Johnston and Poulson, 2005). Segregation is measured using Index of Dissimilarity (calculates the way in which particular groups are distributed across particular locations) based on that data that emerges through census. It is often called the index of inequality also (Reardon and O Sullivan, 2004). In the United States, periodic