ay iThis essay will attempt to show evidence that supports the question ‘Does residential segregation shape the social life of cities and people’s sense of who they are’ by using the different types of evidence used in DD102, such as qualitative, which comes from interviews, focus groups, or even pictures and other such artistic endeavours like murals. Whilst quantitative is usually obtained from statistics, surveys and records. Evidence will be looked at by what has appeared over time, by looking at the growth of Manchester during 1800’s, with the migration of people from the country side, to the city to take up jobs of an industrial nature and how segregation kept the wealthy and workers apart and to the inequalities of conditions they lived in. Then at more recent evidence showing how segregation can create connections as well as disconnections in people’s lives and how this can shape peoples sense of who they are.
Firstly, what is ‘Residential Segregation’? The Oxford Dictionary of Sociology says it’s the ‘social process that results in certain individuals or social groups being kept apart with little or no interaction between them’ (Scott,J, 2014) and how this process can erect social and spatial boundaries between groups,which in turn creates both connections and disconnections. which is simply saying it is the separation of different classes, ethnicities of people into different groups, which in turn puts up social barriers and effects the distribution of the population and thus shapes their everyday living environments at the local level.
Secondly. Frederick Engels, a clerk working in Manchester at the time wrote in detail concerning Manchester’s uneven social geography (Engels F cited in Dixon and Hinchliffe, 2014, Pg.88,89,90,91). Within this work he studies two different streets, one where the workers and the poor reside, in their small terraced houses which back onto each other, none having gardens or proper sanitation. Compared to the Middle Class who reside nearby, they have comfortable houses along with a good social life. The streets have been designed in such a way that although in close proximity to each other, the other ‘classes’ bypass the ‘squalor’ the ‘Poor’ lived in,
thereby segregating each ‘class’ from each other. Engle’s, therefore in his writings realised that segregation and the economic changes, that was a part in creating this, allowed great inequalities to arise in society. Further evidence to this can be seen in the maps of Platt (Platt, (2005) Cited in Clark J and Woodward K (2014 p.91) which shows the growth of the city and the area of the old town which contained most of the lower class housing, segregated from the rest. so as can be seen within this example there are different types of evidence to show the segregation at the time which in turn shaped the social life of the city and how people saw themselves.
Thirdly, another example of residential segregation, is a case study that has been made on Belfast in Northern Ireland. In 1921 Ireland was partitioned with an independent Irish State in the south and a British Controlled Northern Ireland to the north. (Dixon, 2014) This in itself caused disconnections between people within the divided country. With Northern Ireland itself being further disconnected and segregated not on industrial lines but rather by that of religion. Statistics from the 2011 Census shows that within Belfast 49% of people are Catholics whilst 42% are shown as Protestant (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 2011) The population within Belfast has been segregated along this line for decades and extends to where they live. People within Northern Ireland are less likely to live in mixed communities as happens in the rest of the UK, but live segregated in different parts of the City. This has been exacerbated by Government with the building of walls and other barriers which were designed to make people feel safe. For example, Sean in video 3 (The Open University, 2016) says “walls stop people from interacting, that’s why they are built” This is further emphasised by murals that have been painted within each area as territorial symbols, which people of either religion know to avoid entering if they were not of that faction. This therefore disconnected people but on the other hand a connection was also present in that they are all of an Irish background. All this shapes how people think and behave, giving them a sense of Identity. This was because during the ‘Troubles’ it was natural for people of either
religion to retreat into those parts of the City were they felt safe and secure from Violence. These places being their traditional heartlands. (Doherty and Poole,1997 cited in Clarke, J and Woodward K in understanding social lives bk2 pg. 100) Thus we see both segregation and integration within a community through feelings of togetherness and belonging which create connections but also disconnections due to feelings of fear and distrust. This shapes the social lives within that city and helps shape peoples sense of who they are and where they belong.
Fourthly, within the video of Portland Road (The Open University, 2016) evidence is shown which shows that this Road was originally developed by speculators to attract the wealthy. However, the North End was too close to the slums, piggeries and Gypsy camp and did not attract investors and so became multiple occupation tenements for the poor, which soon became slums. over time this connection and disconnection between both ends of the street was maintained and within recent times the North end was redeveloped and became a council estate whilst the South End slowly prospered and attracted more and more wealthy buyers. Disconnections however were also maintained as in the past, in that the North End and the South maintained no contact with one another, all this despite their close proximity. One wealthy resident in the video admits, ‘I never go there’, and that she didn’t even realise the council housing was part of Portland Road. Another says, ‘I never go past that line, there is no reason for me to do that.’ another resident from the North end states ’we don’t go there we call that the ‘Nob’ end. It is worth noting that the vocabulary used to describe these disconnections are ‘geographical in nature’ and this shows the almost physical nature of the separation. For example, ‘‘borderline’, ‘enclave’, ‘frontier land’, ‘East and West Berlin’ are all used to describe the widening divisions between ‘them’ and ‘us’. This was reinforced by the building of the traffic barrier in the 1970s which provides a physical separation between the rich and poor., (Dixon J and Hinchliffe S, 2014) This also creates economic inequalities between the two and is reinforced, as the poorer residents have to walk past the wealthy houses
which reminds them every day of the fact that they are poor, this shapes the segregation between the two and creates differences to who people think they are. .
In conclusion the nature of the process of residential segregation effects every city whether by economic, class, ethnicity or religion. It creates both connections and disconnections by creating bonds of solidarity and belonging, as well as suspicion and fear, as shown in the examples within this essay both in quantitative and qualitative evidence and thereby explains how different types of evidence supports the question ‘residential segregation shapes the social life of cities and peoples sense of who they are’.
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