Residential Segregation of Immigrants: A Case Study of the Mexican Population on St. Paul’s West Side

Residential segregation has been one of the more frequently studied and controversial research and policy issues for urban researchers and policy makers during the last few decades. residential segregation refers to the concentration or uneven distribution of residents from different socio-economic or racial/ ethnic backgrounds across a city or region. Although research on residential segregation has focused on a diversity of issues, ranging from the causes and consequences of segregation to changes in the levels and patterns of segregation in a particular area, most of the literature regards residential segregation as a negative phenomenon assumed to have harmful impacts on the segregated population. The “Black ghetto” of the American metropolis represents perhaps the most extreme example of segregation. It is assumed that poor housing quality, inferior educational opportunities, deficient health services, and high crime levels go hand-in-hand with ghetto life, limiting the opportunities available to residents of the community. Moreover, although affluent (and predominantly White) Americans voluntarily cluster in suburban neighborhoods, it is assumed that the segregation of low-income and racial/ethnic minority households in inner-city urban areas happens mostly involuntarily. In recent decades, policy makers have begun to address the problematic effects of residential segregation by targeting pockets of concentrated poverty in urban areas. The notoriety of large public housing projects as sites of urban blight, shrinking governmental budgets for affordable housing, and several lawsuits filed against the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) alleging racial discrimination in housing, led to substantial modifications in the agency’s housing programs from the late 1980s onward. To prevent both racial and income concentration in project sites and neighborhoods, HUD curtailed further construction of low-income housing projects and imposed significant restrictions on municipal public housing authorities regarding the geographic placement of subsidized housing. As a result of Residential Segregation of Immigrants: A Case Study of the Mexican Population on St. Paul’s West Side