Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
2.5.
Average proportion black and average measures of segregation for sixteen U.S. cities
(where data are available), 1880-1960.
Source:
Computed by author from data available
from the National Historical Geographical Information System.
2. At the same time, there was some variation in the segregation
paterns. Chicago, which has been studied extensively and
is considered the prototypical city, in fact exhibits the most
extreme manifestation of the common patern. Cleveland, also
a northern industrial city, is the second most segregated of
these selected cities.
In short, the cities were becoming highly segregated municipalities,
and by the mid-twentieth century blacks were extremely segregated and
isolated in most of them. It should also be noted that as segregation de-
veloped, the areas that had atracted the irst black setlers in the most
northern cities became the most concentrated with these newcomers.
Then, the growth of the black population centered there and then spread
outward but in a way that preserved and increased segregation. Indeed,
sometimes this is referred to as the movement of the “color line,” the line
that delineates the area of African American setlement from white areas.
Unlike the white immigrants in the Burgess model, few blacks moved
beyond the zones where African Americans were initially concentrated.
