Diversity and Segregation: The Politics of Residential Integration

Dear colleagues,

The mass protests not only in the United States but also throughout the world in the wake of George Floyd’s death have inadvertently linked two social processes: a still unfolding process of the novel Covid-19 health crisis and a long-existing process of racial inequality. What these two processes have in common is that they both have disproportionately and adversely affected minority groups, who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Minority communities traditionally suffer from disinvestment, concentrated poverty, lower performing schools, higher levels of environmental hazards, crime and unemployment. Many policies have been implemented to address neighborhood inequality and since the 1990s, policies towards neighborhood integration came into focus both in the United States and Europe. The emphasis has been on reintegration of poor and low-income populations with higher-income groups. In Europe policies of social mix were prioritized for a while and in the U.S. mixed-income neighborhoods became the focus of federal and local urban policies. These policies have been pursued as a remedy for the harsh consequences of residential segregation. In previous efforts to address this most profound form of urban inequality, policies of desegregation were chosen but it became clear that desegregation was not the same as integration. It is argued that policies, which focus specifically on integration, would be more effective in reducing inequality.

Now more than ever, it is imperative to implement better policies to address racial inequality and injustice. In this special issue we invite papers, which interrogate the concepts of residential integration and diversity. Papers should examine theoretically and empirically different aspects of creating a context of neighborhood racial-ethnic and/or economic diversity. Are there policies, which have indeed led to a more diverse neighborhood context? Also, to what extent has such context of diversity led or hasn’t led to positive outcomes, such as better housing conditions, lower poverty rates, lower crime rates, better schools and educational outcomes, better health outcomes, higher levels of political participation or local activism, better services, and others?  We invite papers utilizing a variety of methodological approaches, including more traditional quantitative or qualitative approaches, as well as more recent applications of data science and data visualization.

Prof. Dr. Elena Vesselinov
Prof. Dr. Renaud Le Goix
Guest Editors

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• Reduction of inequality
• Residential integration
• Racial/ethnic diversity
• Economic diversity
• Housing policy