Socio-spatial segregation: a critical review of its conceptual limits and a theoretical framework for a new definition

Abstract

Definitions of socio-spatial segregation may be classified into two general approaches: those with a more geographical inclination emphasize spatial conditions such as the concentration and internal homogeneity of city areas, while sociological studies tend to focus primarily on the restriction of contacts between different social groups. In this article, I look at some of the main attributes used in the literature to define segregation and argue that they are insufficient to adequately characterize it. While geographical approaches confuse segregation itself with the spatial conditions that (supposedly) produce it, sociological ones emphasize social contacts, but do not adequately consider the role of space. I propose, then, that socio-spatial segregation is, in fact, a symbiosis between space and restriction of contact, in the sense that the contacts being restricted are those that: a) happen face to face in space, and not, for example, in social networks; and b) are prevented because of different kinds of spatial conditions, and not, for example, for purely cultural reasons. This view, I argue, broadens the understanding of the phenomenon beyond concentration of social groups in specific zones, and the incorporation of a greater diversity of objects and spatial units in different resolutions, and with greater attention to geometric, topological, compositional and symbolic aspects relevant to Urban Design and Morphology.