9.11: Black Ghetto Typology

Because ghettos develop in different places and at different times, they are not all the same. Geographers Larry Ford and Ernst Griffin developed a typology of black ghettos in the United States based on their morphological evolution. By mapping the patterns of black ghettoization, one can gain valuable insight into the different methods of discrimination in the United States, and the peculiar differences in black-white relations across the US.

Early Southern

Before the Civil War, most African Americans lived in the Lowland South. Most were slaves. Most enslaved blacks lived on farms, but a substantial number of slaves lived in cities, like Charleston, New Orleans, and Atlanta. Urban slaves living in the South during this period were largely domestic servants and because most were enslaved, they were required to live with the white slaveholders. Enslaved blacks and the “Free People of Color” were typically quartered on the property of white employers/slavers, generally in a small house, or stable facility at the rear of the main house, along the alley, or as they say down South, “in the lanes.”

Figure 9-23: Early Southern Ghetto. Black people lived on the same property as whites, often in small houses along alleyways before the Civil War.

The close physical proximity combined with the exceptional differences in economic and social status produced a peculiar type of ghetto where blacks and whites lived together, but very much apart at the same time. Intense day-to-day sharing of space inevitably leads to cultural exchange and even fondness, but in a system that demanded at least the appearance of separation, and maintained the potential for horrific consequences for the enslaved.

Classic Southern

During the Civil War, slavery was abolished, but most freed black slaves continued to live on farms or plantations for years afterward, often a share-croppers. As the industrial revolution unfolded in the late 1800s, blacks (and poor whites) moved in ever-increasing numbers to cities in both the North and the South. In southern cities, where blacks were sometimes in the majority, Jim Crow segregation laws forced black people to live in specific areas of the city, thus creating the second type of American black ghetto known as the Classic Southern ghetto. In the Lowland South, where black people often outnumbered whites, as much as half a city or town was set aside for African-Americans. Often, the dividing line between Whites and Blacks was a rail line giving rise to the expression “other side of the tracks”. Many cities around the South fit this model still today.

Figure 9-24: Classic Southern Ghetto. Black folks following the Civil War were required to live on "the other side of the tracks".

Early Northern, Classic Northern

Outside of the slaveholding regions of the South, the pattern of black ghettoization evolved quite differently. In the 19^th Century, African-Americans were often a very small minority in northern cities. Like others, they competed for precious housing space near downtown with other minority populations, most of whom were recent immigrants to America. In the figure below, you can see African-Americans, along with Anglo-Americans and two other minority groups represented by the blue and peach colors (Irish and Greeks?). This pattern represents the Early Northern ghetto. Over the years, European immigrants, less restricted by law and custom from moving to newly built neighborhoods, moved from inner-city regions of northern cities. African-Americans, restricted from moving out of the inner city more than other groups eventually came to dominate the entire inner-city, especially when migration from the Lowland South accelerated during the late 19^th and early 20^th century. By the 1980s, African Americans were outsized majorities in the inner cities of many places in the Industrial Midwest and Northeast. The intensity of black ghettoization is extreme in cities with Classic Northern style ghettos. Cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee have much higher segregation index scores than counterparts in the west or the southern United States.

Figure 9-25: Chicago, IL. Vast crowds, dressed in green, line streets for the Saint Patrick's Day parade, a jubilant celebration of an Irish heritage that was once ghettoized in the United States, in places like Chicago.

9-26: Housing Projects in St. Louis (left) and Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes in the mid-1990s. These well-intentioned public housing efforts concentrated poor blacks into small areas of the inner city, reinforcing the “Classic Northern” style ghetto. Crime and other social dysfunction afflicted these projects and their host neighborhoods. Large-scale housing projects are far less common today, and the racial segregation created by these projects has diminished since the 1990s.

Figure 9-27: Early Northern (left) and Classic Northern (right) Black Ghettos. Typical of the pattern of black ghettoization in cities in the Industrial Midwest and Northeast, blacks occupy an ever-increasing portion of the inner city. Note that other minority groups occupy parts of the inner city in the Early Northern model and far less in the Classic Northern model.

New City

In the western United States and parts of the Sunbelt, a different type of black ghetto evolved during the age of the automobile. The morphology of these black ghetto reflects the importance of the highway and interstate system that evolved with the car and the city itself. These new cities grew rapidly after 1920 but had intense growth during and immediately following World War II. Los Angeles is a classic example. Good jobs in defense industries attracted large numbers of African Americans from the South, Midwest, and East during the war and black neighborhoods grew rapidly along major highway corridors.

Figure 9-28: New City Black Ghetto: In this model ethnic ghettos evolve along corridors established by major streets or highways. The blue areas may represent a Mexican-American neighborhood.

In cities new cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, and Phoenix that built without efficient public transportation systems, dense inner-city cores never developed. Therefore, most families bought single-family homes. Multi-family apartment complexes that attracted in-migrants of all ethnicities were built near highways, where accessibility was greatest. As a result, ghettos in automobile friendly locations are known as New City Ghettos. These ghettos tend to be linear, stretching along a highway outward from downtown. In some cities,several distinct “black corridors” developed. In some cities, Latin American and Asian groups are large enough to create additional linear “ghettos” also along important highway corridors extending outward from the central business district (CBD).