HLM An habitation à loyer modéré (HLM, , ), is a form of low-income housing in France, Algeria, Senegal, and Quebec. It may be public or private, with rent subsidies. HLMs constitute 16% of all housing in France.foreign immigrants and French of foreign descent reside, often in perceived poverty traps.

In the United Kingdom

The existence of

ethnic enclave In sociology, an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity. The term is usually used to refer to either a residential area or a workspace with a high concentration ...

s in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

controversial Controversy (, ) is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin '' controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opp ...

. Southall Broadway, a predominantly Asian area in

Greater London Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial count ...

, where less than 12 percent of the population is

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, has been cited as an example of a 'ghetto', but in reality the area is home to a number of different

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

s and religious groups. Analysis of data from

Census 2001 2001 census may refer to a census covered by: * Census in Australia#2001 * 2001 Bangladesh census * 2001 Bolivian census * Canada 2001 Census * 2001 census of Croatia * 2001 Census of India * Lithuanian census of 2001 * 2001 Nepal census * 2001 ...

revealed that only two wards in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...

, both in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, had one dominant non-white ethnic group comprising more than two-thirds of the local population, but there were 20 wards where

whites White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view. De ...

were a minority making up less than a third of the local population. By 2001, two London boroughs—

Newham The London Borough of Newham () is a London boroughs, London borough created in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. It covers an area previously administered by the Essex county boroughs of County Borough of West Ham, West Ham and County ...

and Brent—had " minority majority" populations, and most parts of the city tend to have a diverse population. Historically, some parts of London have long been noted for the prevalence of a particular ethnic or religious group (such as the Jewish communities of

Golders Green Golders Green is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet in north London, northwest of Charing Cross. It began as a medieval small suburban linear settlement near a farm and public grazing area green, and dates to the early 19th century. It ...

and other parts of the

London Borough of Barnet The London Borough of Barnet () is a suburban London boroughs, London borough in north London, England. Forming part of Outer London, the borough was formed in 1965 from parts of the ceremonial counties of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. It is the ...

, and the West Indian community of

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a wikt:cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan and multiculturalism, multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting ...

), but in each case these populations have been part of a broader multicultural population. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the East End of London was also noted for its Jewish population, but now has a significant

British Bangladeshi British Bangladeshis () are citizens or residents of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots are from Bangladesh. Bengali Muslims have prominently been migrating to the UK since World War II. Migration reached its peak during the 1970s, with ...

populace.

In Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, towns and cities have long been segregated along ethnic, religious and political lines. The two main communities of Northern Ireland are: # the

Irish nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cult ...

- republican community, who mainly self-identify as Irish or

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

; and # the unionist-

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...

community, who mainly self-identify as

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

. Ghettos emerged in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

during the

riot A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The p ...

s that accompanied the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence (), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and Unite ...

. For safety, people fled to areas where their community was the majority. Many more ghettos emerged after the

1969 riots 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the ...

and beginning of the "

Troubles The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed ...

." In August 1969 the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

was deployed to restore order and separate the two sides. The government built barriers called "

peace lines The peace lines or peace walls are a series of separation barriers in Northern Ireland that separate predominantly Irish republican or nationalist Catholic neighbourhoods from predominantly British loyalist or unionist Protestant neigh ...

." Many of the ghettos came under the control of

paramilitaries A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...

such as the (republican)

Provisional Irish Republican Army The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; ) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland ...

and the (loyalist)

Ulster Defence Association The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost 24 years as one of t ...

. One of the most notable ghettos was

Free Derry Free Derry () was a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry, Northern Ireland that existed between 1969 and 1972 during the Troubles. It emerged during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimina ...

Ghettos in the United States

Early ghettos

The development of ghettos in the United States is closely associated with different waves of immigration and internal urban migration. The Irish and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

immigrants of the mid-19th century were the first ethnic groups to form

s in United States cities. This was followed by large numbers of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, including many

Italians Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...

and

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

and Russians between 1880 and 1920. Jewish immigrants were part of the earliest German wave, as well as comprising numerous immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire at the time. Glaeser, Ed. 1997.
Ghettos: The Changing Consequences of Ethnic Isolation
." ''Regional Review'' 7(Spring). Boston, MA:

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, commonly known as the Boston Fed, is responsible for the First District of the Federal Reserve, which covers New England: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and all of Connecticut excep ...

. Most remained in their established immigrant communities, but by the second or third generation, many families were able to relocate to newer housing built in the

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

s after World War II. These ethnic ghetto areas included the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

Manhattan, New York Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, which later became notable as predominantly

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

, and later still as Chinese and Latino.

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem, or , is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City, north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fifth Avenue to the west, and the East and Harlem Rivers to the eas ...

was once predominantly Italian and in the 1950s became home to a large Puerto Rican community.

Little Italy Little Italy is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an Urban area, urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian cul ...

s across the country were predominantly Italian ghettos. Many Polish immigrants settled in areas of other nationals, such as Pilsen of Chicago and

Polish Hill Polish Hill () is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Primarily a residential area, it is home to Pittsburgh's Immaculate Heart of Mary church. History Large numbers of Polish immigrants settled the neighborhood after the mid 1800s. The ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. Since the late 20th century,

Brighton Beach Brighton Beach is a List of Brooklyn neighborhoods, neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

has become the home of predominately Jewish Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, who left after the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

lifted some migration restrictions and later after its fall.

Black or African-American ghettos

A commonly used definition of a ghetto is a community distinguished by a homogeneous race or

ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

. Additionally, a key feature that developed throughout the

post-industrial In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy. The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related t ...

era and continues to symbolize the demographics of American ghettos is the prevalence of poverty.

Poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

constitutes the separation of ghettos from other, suburbanized or private neighborhoods. The high percentage of poverty partly justifies the difficulty of

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

, which tends to reproduce constraining social opportunities and inequalities in society. Darity Jr., William A., ed. 2008. "Ghetto." Pp. 311–14 in ''

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences The ''International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences'' was first published in 1968 and was edited by David L. Sills and Robert K. Merton. It contains seventeen volumes and thousands of entries written by scholars around the world. The 2nd ed ...

'' 3(2).

Gale Virtual Reference Library Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, United States, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007. The company, formerly known as Gale Research a ...

. Retrieved 25 October 2012. Chicago ghetto

The term ghettos has been commonly used for some time, but ghettos were around long before the term was coined. Urban areas in the U.S. can often be classified as "black" or "white", with the inhabitants primarily belonging to a homogenous racial grouping. This classification can be traced back as early as the year 1880 as African Americans were living in their own neighborhoods. Sixty years after the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, most of the United States remains a residentially segregated society in which black people and white people inhabit different neighborhoods of significantly different quality. Many of these neighborhoods are located in Northern and Western cities where African Americans moved during the Great Migration (1914–1970), a period when over a million

African-Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

moved out of the rural

southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...

to escape the widespread racism of the South; to seek out employment opportunities in industrial cities; and to pursue what was widely perceived to be a better quality of life in the North and West, such as

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...

, and

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. African Americans found they had to struggle with white ethnic groups in Northern and Midwestern cities; many of them more recent European immigrants. Often they were restricted to areas of older and poor housing in the new cities where they settled. The social disruption and economic competition following World War I, as veterans returned to the US, resulted in an outbreak of racial violence of whites against blacks in many of these Northern cities, such as Chicago, Omaha; Washington, DC, and others. Southern industrial cities were also affected. Such racist attacks were extremely violent, in some cases they included burning or bombing homes of African Americans; many innocent blacks were killed. African-American leaders described 1919 as the

Red Summer The Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which Terrorism in the United States#White nationalism and white supremacy, white supremacist terrorism and Mass racial violence in the United States, racial riots occurred in more than three d ...

because of the widespread racial outbreaks and white attacks on mainly African Americans. Two main factors ensured further separation between races and classes, and ultimately the development of contemporary ghettos: the relocation of industrial enterprises, and the movement of middle to upper class residents into suburban neighborhoods. Between 1967 and 1987, economic restructuring resulted in a dramatic decline of manufacturing jobs, which had formerly provided good livings for unionized, working-class blacks and whites. The once thriving northern and western industrial cities survived by a gradual shift to service and financial occupations. Subsidized highways and suburban development in the postwar period had pulled many middle and upper-class families and related businesses to the

s. Those who could not afford to move were left with disrupted neighborhoods and economies in the inner cities. African Americans were disproportionately affected and became either unemployed or underemployed, with little wage and reduced benefits. A concentration of African Americans predominated in some

inner city The term inner city (also called the hood) has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Soc ...

neighborhoods. It is also significant to compare the demographic patterns between black people and European immigrants, according to the

labor market Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the Market (economics), markets for wage labour. Labour (human activity), Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers, usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding ...

. European immigrants and African Americans were both subject to an ethnic division of labor. Because of discrimination, African Americans were often restricted to the least secure division of the labor market. David Ward refers to this stagnant position in African-American or Black ghettos as the 'elevator' model, which implies that each group of immigrants or migrants takes turns in the processes of social mobility and suburbanization; and several groups did not start on the ground floor. The inability of black people to move from the ground floor, as Ward suggests, is dependent upon

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

and

segregationist Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by peopl ...

patterns established in the South prior to World War I, where most African Americans were disenfranchised by the turn of the century and deprived of political power. After the

exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

of African Americans to the North during and after World War I, they had to compete with numerous European immigrants; thus, African-Americans were diminished to unskilled jobs. The slow rate of advancement in black communities outlines the rigidity of the labor market, competition and conflict, adding another dimension to the prevalence of poverty and social instability in African-American or Black ghettos.

Effect of World War II on development

In the years following World War II, many

white Americans White Americans (sometimes also called Caucasian Americans) are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the United States Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as " person hav ...

began to move away from inner cities to newer suburban communities, a process known as

white flight The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...

. White flight occurred, in part, as a response to black people moving into white urban neighborhoods. Discriminatory practices, especially those intended to "preserve" emerging white suburbs, restricted the ability of black people to move from inner cities to the suburbs, even when they were economically able to afford it. In contrast to this, the same period in history marked a massive suburban expansion available primarily to whites of both wealthy and working-class backgrounds, facilitated through highway construction and the availability of federally subsidized home mortgages ( VA, FHA,

Home Owners' Loan Corporation The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a government-sponsored corporation created as part of the New Deal. The corporation was established in 1933 by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation Act under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roo ...

). These made it easier for families to buy new houses in the suburbs, but not to rent apartments in cities. The United States began restructuring its economy after World War II, fueled by new globalizing processes, and demonstrated through technological advances and improvements in efficiency. The structural shift of 1973, during the post-Fordist era, became a large component to the racial ghetto and its relationship with the labor market. Sharon Zukin declares the designated stratum of African-Americans in the labor force was placed even below the working class; low-skill urban jobs were now given to incoming immigrants from

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

or the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. Additionally, Zukin notes, "Not only have social services been drastically reduced, punitive and other social controls over the poor have been increased," such as law enforcement and imprisonment. Described as the "urban crisis" during the 1970s and 1980s, the transition stressed regional divisions according to differences in income and racial lines—white "donuts" around black holes. Hardly coincidental, the steady separation occurred during the period of civil rights laws, urban riots and

Black Power Black power is a list of political slogans, political slogan and a name which is given to various associated ideologies which aim to achieve self-determination for black people. It is primarily, but not exclusively, used in the United States b ...

. In addition, the ''

International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

'' stresses the various challenges developed by this "urban crisis", including: The cumulative economic and social forces in ghettos give way to social, political and economic isolation and inequality, while indirectly defining a separation between superior and inferior status of groups. In response to the influx of black people from the South, banks, insurance companies, and businesses began denying or increasing the cost of services, such as

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

ing,

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

, access to jobs, Race and health in the United States, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined,Thabit, Walter
''How East New York Became a Ghetto''
. Page 42. areas. The most devastating form of redlining, and the most common use of the term, refers to mortgage discrimination. Data on house prices and attitudes toward integration suggest that in the mid-twentieth century, segregation was a product of collective actions taken by non-black people to exclude black people from outside neighborhoods. The "Racial" Provisions of the FHA Underwriting Manual of 1936 included the following guidelines which exacerbated the segregation issue: This meant that minority group, ethnic minorities could secure mortgage loans only in certain areas, and it resulted in a large increase in the residential racial segregation and urban decay in the United States. The creation of new highways in some cases divided and isolated black neighborhoods from goods and services, many times within industrial corridors. For example, Birmingham, Alabama's interstate highway system attempted to maintain the racial boundaries that had been established by the city's 1926 racial zoning law. The construction of interstate highways through black neighborhoods in the city led to significant population loss in those neighborhoods and is associated with an increase in neighborhood racial segregation. Residential segregation was further perpetuated because whites were willing to pay more than black people to live in predominantly white areas. Some social scientists suggest that the historical processes of suburbanization and decentralization are instances of white privilege that have contributed to contemporary patterns of environmental racism. Following the emergence of anti-discrimination policies in housing and labor sparked by the civil rights movement, members of the African-American middle class, black middle class moved out of the ghetto. The Civil Rights Act of 1968, Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. This was the first federal law that outlawed discrimination in the sale and rental of housing on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion and later sex, familial status, and disability. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity was charged with administering and enforcing the law. Since housing discrimination became illegal, new housing opportunities were made available to the black community and many left the ghetto. Urban sociologists frequently title this historical event as "black middle class exodus", or black flight. Elijah Anderson (sociologist), Elijah Anderson describes a process by which members of the black middle class begin to distance themselves socially and culturally from ghetto residents during the later half of the twentieth century, "eventually expressing this distance by literally moving away." This is followed by the exodus of black working-class families. As a result, the ghetto becomes primarily occupied by what sociologists and journalists of the 1980s and 1990s frequently title the "underclass." William Julius Wilson suggests this exodus worsened the isolation of the black underclass — not only were they socially and physically distanced from whites, they also became isolated from the black middle class.

Theories on the development of Black ghettos

Two dominant theories arise pertaining to the production and development of U.S. ghettos: race-based and class-based; as well as an alternative theory put forward by Thomas Sowell.

= Race-based theories

= First are the race-based theorists, who argue the importance of race in ghettos. Their analysis consists of the dominant racial group in the U.S. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) and their use of certain racist tactics in order to maintain their hegemony over black people and lengthen their spatial separation. Race-based theorists offset other arguments that focus on the influence of the economy on segregation. More contemporary research of race-based theorists is to frame a range of methods conducted by white Americans to "preserve race-based residential inequities" as a function of the dominantly white, state-run government. Involving uneven development, mortgage and business discrimination and disinvestment—U.S. ghettos then, as suggested by race-based theorists, are conserved by distinctly racial reasoning.

= Class-based theories

= The more dominant view, on the other hand, is represented by social class, class-based theorists. Such theories confirm class to be more important than race in the structuring of U.S. ghettos. Although racial concentration is a key signifier for ghettos, class-based theorists emphasize the role and impact of broader societal structures in the creation of African-American or Black ghettos. Dynamics of low-wage service and unemployment triggered from deindustrialization, and the Intergenerationality, intergenerational diffusion of status within families and neighborhoods, for instance, prove the rise in socioeconomic polarization between classes to be the creator of American ghetto; not racism. Furthermore, the culture of poverty theory, first developed by Oscar Lewis, states that a prolonged history of poverty can itself become a cultural obstacle to socioeconomic success, and in turn can continue a pattern of socioeconomic polarization. Ghettos, in short, instill a cultural adaptation to social and class-based inequalities, reducing the ability of future generations to mobilize or Human migration, migrate.

= Alternative theory

= An alternative theory put forward by Thomas Sowell in ''Black Rednecks and White Liberals'' asserts that modern urban black ghetto culture is rooted in the white Cracker (term), Cracker culture of the North Britain, North Britons and Scotch-Irish Americans, Scots-Irish who migrated from the generally lawless Anglo-Scottish border, border regions of Britain to the American South, where they formed a redneck culture common to both black and white people in the antebellum South. Characteristics of this culture included lively music and dance, violence, unbridled emotions, flamboyant imagery, illegitimacy, religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, and a lack of emphasis on education and intellectual interests. Because redneck culture proved counterproductive, "that culture long ago died out...among both white and black Southerners, while still surviving today in the poorest and worst of the urban black ghettos", which Sowell described as being characterized by "brawling, braggadocio, self-indulgence, [and] disregard of the future", and where "belligerence is considered being manly and crudity is considered cool, while being civilized is regarded as 'acting white'." Sowell blames liberal Americans who since the 1960s have embraced black ghetto culture as the only "'authentic' black culture and even glamorize it" while they "denounce any criticism of the ghetto lifestyle or any attempt to change it." Sowell asserts that white liberal Americans have perpetuated this "counterproductive and self-destructive lifestyle" among black Americans living in urban ghettos through "the welfare state, and look-the-other-way policing, and smiling at 'gangsta rap'."

U.S. characterizations of "ghetto"

Contemporary African-American or Black ghettos are characterized by an overrepresentation of a particular ethnicity or race, vulnerability to crime, social problems, governmental reliance and political disempowerment. Sharon Zukin explains that through these reasons, society rationalizes the term "bad neighborhoods." Zukin stresses that these circumstances are largely related to "racial concentration, residential abandonment, and de-constitution and reconstitution of communal institutions." Many scholars diagnose this poorly facilitated and fragmented view of the United States as the "age of extremes." This term argues that inequalities of wealth and power reinforce spatial separation; for example, the growth of Gated community, gated communities can be interconnected with the continued "ghettoization" of the poor. Another characteristic to African-American or Black ghettos and spatial separation is the dependence on the state, and lack of communal autonomy; Sharon Zukin refers to Brownsville, Brooklyn, as an example. This relationship between racial ghettos and the state is demonstrated through various push and pull features, implemented through government subsidized investments, which certainly assisted the movement of white Americans into the suburbs after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Since the 1960s, after the de-constitution of the inner cities, African-American or Black ghettos have attempted to reorganize or reconstitute; in effect, they are increasingly regarded as public- and state-dependent communities. Brownsville, for instance, initiated the constitution of community-established public housing, anti-poverty organizations, and social service facilities—all, in their own way, depend on state resources. However, certain dependence contradicts society's desires to be autonomous actors in the market. Moreover, Zukin implies, "the less 'autonomous' the community—in its dependence on public schools, public housing and various subsidy programs—the greater the inequity between their organizations and the state, and the less willing residents are to organize." This should not, however, undermine local development corporations or social service agencies helping these neighborhoods. The lack of autonomy and growing dependence on the state, especially in a Neoliberalism, neoliberal economy, remains a key indicator to the production as well as the prevalence of African-American or Black ghettos, particularly due to the lack of opportunities to compete in the global market. The concept of the ''ghetto'' and ''underclass'' has faced criticism both theoretically and empirically. Research has shown significant differences in resources for neighborhoods with similar populations both across cities and over time. This includes differences in the resources of neighborhoods with predominantly low income or racial minority populations. The cause of these differences in resources across similar neighborhoods has more to do with dynamics outside of the neighborhood. To a large extent the problem with the ''ghetto'' and ''underclass'' concepts stem from the reliance on case studies (in particular case studies from Chicago), which limit social scientist understandings of socially disadvantaged neighborhoods.

= Internal characterizations

= Despite mainstream America's use of the term ''ghetto'' to signify a poor, culturally or racially homogenous urban area, those living in the area often used it to signify something positive. The black ghettos did not always contain dilapidated houses and deteriorating projects, nor were all of its residents poverty-stricken. For many African-Americans, the ghetto was "home": a place representing authentic African-American culture, blackness and a feeling, passion, or emotion derived from rising above the struggle and suffering of being black in America. Langston Hughes relays in his "Negro Ghetto" (1931) and "The Heart of Harlem" (1945) poems: Playwright August Wilson uses the term "ghetto" in ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'' (1984) and ''Fences (play), Fences'' (1985), both of which draw upon the author's experience growing up in the Hill District (Pittsburgh), Hill District of Pittsburgh, a black ghetto.

Modern usage and reinterpretations of "ghetto"

Recently the word "ghetto" has been used in slang as an adjective rather than a noun. It is used to indicate an object's relation to the inner city and also more broadly to denote something that is shabby or of low quality. While "ghetto" as an adjective can be used derogatorily, the African-American or Black community, particularly the hip hop scene, has taken the word for themselves and begun using it in a more positive sense that transcends its derogatory origins. In 1973, ''Geographical Review'' claimed "The degree of residential segregation of the black community is greater than for any other group in urban America, yet black people have not had the political power necessary to exercise any significant degree of control over the improvement of the basic services necessary for their health, education, and welfare."''Geographical Review'' 107 Scholars have been interested in the study of African-American or Black ghettos precisely for the concentration of disadvantaged residents and their vulnerability to social problems. American ghettos also bring attention to geographical and political barriers, and as Doreen Massey (geographer), Doreen Massey highlights, that racial segregation in African-American or Black ghettos challenge America's democratic foundations. However, it is still advocated that "One solution to these problems depends on our ability to use the political process in eliminating the inequities... geographical knowledge and theory to public-policy decisions about poor people and poor regions is a professional obligation."

Ghettos elsewhere

Shanghai ghetto

Before and during World War II, many Jews fled from German-occupied Europe to Shanghai. After Japan invaded China, it established the Shanghai Ghetto, an area of approximately one square mile (≈2.6km²) in the Hongkou District of the Empire of Japan, to which it relocated about 20,000 Expulsions and exoduses of Jews, Jewish refugees under its ''Proclamation Concerning Restriction of Residence and Business of Stateless Refugees''.Shanghai Jewish History
" ''Shanghai Jewish Center''. .

In popular culture

A number of songs and films have been written about/depicting the ghetto.

Film

* ''The Wall'' (1982), a TV Movie about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Warsaw ghetto uprising * ''Boyz n the Hood'' (1991), a film about three young males living in Los Angeles' Crenshaw, Los Angeles, Crenshaw ghetto * ''Menace II Society'' (1993), about a young street hustler who attempts to escape the ghetto in a quest for a better life * Uprising (2001 film), ''Uprising'' (2001), a TV Movie in which Jews rise up in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis in 1943. * ''The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler'' (2009), a TV movie about the titular Irena Sendler who saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, Warsaw ghetto in Poland * ''Who Will Write Our History'' (2018), a film about Emanuel Ringelblum, and the secret archive that he created and led in the Warsaw Ghetto

Music

* "In the Ghetto" (originally titled "The Vicious Circle"), a 1969 song about birth and life in slum areas, written by Mac Davis and made famous by Elvis Presley * The Ghetto (Donny Hathaway song), "The Ghetto" (1970), soul song by Donny Hathaway * Ghetto Life (song), "Ghetto Life " (1981), funk song by Rick James * The Ghetto (Too Short song), "The Ghetto" (1990), hip-hop song written by Too Short * "Ghetto" (2001), a song by P.O.D. from ''Satellite (P.O.D. album), Satellite'' * "Ghetto (Akon song), Ghetto" (2004) by Akon * Ghetto (Kelly Rowland song), "Ghetto" (2007), R&B song written by American singer Kelly Rowland * "Ghetto" (2011), a song by Junai Kaden featuring Mumzy Stranger from ''From Me to You''. * Testimony (August Alsina album), "Ghetto" (2014), an R&B song by August Alsina

References

External links

{{Authority control Ghettos, Ethnic enclaves, Ghetto Racial segregation Urban decay Italian inventions Sociology of immigration

Etymology and name

Ghettos in Europe

Jewish ghettos

Nazi-occupied Europe

Roma ghettos

In Denmark

In France