Divided Cities
Understanding Intra-urban Inequalities
This report provides an assessment of spatial inequalities and segregation in cities and metropolitan areas from multiple perspectives. The chapters in the report focus on a subset of OECD countries and non-member economies, and provide new insights on cross-cutting issues for city neighbourhooods, such as the patterns of segregation across income groups, migrant concentration and diversity across cities of different sizes, the role of public transport accessibility in widening intra-city inequalities, and the expected path dependency on outcomes related to segregation. The report also discusses methodological alternatives for measuring different dimensions of inequality and segregation across cities, and highlights the role of public policies in bridging urban divides and the relevance of the scale of analysis in order to make sound international comparisons.
A multi-level model of vicious circles of socio-economic segregation
This chapter develops a multi-level conceptual model of segregation, by using three conceptual levels – individuals and households, generations, and urban regions. Different socio-economic groups sort into different types of neighbourhoods and other domains, leading to patterns of segregation at the urban regional level. At the same time exposure to different socio-economic contexts also affects individual outcomes, and this subsequently leads to sorting processes into neighbourhoods and other domains. This vicious circle of sorting and contextual effects continuously crosses the three levels, and leads to higher levels of segregation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of several intervention strategies that focus on breaking the vicious circles to improve cities as places of opportunities by investing in people, in places and in transport.