BeforeThe Philadelphia Negro: Residential Segregation in a Nineteenth-Century Northern City

Abstract

Although some scholars treat racial residential segregation in Northern cities as a twentieth-century phenomenon, recent research on New York and Chicago has shown that black-white segregation was already high and rising by 1880. We draw on data from the Philadelphia Social History Project and other new sources to study trends in this city as far back as 1850 and extending to 1900, a time when DuBois had completed his epic study of The Philadelphia Negro. Segregation of “free Negroes” in Philadelphia was high even before the Civil War but did not increase as the total and black populations grew through 1900. Geocoded information from the full-count data from the 1880 Census makes it possible to map the spatial configuration of black residents in fine detail. At the scale of the street segment, segregation in that year was extraordinarily high, reflecting a micro-pattern in which many blacks lived in alleys and short streets. Although there was considerable class variation in the black community, higher status black households lived in areas that were little different in racial and class composition than lower status households.

The Spatial Scale and Spatial Configuration of Residential Settlement: Measuring Segregation in the Postbellum South

“…These findings are not unique to the South. They mirror results for major Northern cities in the same period that had much smaller black populations and a very different slavery history (on New York and Chicago see Logan, Zhang and Chunyu [2015], on Philadelphia, Logan and Bellman [2016]). …”

“…A similar configuration has been identified in Philadelphia’s historically black Center City area in 1880 (Logan and Bellman 2016). Here there are some predominantly black alleys similar to Washington, but more prominent are short streets, running for as many as five blocks.…”

The Shortest Path Isolation Index: A New Measure for Individual-level Residential Segregation

“…On the street level, this area is highly segregated since most streets are almost entirely one race. This finding matches findings similar to those of Logan and Bellman (2016), that black and white populations live in close proximity but not on the same streets. However, while individuals may live on a racially isolated street, they do not walk by that many people before encountering someone of a different race.…”

“…Through gerrymandering, the population and racial composition of an area may look very different depending on how the boundaries are drawn (Duncan and Duncan 1955). When studied at the incorrect scale, segregation often becomes invisible, and it is therefore impossible to understand the mechanisms at play (Amrhein and Flowerdew 1992; Logan and Bellman 2016; Reardon et al 2009). For these reasons, the MAUP is a real problem that brings into question the ability of area-level measures to produce consistent results.…”

“…Many indices use Euclidean distance to measure proximity; however, this method often overestimates and obscures the true level of exposure (Apparicio et al 2014; Brown et al 2016; Ericksen and Yancey 1979; Gutiérrez and García-Palomares 2008; O’Neill, Ramsey, and Chou 1992). Logan and Bellman (2016) note that “even using point data, a measure that is based on Euclidean distance rather than the actual street network would not reveal the clear spatial separation shown” (pp. 699-700).…”