Plural Cities and Ethnic Enclaves: Introducing a Measurement Procedure for Comparative Study

Michael Poulsen, Ron Johnson and James Forrest

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2002, vol. 26, issue 2, 229-243

Abstract: World cities attract two major streams of migrants – those who occupy the upper levels of their occupational hierarchies (the ‘globalized professionals’) on the one hand and marginalized, low–skill workers on the other. These two groups are often of different ethnic status, and it is argued that multicultural world cities are thus fractured in both their labour and housing markets along ethnic as well as economic lines. There has been little formal testing of these ideas, however. In this introductory article we introduce a method that can be used for comparative studies of residential fragmentation – an index of residential concentration – and apply it to three cities which have experienced rapid, multiethnic immigration in recent decades (New York, Sydney and Auckland). The patterns displayed indicate much greater fragmentation in New York than in the other two cities, suggesting that the ‘conventional wisdom’ regarding ethnic residential patterns may over–emphasize ‘American exceptionalism’. Les villes mondiales attirent deux grands flux de migrants: ceux qui occupent les niveaux supérieurs de leurs hiérarchies professionnelles (les ‘experts mondialisés’) d’une part, et les travailleurs peu qualifiés et marginalisés, de l’autre; ces deux groupes sont souvent de statut ethnique différent. De ce fait, ces grandes villes multiculturelles subissent, dit–on, une fracture de leurs marchés du travail et du logement selon des critères à la fois ethniques et économiques – affirmations qui ont rarement été mises à l’épreuve. Cet article introductif présente une méthode utilisable dans des études comparatives de fragmentation résidentielle – indice de concentration résidentielle – en l’appliquant à trois villes ayant connu une rapide immigration multiethnique au cours des dernières décennies (New York, Sydney et Auckland). Les modèles obtenus indiquent une fragmentation bien plus importante à New York que dans les deux autres villes, suggérant que la ‘croyance populaire’à l’égard des schémas résidentiels ethniques surestime peut–être ‘l’exception américaine’.

Date: 2002
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