[HN Gopher] Human mobility networks reveal increased segregation...
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Human mobility networks reveal increased segregation in large
cities
Author : hunglee2
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-12-04 09:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| lucasRW wrote:
| Is that really news, or "counter-intuitive" ?
|
| I have lived in several countries and always observed that,
| irrespective of the political views, people try to flee poor
| areas when they can, and try to have their kids put in good
| schools when they can.
|
| This is particularly funny in the case of left-wing politicians
| paying extras bucks to have their kids in elitists white schools
| with strong discipline, while advocating "diversity" for the
| other kids when they are interviewed on TV at night.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| I have never seen non competitive elite class parents
| regardless they are left or right or races. When it comes to
| children, all bets are off and the only action is to send the
| children to the best school that's available
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > This is particularly funny in the case of left-wing
| politicians paying extras bucks to have their kids in elitists
| white schools with strong discipline, while advocating
| "diversity" for the other kids when they are interviewed on TV
| at night.
|
| There is nothing wrong with advocating for a society wide rule
| change, but still playing the game according to the current
| rules.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| From the article: As plausible as the cosmopolitan mixing
| hypothesis might seem, big cities also provide new opportunities
| for self-segregation, because they are large enough to enable
| people to seek out and find others who are similar to themselves
|
| It kind of makes sense that people that earn more or have a
| higher potential want to mingle with people that are the same.
| There's no upside for better off individuals to stay in low
| income neighborhoods.
|
| No matter how much subsidized housing or whatever, low income
| individuals will be priced out of events or social gatherings.
|
| And the bigger the city, the more opportunities there are, the
| more segregated economically they tend to be because just a small
| percentage will "make it". And the rest I think will follow a
| half Bell curve.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| They're also priced out of basic food in gentrified areas.
|
| I posit that rich people actually enjoy having groceries cost
| double what they do just a few miles away, because it means
| only the 'right people' mingle with them in public.
|
| Personally I exemplify this. I make enough to go to the fancy
| Whole Foods and shop in peace, whereas the local Safeway in the
| same neighborhood has people screaming and throwing objects and
| items are locked behind bars. Simple price differentiation
| keeps those people from bothering to enter WF.
| sinkasapa wrote:
| As a non-specialist, I think a surprising statement is that in
| this particular field, there is an expectation that large, dense
| cities encourage socioeconomic mixing. That seems counter to
| everyday experience and policies that are sometimes enacted in
| cities to counter the trend, like bussing kids in poor
| neighborhoods into richer school districts. The term "ghetto"
| famously describes an urban trend to cut off poor enclaves,
| generally with some racial or ethnic component. I guess I felt
| like it was "common knowledge" that urbanization increased social
| stratification, whether in ancient times as agricultural
| societies developed, as I was taught in high school social
| studies, or in more modern cases where people leave the land to
| find opportunities, as in Latin America, for instance, where
| terms like favela are familiar even to English speakers to
| describe the cut-off, under-serviced and impoverished
| neighborhoods that have developed. Common knowledge being what it
| is, that isn't to say that anyone should believe that cities
| necessarily increase or decrease stratification without making
| measurements but stories of urban inequality seems to be so
| prevalent in popular culture that it seems strange that one would
| state that the opposite is a popular expectation but they have
| citations so I'm not questioning that the idea is out there, only
| that it is surprising that it is so prevalent that they need to
| open their article as though they are bucking a trend in the
| literature.
| randomdata wrote:
| I was definitely taken back by that statement. Marginalized
| groups, for example, have always noted how cities offer
| increased isolation away from bigots as compared to smaller
| towns and rural areas. It may be a prevalent idea in academia,
| but I'm not sure anyone thinks that way on the streets.
| emanuele232 wrote:
| Actually i do agree with the statement. I live near the
| biggest city in my state and my friends are different in
| ideas, political opinions and preferences (also kinda
| different in economic possibilities) due to the fact that we
| all went to the same highschool, and there are few places
| where the young can socialize. on the contrary my brother
| lives in that big city and its friends are ALL coming from
| the same cultural background, with the same ideas and the
| same political leaning (that he chooses during university)
| eitally wrote:
| A lot of that has to do with the fact that you chose your
| friend group during public high school and he chose his
| during university, which itself already selects for the
| upper socioeconomic statuses.
| feedforward wrote:
| > urbanization increased social stratification
|
| Urbanization increases social stratification in that the upper
| class and the upper middle class tend to live in or near
| cities. As far as the poor and working class, the majority live
| outside cities in agricultural societies, and in or near cities
| in modern societies.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> the upper class and the upper middle class tend to live in
| or near cities. As far as the poor and working class, the
| majority live outside cities in agricultural societies_
|
| I'm not sure that tracks. Farmers are the epitome of the
| upper to upper-middle class, deriving their living wholly or
| mostly from land and capital ownership.
|
| Perhaps you meant upper to upper-middle _income_ rather than
| class?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It depends on what you mean by "farmers." Even small
| individually- or family-owned farms are going to depend to
| a large extent on seasonal agricultural labor. It's worth
| being clear when you talk about this whether by "farmers"
| you mean those laborers, who are often poor, or the
| landowners, who usually aren't.
| randomdata wrote:
| I have never heard of a definition of farmer that refers
| to hired labourers. Perhaps you are thinking of farmhand?
| Swizec wrote:
| > Farmers are the epitome of the upper to upper-middle
| class
|
| This must be why in the 1950's large swathes of Europe saw
| so many farmers fleeing their land to go live in the city
| and take up those new fangled factory jobs. Same for
| Britain in the 1850's. Or China in the 2000's.
|
| Usually when people talk about "farmers" in the context of
| social class migrations, they mean subsistence farmers
| eeking out a living from the land. Not the modern American
| or European industrial farmer who in effect owns and runs a
| multimillion dollar business. Although I hear margins are
| razor thin even for those.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> This must be why in the 1950's large swathes of Europe
| saw so many farmers fleeing their land to go live in the
| city and take up those new fangled factory jobs._
|
| Did they though? Doesn't match my knowledge.
|
| Most farmers at the time who owned plots of fertile land
| would rather break their backs working the land
| themselves (even if for thin margins of subsistence
| farming) rather than move to the cities to live in
| cramped conditions and break their backs working factory
| jobs for low pay.
|
| The only country folk who migrated to cities to take
| factory jobs were mostly people who didn't own much land
| or any at all, making them relatively poor, so a factory
| job in the city was a better prospect than poverty in the
| country side working someone else's land. But land owning
| farmers would never downgrade by going to work factory
| jobs.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> This must be why in the 1950's large swathes of Europe
| saw so many farmers fleeing their land to go live in the
| city and take up those new fangled factory jobs._
|
| Sure? There is nothing about upperclass-hood that implies
| that it is desirable or infinitely maintainable. In fact,
| beyond the romanticizing of the upper-class we see in
| popular culture, I suspect most actually prefer to be
| working class, especially when coupled with an upper
| income. There are way fewer nightmares when your only
| concern is showing up to work.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Farmers (farm _owners_ ) are middle (petit bourgeois) class
| for small fanily farms dependent largely on the labor of
| the owners, and upper class for large farms, but are a
| small share of the rural population and, in modern society,
| the latter are not necessarily rural at all, whereas the
| bulk of rural population are farm or farm-supporting
| _laborers_.
|
| The bulk of the modern upper class are non-farm-specific
| capitalists, who tend to be urban-dwellers, and bulk of fhe
| petit bourgeoisie (middle class) are non-farm-specific
| small business owners and elite urban laborers whose wages
| have sufficed ti give them a capital nest egg sufficient to
| be a significant share of their economic support mechanism.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> dependent largely on the labor of the owners_
|
| The modern farm, even small family farms, relies on
| capital to do the work. The farm owner's input is into
| the management of the operation. If management is
| considered labour then there is no such thing as upper-
| class. You can't own land and capital without some
| management.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The modern farm, even small family farms, relies on
| capital to do the work.
|
| All businesses rely on the application of labor to
| capital; if that labor is largely that of the owners, the
| owners are petit bourgeois, if it is predominantly rented
| labor of the proletariat, the owners are haut bourgeois.
| (In the simple case where the owners derive their support
| exclusively from that property.)
|
| > If management is considered labour then there is no
| such thing as upper-class.
|
| Management _is_ labor, but that fact does not mean that
| there aren 't a distinct class of people who, while they
| may incidentally do some labor in the marketplace, relate
| to the economy and derive support within it primarily
| through the returns of capital whose value is realized
| primarily by renting labor from the proletariat.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> that fact does not mean that there aren 't a distinct
| class of people who, while they may incidentally do some
| labor in the marketplace, relate to the economy and
| derive support within it primarily through the returns of
| capital whose value is realized primarily by renting
| labor from the proletariat._
|
| Yes, we call them retirees. Who, incidentally, as a group
| have a slight preference towards small town living.
| fidotron wrote:
| It is worth saying what you describe is the classic European
| view of things. In English-speaking countries post
| industrialisation the reverse was the case, with inner cities
| being the regions of notorious poverty, with the upper
| classes engaged in rural pursuits as a pure leisure activity.
| eitally wrote:
| It's important here to differentiate between the _big
| cities_ and the next tier. The big, dense cities (SF, NYC,
| Boston, London, Tokyo, etc) have accumulated wealth and
| privilege within the city and lower income folks are on the
| perimeter. In second tier cities, it 's more common for
| suburban sprawl to have led to "white flight" and wealth
| accumulation outside city centers... but those cities
| frequently don't have near the economic draw in their
| downtowns anyway so it doesn't matter.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| IMO, the GP was perfectly clear, and there's no need to
| misunderstand it on purpose to insist on some unverified
| narrative.
|
| You could just as easily disagree, with a valid point.
|
| (And anyway, the phenomenon you are talking about stopped on
| most of the world at around the middle of the last century.
| The very few exceptions where it is still happening do not
| support you claiming it's a rule.)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| In the US, there used to be the idea of "sidewalk culture" -
| deliberately structuring cities so that different kinds and
| classes of people would meet, literally on the sidewalk, and
| from that would form, at least to some degree, a shared
| culture. There was the idea of deliberately breaking the silos
| that separate people. And maybe that even worked.
|
| Worked. Past tense. In most of the US, it's now a car culture.
| And even in cities where people walk, it's now an earbud
| culture.
| yterdy wrote:
| I'm not sure GP is accurate, even without that. The
| privileged descending to the lower quarters to hobnob with
| the masses is as old as civilization, and of course the
| working lower class generally have to go where everyone else
| is to serve them. If segregation is increasing, there are
| plenty of mechanisms to point to, also: anti-poor urban
| design protocol (including law enforcement-related), low/no-
| contact resource delivery, WFH, the increased cost of
| transportation and housing, etc.
|
| It's not actually a surprise that society is bifurcating, is
| it? Not after the anaphasing of school demographics, voter
| behavior, and so on.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think you are misunderstanding the argument. Yes, there have
| always been rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods in
| cities, but the idea was that with everyone "packed in"
| together and making use of shared resources like sidewalks,
| stores, and subways, that people would essentially be forced to
| come into contact with others from different socio-economic
| levels.
|
| I agree with AnimalMuppet's comment - car-centric behavior
| kills this. For example, if you go to older cities that were
| developed "pre-car" in the US like NYC or Boston, I feel like
| you get more interaction just because you're likely to interact
| with more people on the sidewalks or subway/T. Living in a car-
| centric city like Austin is totally different. As much as
| Austin likes to promote its progressive ethos, this is
| definitely one of the most segregated cities I've ever
| experienced, even more so now that housing prices have gotten
| insane - poorer people live further out, and the public
| transportation system is pretty abysmal and there is much more
| of a socioeconomic divide in people who use it (primarily
| because, and I see this all over the US, but many people love
| to talk about the need and benefits of light rail, but buses
| are often seen as "for the poors").
| wongarsu wrote:
| But in cities that aren't car centric you commonly have
| stores embedded into the neighborhood at walkable distance.
| For everyday needs like groceries you just go to whatever
| shop is closest, which will be a posh Whole Foods in a rich
| neighborhood and a cheap discounter in a poor neighborhood.
|
| You share sidewalks, public transportation, etc when going
| for work or shopping for something that isn't a daily
| necessity. But the same could be said about less urbanized
| places.
|
| The counter argument are towns and villages that only really
| contain one socio-economic group. You can have small towns
| that are basically only rich people, or only poor people.
| Cities provide less segregation than that.
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| Nothing makes you hate people like interacting with them on
| public transit.
| tremon wrote:
| Try interacting with them via the button on your steering
| wheel.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I've never been to Boston or Austin, but here in Paris many
| people take the public transit, be it metro or buses: rich,
| poor, and in-betweens.
|
| Talking to random strangers when out and about is very much
| not the norm. Being forced to come into contact with the
| others is seen more as a negative than a positive.
|
| The only places where I see some kind of mingling is where
| that's the goal, such as bars, and possibly "hobbies".
| Although, IME, even those tend to have people from similar
| "categories".
| rahulnair23 wrote:
| Washington D.C. is a great example of this.
|
| While looking at residential location choice, around 10 years
| ago, you could discern a boundary (Georgia Ave in those days).
|
| Netflix used to show the most popular movies by zip code, and one
| side of the boundary it was "Mamma Mia" and the other "Tyler
| Perry".
| alistairSH wrote:
| Across the river in Alexandria and the surrounding suburbs,
| this was true as well (not sure about Netflix, but the housing
| boundaries)
|
| The bureaucrats, lawyers, doctors, and career officers
| (Pentagon) were highly concentrated in a few neighborhoods that
| border the Potomac (Old Town through Fort Hunt). A few blocks
| away, the Rt 1 corridor was largely working class or lower
| class, with some young enlisted families from Ft Belvior.
|
| This extended to my high school - there were 3 buildings -
| first was arts/music, second was STEM and honors, and the third
| was the gym, auto shop, wood shop, and cooking. It's not hard
| to imagine there were students who never entered building 1.
| And the only reason I was ever in building 3 was the weight
| room and the one semester of auto shop I took.
| savanx wrote:
| I also went to West Potomac and spent hardly any time in
| Gunston.
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