Segregation Lab: Three American Metros

Segregation Lab: Three American Metros

Interactive geography investigation

Segregation Lab

How can a city become more divided than most households asked for? Then, when history, wealth, law, and geography enter the model, who truly has the power to choose?

1

The innocent-looking experiment

Two household groups begin in a mostly mixed city. A household moves when too few nearby households belong to its own group. Set the threshold, then let many small decisions accumulate.

Purple households Teal households Vacant home

How many nearby households should be similar?

Similarity threshold30%
Households satisfied--
Same-group neighbors--
Moves this run0
Start with 30%. Most households are not demanding total separation. What will the collective pattern become?

This is a Schelling-style teaching model, not an explanation of American segregation by itself. It deliberately starts too simply so we can see exactly where the simplicity fails.

2

When "choice" is not equally available

Turn structural mechanisms on and off. Each active mechanism changes where households can move, what housing remains available, or who faces involuntary displacement. Then run the same city again.

Purple households Teal households Vacant home

Keep the household threshold constant

The similarity threshold stays at 30%. Any new change in the pattern now comes from the mechanisms you selected.

Same-group neighbors--
Opportunity access gap--
Forced moves0
Select at least one mechanism. Every colored household still has preferences, but the available map is no longer the same for everyone.
3

One nation, three urban anatomies

American segregation is not one pattern repeated from coast to coast. Examine three stylized metropolitan reconstructions, then choose the mechanisms that best explain why each developed differently.

Map colors summarize broad documented settlement patterns for comparison. They are teaching reconstructions, not census-tract estimates and not statements about every resident inside a colored area.

White concentration Black concentration Latino concentration Asian concentration Mixed

Reality test

Twin Cities: the spatial inheritance

Choose the three strongest explanations

Choose three mechanisms, then check your diagnosis.
4

The same policy enters three different cities

Spend six policy points. The same package is applied to all three metros, but its effects differ because the inherited geography, housing market, transportation system, and displacement pressure differ.

Policy budget: 0 of 6 used
Select policies up to the six-point budget. Better access, greater integration, neighborhood stability, and lower displacement risk do not always move together.
5

Build the explanation, not a disappearing essay

Select one central claim and one piece of evidence from each metro. The lab will assemble your choices into a causal argument you can discuss, revise, or use as the basis for a written response elsewhere.

Choose the claim that your evidence will support

Your causal explanation Choose a claim and one piece of evidence from each city. Nothing is stored or submitted.

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