The new segregation

I argue that there has emerged since the 1960s new forms of racial segregation in the United States. Placing this claim in context of earlier historical shifts in the manifestation of segregation—the north-south segregation of post-Reconstruction, the dramatic urban neighborhood segregation emerging in the first half of the twentieth century—I map out both the character and effects of this segregation, and the political, economic, and sociocultural conditions that combine to produce it. Thus while the old segregation was “activist” and for the most part monolithic, the new segregation is “conservationist,” preference driven, and class differentiated. I suggest that a new form of segregation has emerged also, and outline the contours of this ideological representation.