Socio-Economic Residential Segregation in Greater Buenos Aires: Evidence of Persistent Territorial Fragmentation Processes

Abstract

AbstractSocio-economic residential segregation is a common feature of almost all Argentinean cities, neatly divided into poor, middle-class, and affluent neighborhoods. At the end of the 1980s, and especially over the 1990s, the process of suburbanization for affluent and upper middle-class groups was consolidated as a generalized model. This study concentrates on the trends and the patterns of socio-economic segregation in Buenos Aires and focuses on two major dimensions of segregation: the spatial concentration patterns of a given social group in specific areas and the degree of social homogeneity within such areas. Socio-economic segregation is described using the highest level of education that a householder has completed as a proxy for socio-economic status. The indices of segregation and dissimilarity are used as the main measure to compare the level and changes of residential segregation but other metrics—such as location quotient index—are also used to estimate the degree of homogeneity or heterogeneity in neighboring areas. This study uses population and household census data from 1991, 2001, and 2010 provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC), and the data are presented at the spatial disaggregation level of block groups called ‘radios censales’.