Sam Lyon - Friedmann response

Sam Lyon: Monday 3PM USP 3

            In “The World City Hypothesis” John Friedmann argues that segregation, or spatial polarization, arises from increasing class polarization among workers in cities. This theory of segregation differs from Zorbaugh and Waquant’s theories in its primarily economic nature. Howard Zorbaugh’s theory focuses on social groups. Segregation, he would argue, arises because individuals exercise their freedom to live where they want by choosing to live with others of the same national or cultural background. Zorbaugh’s theory is very social – individuals prefer to live with those similar to them and in fact naturally end up living in ethnic enclaves. Wacquant, similarly focuses on the social aspect of segregation. Wacquant argues that because of the great deal of infamization and stigmatization of low income service industry worker neighborhoods, individuals living in those neighborhoods hold the belief that living there is bad and that the people who live there are bad. Individuals seek to escape the neighborhood the moment they are financially able. This means that it is nearly impossible for this group to unify and take significant action. Friedmann would disagree with both Zorbaugh and Wacquant. Friedmann argues that huge income gaps between managerial elites and low skilled workers, large scale immigration and structural tends in job evolution lead to segregation. While in most cities there is a wage gap between richer and poorer citizens, in semi-peripheral cities richer citizens are likely to make 10 times as much as poor citizens. Furthermore, inflation and unemployment have contributed to the development of a huge low wage employment sector and eradicated the middle wage sector, limiting upward mobility. Waves of immigrants fall into the low wage sector and never move out of it. On the metropolitan level, Friedmann says this results in the spatial segregation of poor to inner city urban ghettos. This could be because, as he argues, poorer idividuals have almost no control of the wealth in the city. They must live here they can afford.