Close but farthe real distance between blacks and whites in the largest Brazilian city

Resumo

Brazil being a racial democracy has been for long a questionable myth. However, researchers have been finding low and medium levels of racial segregation in Brazilian cities, in contrast with a wide qualitative literature documenting strong social separation between blacks and whites in Brazil. This might be a measurement problem, since most of the research on the topic measures segregation through the aspatial Dissimilarity Index (D), even though D has been shown to be questionable. For instance, it doesn’t take neighborhood relationship between geographic units into account and heavily rely on their boundaries. It might also fail to capture certain segregation patterns, depending on the scale in which segregation takes place. In addition, areas where micro-segregation is predominant in Brazilian cities lack documentation in a more quantitative manner. Hence, this research is an attempt to enrich the theoretical discussion on how the phenomenon of segregation takes place in Brazilian metropolises by comparing D with a measure of Spatial Entropy (REARDON; O’SULLIVAN, 2004) in the Center-Western region of São Paulo Metropolitan Area – the region of oldest urbanization and where the Central Business District is located. Using the last Brazilian demographic census data (2010), Entropy was calculated with both straight line distance and travel time (Open Street Maps) in order to establish neighborhood relationship between census tracts – travel time being a better proxy for the social distance between two individuals in an urban setting. Both D and Entropy distributions were triangulated with a statistical description of racial groups’ socioeconomic conditions, qualitative landscape analysis through satellite and street images (Google Maps), as well as the schools’ racial composition and school segregation index in the same area, calculated using 2010 school census data. Results suggest that whites are more educated and earn higher wages than blacks: 27% of whites attend college versus 8.7% of browns and 11.5% of blacks; 15% of whites earn the 10% highest wages while this is the case for 2% and 3% of brown and black population, respectively. Higher income levels allow choices in terms of service provision. Regarding education, the racially homogeneous private schools are clearly a choice of white middle- and upper-class families, since public schools are free of charge and the Brazilian state guarantees universal access to basic education (K-12). Those choices are extended to the place of residence as well. Areas with low Entropy levels (high segregation) are partially correlated to the percentage of high-income households ( 0:60) and percentage of white residents ( 0:23). D was not able to capture this aspect of racial distribution in the same area, because this index only takes into account the racial composition within the geographic unit, but not its neighboring units. Those rich white neighborhoods are also marked by the existence of private condominiums well equipped with security infrastructure. Hence, the Brazilian white middle- and upper-classes seem to have developed its own forms of self-segregation that might characterize a white flight à la brésilienne to be tested in further research.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Dissertação

Ano

2020

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Inglês

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/28890

Temas

Administração Pública

Palavras-chave

RaceSegregationSegregation measurementSão PauloSegregação racialRaçaAdministração públicaNegros - Segregação - São Paulo (SP)Discriminação racial - São Paulo (SP)Negros - Condições sociais - São Paulo (SP)Identidade racial - São Paulo (SP)São Paulo (SP) - Questão racial