Reading Guide for American Apartheid

 

 

 

1. What is the central argument of this book?

 

2.      How were black ghettos different from the neighborhoods where early immigrants settled?

 

3.      What was blockbusting and how was it used to expand the ghetto?

 

4.      Even after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, segregation persisted.  Why?

 

5.      Is minority suburbanization a potential solution to racial segregation?

 

6.      What are the measures of segregation and what do they mean?

 

7.      What is “hypersegregation” and why is it important?

 

8.      How do we explain the persistence of segregation? Is it really just about class?

 

9.      Does segregation exist just because blacks want to live with other blacks?

 

10.  What is the Schelling model and what does it predict about the persistence of segregation?

 

11.  What practices do some suburban realtors use to prevent racial integration?

 

12.  How does segregation concentrate poverty (p. 120)?

 

13.  Poverty is not a socially neutral factor.  How does poverty (and its concentration) affect the social and economic environment of poor blacks?

 

14.  Why do Puerto Ricans (but not Mexican Americans) display the social and economic problems typically associated with the underclass?

 

15.  What are the political consequences of segregation?

 

16.  How does physical isolation effect the political economy and the economic opportunities of the ghetto?

 

17.  What was the Gatreaux decision and why is it important?

 

18.  Why is there so little political attention paid to questions of segregation?

 

19.  What are some possible solutions or plans of action to combat segregation?