Our conversations about hypersegregation (as Denton and Massey describe it) and social isolation (as William Julius Wilson has termed his phenomenon) have led me to wonder about the effects of integration and gentrification on predominantly black neighborhoods with highly concentrated poverty, and whether Wilson’s or Denton and Massey’s theories will hold amid these trends.

Massey and Denton argue that segregation on the basis of race, class, or both intensifies poverty during periods of economic decline. Integration, it is implied, is the solution. Similarly, Wilson suggests (and Pattillo disputes) that, among other factors, out-migration of a stable black middle class has left black urban ghettos without strong role models or institutions. If this is indeed the case, what impact will an influx of middle class residents have––particularly if those residents are not white? Wilson seems to think that social isolation is one of the primary factors in ghetto poverty, but as Pattillo shows, many poor black neighborhoods are, in fact, surrounded by relative economic stability.

Despite the strong cases for integration into a broader social context that Wilson, Denton and Massey make, there are factors at play that they fail to consider. Their arguments could be refined with an analysis of gentrification’s effects – specifically its tendency to push working-class and poor residents out of areas that were just affordable, suggesting that, as harmful as segregation can be, there are ways of integrating neighborhoods that are equally as harmful.