High-Resolution Geographic Data and Urban Modeling: The Case of Residential Segregation

The increasing availability of geographic data at high resolution and good quality has improved our ability to investigate a city's social geography thanks to the data's enhancement of our capacity to integrate three fundamental dimensions: residential distributions, the built-up environment's properties, and individuals' perceptions. This paper discusses the benefits and constraints of using such data in current approaches to the investigation and modeling of urban residential segregation. Based on several studies conducted on residential segregation in Jaffa, a mixed area in Tel-Aviv, we conclude that high-resolution data, especially at the house-level, has significant potential to enrich our understanding of the involvement of the built-up environment and individuals' spatial preferences in ethnic residential segregation. In addition, the constraints associated with using such data are discussed. On the methodological level, they refer to privacy considerations and cartographic presentation; on the conceptual level, they touch upon the gap between observed behavior, spatial preferences, and the dynamics of social residential segregation.