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A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure.[1] Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of such restricted areas have been found across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.

The term was originally used for the Venetian Ghetto in Venice, Italy, as early as 1516, to describe the part of the city where Jewish people were restricted to live and thus segregated from other people. [2] However, other early societies may have formed their own versions of the same structure; words resembling ghetto in meaning appear in Hebrew, Yiddish, Italian, Germanic, Old French, and Latin. During the Holocaust, more than 1,000 Nazi ghettos were established to hold the Jewish populations of Europe, with the goal of exploiting and killing European Jews as part of the Final Solution of Nazi Germany.[3][4]

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The term ghetto acquired deep cultural meaning in the United States, especially in the context of segregation and civil rights. It has been widely used in the country since the 20th century to refer to poor neighborhoods of largely minority populations. It is also used in some European countries, such as Romania and Slovenia, to refer to poor neighborhoods.[5]

The etymology of the word is uncertain, as there is no agreement among etymologists about the origins of the Venetian language term as it pertains to a neighborhood. One theory of the word can be traced to a special use of the Venetian ghto, meaning 'foundry' (there was one near the site of that city's ghetto when it was founded in 1516).[6]

The character of ghettos has varied through times. The term was used for an area known as the Jewish quarter, which meant the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews in the diaspora. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were often the outgrowths of segregated ghettos instituted by the surrounding authorities. A Yiddish term for a Jewish quarter or neighborhood is Di yidishe gas (Yiddish: ), or 'The Jewish street'. Many European and Middle Eastern cities once had a historical Jewish quarter.[citation needed]

Jewish ghettos in Christian Europe existed because of majority discrimination against Jews on the basis of religion, language and dated views on race: They were considered outsiders. As a result, Jews were placed under strict regulations throughout many European cities.[9]

In some cases, the ghetto was a Jewish quarter with a relatively affluent population (for instance the Jewish ghetto in Venice). In other cases, ghettos were places of terrible poverty. During periods of population growth, ghettos (as that of Rome) had narrow streets and tall, crowded houses. Residents generally were allowed to administer their own justice system based on Jewish traditions and elders.[citation needed]

During World War II, the Nazis established new ghettos in numerous cities of Eastern Europe as a form of concentration camp to confine Jews and Romani into limited areas. The Nazis most often referred to these areas in documents and signage at their entrances as "Jewish quarter." These Nazi camps sometimes coincided with traditional Jewish ghettos and Jewish quarters, but not always. On June 21, 1943, Heinrich Himmler issued a decree ordering the dissolution of all Jdische Wohnbezirke/ghettos in the East and their transference to Nazi concentration camps or their extermination.[10]

A mellah is a walled Jewish quarter of a city in Morocco, an analogue of the European ghetto. Jewish populations were confined to mellahs in Morocco beginning from the 15th century, after the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Iberia, and especially since the early 19th century. In cities, a mellah was surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway. Usually, the Jewish quarter was situated near the royal palace or the residence of the governor in order to protect its inhabitants from recurring riots. In contrast, rural mellahs were separate villages inhabited solely by the Jews.[citation needed]

The development of ghettos in the United States is closely associated with different waves of immigration and internal urban migration. The Irish and German immigrants of the mid-19th century were the first ethnic groups to form ethnic enclaves in United States cities. This was followed by large numbers of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, including many Italians and Poles and Russians between 1880 and 1920. Jewish immigrants were part of the earliest German wave, as well as comprising numerous immigrants from Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire at the time.[12] Most remained in their established immigrant communities, but by the second or third generation, many families were able to relocate to newer housing built in the suburbs after World War II.[citation needed]

These ethnic ghetto areas included the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York, which later became notable as predominantly Jewish, and later still as Chinese and Latino. East Harlem was once predominantly Italian and in the 1950s became home to a large Puerto Rican community. Little Italys across the country were predominantly Italian ghettos. Many Polish immigrants settled in areas of other nationals, such as Pilsen of Chicago and Polish Hill of Pittsburgh. Since the late 20th century, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn has become the home of predominately Jewish Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, who left after the Soviet Union lifted some migration restrictions and later after its fall.[13]

A commonly used definition of a ghetto is a community distinguished by a homogeneous race or ethnicity. Additionally, a key feature that developed throughout the post-industrial era and continues to symbolize the demographics of American ghettos is the prevalence of poverty. Poverty constitutes the separation of ghettos from other, suburbanized or private neighborhoods. The high percentage of poverty partly justifies the difficulty of emigration, which tends to reproduce constraining social opportunities and inequalities in society.[14]

The term ghettos has been commonly used for some time, but ghettos were around long before the term was coined. Urban areas in the U.S. can often be classified as "black" or "white", with the inhabitants primarily belonging to a homogenous racial grouping.[15] This classification can be traced back as early as the year 1880 as African Americans were living in their own neighborhoods.[16] Sixty years after the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, most of the United States remains a residentially segregated society in which black people and white people inhabit different neighborhoods of significantly different quality.[15][17]

Two main factors ensured further separation between races and classes, and ultimately the development of contemporary ghettos: the relocation of industrial enterprises, and the movement of middle to upper class residents into suburban neighborhoods. Between 1967 and 1987, economic restructuring resulted in a dramatic decline of manufacturing jobs, which had formerly provided good livings for unionized, working-class blacks and whites. The once thriving northern and western industrial cities survived by a gradual shift to service and financial occupations. Subsidized highways and suburban development in the postwar period had pulled many middle and upper-class families and related businesses to the suburbs. Those who could not afford to move were left with disrupted neighborhoods and economies in the inner cities. African Americans were disproportionately affected and became either unemployed or underemployed, with little wage and reduced benefits. A concentration of African Americans predominated in some inner city neighborhoods.[14]

It is also significant to compare the demographic patterns between black people and European immigrants, according to the labor market. European immigrants and African Americans were both subject to an ethnic division of labor. Because of discrimination, African Americans were often restricted to the least secure division of the labor market. David Ward refers to this stagnant position in African-American or Black ghettos as the 'elevator' model, which implies that each group of immigrants or migrants takes turns in the processes of social mobility and suburbanization; and several groups did not start on the ground floor. The inability of black people to move from the ground floor, as Ward suggests, is dependent upon prejudice and segregationist patterns established in the South prior to World War I, where most African Americans were disenfranchised by the turn of the century and deprived of political power.

After the exodus of African Americans to the North during and after World War I, they had to compete with numerous European immigrants; thus, African-Americans were diminished to unskilled jobs. The slow rate of advancement in black communities outlines the rigidity of the labor market, competition and conflict, adding another dimension to the prevalence of poverty and social instability in African-American or Black ghettos.[20]

[P]oorly underserviced infrastructures, inadequate housing to accommodate a growing urban populace, group conflict and competition over limited jobs and space, the inability for many residents to compete for new technology-based jobs, and tensions between the public and private sectors left to the formation and growth of U.S. ghettos.

The cumulative economic and social forces in ghettos give way to social, political and economic isolation and inequality, while indirectly defining a separation between superior and inferior status of groups.[citation needed]

Two dominant theories arise pertaining to the production and development of U.S. ghettos: race-based and class-based; as well as an alternative theory put forward by Thomas Sowell.[citation needed] 2351a5e196