Urbanization and the Production of Durable Political Inequality

Robert Vargas, University of Chicago

What produces durable political inequality? This article investigates this question through a comparative-historical case study of urbanization in Chicago, Milwaukee, and St Louis. Analyzing ward maps and archives from each city’s founding in the 1800s to the present, we discovered four urbanization processes that produced durable political advantage for Chicago and Milwaukee’s former settlements. Specifically, 1) land acquisition, 2) territorialization, 3) interstate jurisprudence, and 4) neighborhood synthesis protected settlements from ever being redistricted. The absence of settlements in St Louis illuminated the importance of intergovernmental relations for explaining differences in how urbanization shaped durable political inequality across cities. Whereas urbanization in Chicago and Milwaukee unfolded in a context of collaborative intergovernmental relations, urbanization in St Louis occurred amidst adversarial intergovernmental relations for reasons related to slavery and Missouri’s contentious entrance to the union. We conclude by discussing implications for urban, political, and comparative-historical sociology.

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 Presented in Session 149. Regional Development and Inequality