The hasidic community of stamford hill: Non-economic micro-segregation

The case study of Stamford Hill offers a relevant example of interactions between population groups similar in many respects, but each guarding its unique cultural identity. At the municipal level, the research area of Stamford Hill is a segregated Haredi neighbourhood, where demographic, social and economic features have heightened the growing pressure of the population on urban space in recent decades. A closer look at the inner-neighbourhood level, however, exposes the essential “micro-segregation” mechanism that takes place both at the building and neighbourhood levels. The relatively high involvement of the leadership in the community’s daily life leads to a residential concentration of Hasidic communities within walking distance of the community’s religious institutions and overcrowding in these areas. Stamford Hill offers lessons to the literature on segregation and the broad field of inner-city dynamics. This chapter reveals the simultaneous influence of building- and neighbourhood-level factors on the segregation pattern, which contributes to estimating the role of residential dynamics in inner cities for retaining self-identities and reproducing social segregation. It is the individuals’ capacity for self-accountability that keeps the Hasidic community in Stamford Hill functioning ethically. The accepted norm whereby married women devote themselves to the socialisation of the younger generation and housekeeping places the responsibility for making a living mostly on the men. In particular, individuals are expected to organise their lives in a way that maintains religious commitments and communal identity while adapting and negotiating this adaptation to the modern reality in every aspect of their life. Within the Hasidic subcommunities, indirect collaboration within the wider Haredi society of Stamford Hill enables the Hasidic to contribute to the creation of a defined enclave that allows the conservation of lifestyles and cultures. The extended collaboration of the individuals, together with relatively weak community discipline, support and supervision, results in the heterogeneous residential pattern of the inner-city enclave of Stamford Hill.