History Main / UrbanSegregation

* Although most of 2027 London in ''ChildrenOfMen'' appears far scruffier and more ramshackle than present-times, there are clearly enclaves within the city where a gentrified lifestyle still occur — although these once-public areas are clearly now highly restricted. When Theo travels in a Rolls Royce to visit Nigel at Battersea, he goes through a check-point clearance gate at Admiralty Arch and travels down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace. During the journey, it appears as if the area around the Palace, St James' Park and Green Park is physically un-changed, although it has now become an exclusive gated enclave, where people relax in the parks, walk dogs (as well as other more exotic animals) and listen to a brass band play whilst the Household Cavalry process by.

* In ''{{Getbackers}}'', the limitless fortress(where most of the important stories take place) is separated into 3 levels: Lower town, which is basically a slum and is home to all the "normal" residents. People in this town often wear rags for clothes. The belt line, which is basically the "middle class" of the fortress, mostly houses supernatural monsters who exist only to terrorize residents of lower town. And finally there is Babylon City, the top level, home to the most power beings in the Getbackers universe. The top level is basically a palace.

** However, people with enough spiritual power can make their way into the Seireitei from ''any'' of the districts by joining the Shinigami. Rukia and Renji were ex StreetUrchin types came from the 78th district, for instance, and Captain of the 11th division, Kenpachi Zaraki, is from the 80th.

* Goa Kingdom in OnePiece has this going on. Like [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Ba Sing Se]] (See Western Animation), each class is kept seperate by a huge wall. There's the royals and aristocrats living in the center wall, the workers and normal citizens living in the middle wall, and finally the outside slums called Grey Terminal; This is where the kingdom dumps their garbage. The people living there basically live off of the trash, and no one living in the normal city cares what happens in Grey Terminal. The kingdom is basically described as a place where 'everything unwanted is removed'. However, this sort of attitude leads to a MoralEventHorizon when the royal family decides that in order to 'purify' the kingdom, they need to burn Grey Terminal to the ground- ''people included.'' Dragon the revolutionary uses this event and kingdom as an example of why this is wrong.

*** Plus, the upper levels were mostly human supremacists and the lowest levels were filled with disease, lack of sunlight, very few supplies and giant monsters as well as being used as bases for some of the meanest and dirtiest gangs. Sometimes the Sith do good works.

* In ''BaldursGate'', the title city is divided into six sections (which can get annoying to navigate due to the city having double walls), based more on geography than anything else - the districts flow into each other, rather can being completely self-contained. The sequel, 'Shadows Of Amn'' decided to make ease of navigation more important than complete versimilitude, and divided up Amn's capital of Athkatla into a Government District, the Slums, the Temple District, the Graveyard, the Docks, the Gate, and Waukeen's Promenade (market district), none of which have geographical landmarks in common with each other. (There's also the sewers under the Slums, and another set under the Temple. The Government district should probably have one too, being full of rich people who can afford plumbing.)

* Each of the three cities in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'', Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus, are split into Rich, Poor and Middle districts.

** In ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'' Futuristic Seattle is split into Upper Seattle and Lower Seattle, connecting by the Inclinator, a large transport elevator. Upper Seattle residents are rich and live in luxury, and they had robotic servants. The residents of Lower Seattle live in slums and have to worry about wild mutants and cyborgs. They seemed to have made the best of the mutant problem though, they use them for something similar to a cockfight.

** Heng Sha in ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' is divided between upper and lower cities as well. In contrast to the other examples, Lower Heng Sha is clearly not the ''worst'' place, having an impressive skyline of its own and home to the city's entertainment districts. It actually comes off as more vibrant than Upper Heng Sha which hosts universities, research centres and corporate headquarters. That said, the [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas impeccabily modern and shiny]] upper city is so expensive that many of society's less fortunate end up in the lower city anyway.

* ''ShinMegamiTenseiII'': The last bastion of humanity AfterTheEnd is split into The Center, a safe haven for all the important, priveleged and religious people; and Valhalla, which isn't exactly a dump but ''is'' at risk from wandering demons. Unlike most examples of this trope there is a small degree of social mobility: a battle royale where the victor wins citizenship in the Center.

* ''TheWitcher'' video game. The city of Vizima is made up of the the not-visited-in-this-game but presumably elite Royal Quarter, the rich Trade Quarter, the poor Temple Quarter, and the plague infested nonhuman ghetto of Old Vizima. Each district is separated by some very solid looking walls.

* In ''TheSims 2'', the Belladonna Cove city is separated into a poor area inner city area (where there are cheap apartment blocks, a trailer park and run-down coffee shops), a middle-class area where the house and apartment prices increase and there's more parks, and a wealthy area above the rest on a hill with high-tech expensive apartments and mansions.
* ''PanzerDragoonSaga'' has a city that is divided up for religious reasons. Those who have ancestors that lived within the ancient forest (the only spot of real life for miles) get to live in an enclosed part of the village, only they can eat the fruit of the forest and they don't let anybody else to eat it. Meanwhile, outside of the wall is a whole village of people that are hoping to be granted permission to go into the city proper and also to make a living off what the elite do sell/buy.

->''"Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians, and courtesans."''
-->-- '''Kvothe''', ''TheNameOfTheWind''

* In the ''{{Discworld}}'' murder mystery ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5423228/9/Murder-Most-Orrible Murder Most 'Orrible]]'', Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs are discussing the nation of [[TheApartheidEra Rimwards Howondaland]] (a South African expy turned UpToEleven) and its controversial domestic policy of apartheid....

** It's not ''quite'' as clearly deliniated as it seems, though; both the Patrician's Palace and Unseen University are on the Morpork side of the river. The "normal" district can probably be considered to be Hubward Morpork, the area around the Palace and Sator Square.

* ''TheContinentals'': In the steampunk murder, mystery, scifi adventure webcomic "The Continentals", the city of Mansfordshire is figuratively and literally divided into two halves-The high society Westend known as "The Heights" and the lower class Eastend known as "The Narrows"-by a series of interlocking back alleyways known as "The Divide". Find it [[http://www.webcomicsnation.com/moniquem/continentals/series.php/ here]].

** Brussels is an interesting case, where there is segregation between the local Belgians and the so-called Eurocrats, (EU government officials also being expatriates from other EU member states). Most of the Eurocrats reside in the so-called European Quarter, which is Some people even call it as an "administrative ghetto" or "white-collar ghetto" of the EU. (See [[http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/280111-invasion-eurocrats here]] for more details.)

* This is also how most medieval European towns (especially those founded according do German law) were organized. City center housed Town Hall, townhouses of rich burghers and town square that was equivalent with CityOfAdventure "Merchant District". Artisans lived nearby and poorer inhabitants lived on the periphery, usually close to the city walls. Also clergy lived in separate part of the city, usually close to church or cathedral. Additionally, in cities with several lines of walls the richer the people the closer to the innermost city they lived as peripheral "rings" were more likely to be overrun and demolished in the case of war.

* In ''PacificRim'', the poor and downtrodden live along the coast, with the rich and wealthy moving inland, so that they can be protected from the Kaiju attacks. The massive defensive walls that were being built to protect the poor remain unfinished, for the most part; with only a few places like Australia and Russia having their walls complete. Whenever the Kaiju do make landfall, the poor all huddle together inside of cramped Anti-Kaiju Defense Shelters, whereas the rich are secure behind the walls of the gated communities they live in.

* David Wingrove's ''ChungKuo'' is an extreme example: the entire Earth is covered in a 50-story megastructure, with the elite living up top, a [[WretchedHive wretched hive of scum and villainy]] on the bottom, and beneath even that, the poor schlubs who actually live on the ground in utter barbarity.

[[folder:Anime]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Needless to say, this happens in real life. Virtually every city big enough to have seperate neighborhoods will have posh residential districts and places to avoid after nightfall.
* Tel-Aviv, Israel used to (and in many ways still does) fit this trope. There are rich neighbourhoods (some of the richest in the country) and expensive residential towers in the north, industry and slums in the south (now housing a very large illegal immigrant community), and a cosmopolitan commercial center.
* The north sides of Cork and Dublin are poor, their south sides posh.
* Not within a city but a metro area: UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}'s northern limit is Eight Mile Road. Things get much, much nicer about a mile north of that.
* There are exceptions, but property values in [[FlyoverCountry Omaha, Nebraska]] take a sharp jump once you cross 72nd Street.
* This is a general rule for UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} as well--north of the Loop is generally rich, south of the Loop is generally poor. There's a racial aspect as well: if you ride a Red Line train from one end to the other (it runs north-south roughly near Lake Michigan), you will see the racial composition of the train's passengers go from mostly white to mostly black or vice versa.
** Same with the 192 bus route in Manchester. Everybody gets on in the city centre. The majority of black Afro-Caribbean people will have left the bus by Ardwick/Longsight. The majority of Asian people will get off in Levenshulme. The people on the bus who stay on into Stockport are going to be 95% white.
* This is also how most medieval European towns (especially those founded according do German law) were organized. City center housed Town Hall, townhouses of rich burghers and town square that was equivalent with CityOfAdventure "Merchant District". Artisans lived nearby and poorer inhabitants lived on the periphery, usually close to the city walls. Also clergy lived in separate part of the city, usually close to church or cathedral. Additionally, in cities with several lines of walls the richer the people the closer to the innermost city they lived as peripheral "rings" were more likely to be overrun and demolished in the case of war.
** This is still the case for many European cities, especially ones where tourism has driven real estate prices in the city center sky high. Paris is very well-known for having a very high class center while the suburbs have high crime rates and riots every few years.
** Brussels is an interesting case, where there is segregation between the local Belgians and the so-called Eurocrats, (EU government officials also being expatriates from other EU member states). Most of the Eurocrats reside in the so-called European Quarter, which is Some people even call it as an "administrative ghetto" or "white-collar ghetto" of the EU. (See [[http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/280111-invasion-eurocrats here]] for more details.)
* Phoenix, Arizona and its surrounding metropolitan area has the richer denizens living in the north and eastern parts of town, while the less-well-off tend to live in the south and western parts of the valley. There are of course some exceptions, but everyone generally agrees that south Phoenix is the poorest area.
* Many if not all "Gated Communities" count.
** This may be a misperception at least for all but the most upper class and exclusive communities. Generally, while such things as crime decrease when a community is first opened, over time, the community statistics will normalize to the surroundings due to things like the pizza guy needed the gate code (which in turn allows less savory types to get the gate code). Thus, ironically, eventually people believe their community is in fact much better than it actually is.
*** Also, gated communities have fewer bystanders hanging around, reducing the chance of samaritanism and helpful witnesses. The security measures are also unfortunately effective at delaying the response time of police, firemen, and paramedics.
* In the city of Atlanta, northern Atlanta and the Buckhead area tends to be more well of than south Atlanta (or the "swats"). In the metro ''{{Atlanta}}'' area, it is pretty much common knowledge that the northern counties (North Fulton, North Dekalb, Cobb, Cherokee, etc.) are generally richer and usually has more white people than the southern areas (e.g. South Dekalb, Clayton). Knowing this, when a majority white northern part of Atlanta split off into the city of Sandy Springs in 2005 (and is even considering splitting off from Fulton County itself), this has caused many black leaders to accuse them of racism to sue the city and [[http://www.ajc.com/news/lawsuit-seeks-dissolution-of-888729.html demand that the town be dissolved]].
* If you take the 4, 5, or 6 train in the NewYorkCitySubway uptown, you'll cross a border from some of the richest neighborhoods in the country - the Upper West Side - to some of the poorest urban neighborhoods in the country - East Harlem and the South Bronx. The division is stark enough that you can witness the demographic shift at the 86th street stop.
** Interestingly enough, if you keep riding north in the Bronx, the neighborhood will actually improve as you get into Riverdale and closer to Westchester County.
* Contrast the districts of Makati and Pandacan in Manila.
* Rio De Janiero's famous skyline has favelas, which are quite poor and often full of drug-related crime, contrasting sharply to luxury suburbs.
* In {{Istanbul}} during the days of the Ottoman Empire, much of the city was like this. Part of the reason was the ''Millet'' system in which different ethnic and religious groups had neighborhoods set aside for them with leaders that answered to TheGovernment. In some ways, this was pre-Ottoman. During the conquest in 1453, some neighborhoods were able to avoid RapePillageAndBurn by forting up and then making a separate peace; just forcing the invaders to stop and take a breath before continuing the sack was sometimes enough to save a neighborhood.
* UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}} can be broadly divided into Yamanote ("towards the mountain") and Shitamachi ("low city") - the former occupy the mountainous areas generally to the west of the Imperial Palace, the latter the low-lying areas surrounding the Sumida and Arakawa Rivers east of the Imperial Palace. Yamanote was where samurai and other nobles resided during the Edo period; today, its dialect is considered standard Japanese and is the home of modern Japan (it's where the huge corporate conglomerates and its [[{{Salaryman}} white-collar office workers]] are, as well as towering skyscrapers and the latest in contemporary culture). Shitamachi was where the lower class of artisans and merchants lived during the Edo period; today its dialect is considered rough and low-class (though it also carries a straightforward, honest connotation), and the shops there are by and large small businesses run by entrepreneurs. Shitamachi also carries an image of being traditional (as in the Edo era), a recent emergence compared to Yamanote's present and future-looking orientation.
* UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} has an interesting one. Within Philly, the downtown area--Center City--is well-off, and things only gradually get worse after a certain point as you go further north, south, or west into Pennsylvania before getting nicer again; the lines have also been steadily moving closer together since about 2000. However, there is one area with a stark dividing line--going ''east'' across the Delaware River into New Jersey from Center City, you hit Camden, the most dangerous city in America. The dividing line is particularly stark, because within Camden, there is a reasonably pleasant area immediately south of the bridge from Philadelphia (on account of the various educational, medical, and civic buildings in that area), but immediately north of the bridge is a hellhole that nobody who lives elsewhere dares go.
[[/folder]]

* In {{Uglies}} people in their late teens and early 20s who have had the "Pretty" operation live in the middle of the city in New Pretty Town, while people aged 12-16 who are too young to have the operation live in Uglyville, separated by New Pretty Town by a river. Middle-aged and elderly pretties live in the suburbs. Li
* Literature/MortalEngines makes use of the LayeredMetropolis version of this trope. All the mobile Traction Cities in the setting are composed of stacked layers, with the lowermost Tier housing the poor (or even slaves on the less pleasant cities), while the rich have their mansions in the fresh air and sunlight of the top Tier. Larger cities have more than two Tiers, and so allow for finer social gradation. The bottom Tiers also house the giant engines that move Traction Cities, which helps make them very unpleasant places to work and live.

* In {{Uglies}} people in their late teens and early 20s who have had the "Pretty" operation live in the middle of the city in New Pretty Town, while people aged 12-16 who are too young to have the operation live in Uglyville, separated by New Pretty Town by a river. Middle-aged and elderly pretties live in the suburbs.

* UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} has an interesting one. Within Philly, the downtown area--Center City--is well-off, and things get gradually worse after a certain point as you go further north, south, or west into Pennsylvania before getting nicer again. However, there is one area with a stark dividing line--going ''east'' across the Delaware River into New Jersey from Center City, you hit Camden, the most dangerous city in America. The dividing line is particularly stark, because within Camden, there is a reasonably pleasant area immediately south of the bridge from Philadelphia (on account of the various educational, medical, and civic buildings in that area), but immediately north of the bridge is a hellhole that nobody who lives elsewhere dares go.

* The Earth Kingdom capital Ba Sing Se (The Impenetrable City) in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', in which the three districts are divided by big huge walls. The outer ring is home to the refugees from the war, menial laborers and other poorer inhabitants; it is described by Joo Dee as "quaint" and "lively," but she also warns visitors to watch where they walk. The middle ring is home to the middle class; government functionaries, business owners and artisans. The inner ring is where the Earth King himself lives and is home to the wealthy aristocracy of the city, including the Avatar when he and his team traveled to the city in order to meet with the Earth King.

* In the city of Atlanta, northern Atlanta and the Buckhead area tends to be more well of than south Atlanta (or the "swats"). In the metro ''{{Atlanta}}'' area it is pretty much common knowledge that the northern counties(North Fulton, North Dekalb, Cobb, Cherokee, etc.) are generally richer and usually has more white people than the southern areas (e.g. South Dekalb, Clayton). Knowing this, when a majority white northern part of Atlanta split off into the city of Sandy Springs in 2005 (and is even considering splitting off from Fulton County itself), this has caused many black leaders to accuse them of racism to sue the city and [[http://www.ajc.com/news/lawsuit-seeks-dissolution-of-888729.html demand that the town be dissolved]].
* If you take the 4, 5 or 6 train in the NewYorkCitySubway uptown, you'll cross a border from some of the richest neighborhoods in the country - the Upper West Side - to some of the poorest urban neighborhoods in the country - East Harlem and the South Bronx. The division is stark enough that you can witness the demographic shift at the 86th street stop.

* Rio De Janiero's famous skyline has favelas, which are quite poor and often full of drug-related crime, contrasting sharply to luxury suberbs.
* In {{Istanbul}} during the days of the Ottoman Empire much of the city was like this. Part of the reason was the ''Millet'' system in which different ethnic and religious groups had neighborhoods set aside for them with leaders that answered to TheGovernment. In some ways this was pre-Ottoman. During the conquest in 1453 some neighborhoods were able to avoid RapePillageAndBurn by forting up and then making a separate peace; just forcing the invaders to stop and take a breath before continuing the sack was sometimes enough to save a neighborhood.
* UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}} can be broadly divided into Yamanote ("towards the mountain") and Shitamachi ("low city") - the former occupy the mountainous areas generally to the west of the Imperial Palace, the latter the low-lying areas surrounding the Sumida and Arakawa Rivers east of the Imperial Palace. Yamanote was where samurai and other nobles resided during the Edo period; today its dialect is considered standard Japanese and is the home of modern Japan (it's where the huge corporate conglomerates and its [[{{Salaryman}} white-collar office workers]] are, as well as towering skyscrapers and the latest in contemporary culture). Shitamachi was where the lower class of artisans and merchants lived during the Edo period; today its dialect is considered rough and low-class (though it also carries a straightforward, honest connotation), and the shops there are by and large small businesses run by entrepreneurs. Shitamachi also carries an image of being traditional (as in the Edo era), a recent emergence compared to Yamanote's present and future-looking orientation.

* Many if not all "Gated Comunities" count.
** This may be a misperception at least for all but the most upper class and exclusive communities. Generally, while such things as crime decrease when a community is first opened, over time, the community statistics will normalize to the surrounding due to things like the pizza guy needed the gate code (which in turn allows less savory types to get the gate code). Thus, ironically, eventually people believe their community is in fact much better than it actually is.
*** Also gated communities have fewer bystanders hanging around, reducing the chance of samaritanism and helpful witnesses. The security measures are also unfortunately effective at delaying the response time of police, firemen, and paramedics.

* In PacificRim, the poor and downtrodden live along the coast, with the rich and wealthy moving inland, so that they can be protected from the Kaiju attacks. The massive defensive walls that were being built to protect the poor remain unfinished, for the most part; with places like Australia having their wall complete. Whenever the Kaiju do make landfall, the poor all huddle together inside of cramped Anti-Kaiju Defense Shelters, where as the rich are secure behind the walls of the gated communities they live in.
** In the case of Hannibal Chau, He has his own private Anti-Kaiju Defense Shelter, because of an incident that happened inside of an defense shelter that resulted in a messed up eye.
** Mind you that these shelters are far from ideal, as Kaiju can still breach them, like they do with the Walls of Life.

*** If you become aware of it's existence before dying of hunger that is. Only people with spiritual power need foo,, so right off the bat you're trapped in a world where the majority doesn't need and thus doesn't trade in food. If you're stuck in the ghetto's to boot...
** Still doesn't change the fact that everyone from every nation who dies in the real world will be forced to live in a gunpowder age japanese district, and if you're unlucky a ghetto hellhole, and the shinigami do nothing to try and improve the state of the districts. The series starts turning sour real fast if you think too much about the afterlife and it's keepers.

** This is still the case for many European cities, especially ones where tourism has driven real estate prices in the city center sky high. Paris is very well-known for having a very high class center while the suburbs have high crime rates and riots every few years.

* In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind TES: Morrowind]]'', The cantons of Vivec have a bit of this going on. The lower you are in one of the cantons the worse off people are, until you get to the sewers which tend to be filled with vermin. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And rats]].

* In Pacific Rim, the poor and downtrodden live along the coast, with the rich and wealthy moving inland, so that they can be protected from the Kaiju attacks. The massive defensive walls that were being built to protect the poor remain unfinished, for the most part; with places like Australia having their wall complete. Whenever the Kaiju do make landfall, the poor all huddle together inside of cramped Anti-Kaiju Defense Shelters, where as the rich are secure behind the walls of the gated communities they live in.

* In PacificRim, the poor and downtrodden live along the coast, with the rich and wealthy moving inland, so that they can be protected from the Kaiju attacks. The massive defensive walls that were being built to protect the poor remain unfinished. Whenever the Kaiju do make landfall, the poor all huddle together inside of cramped Anti-Kaiju Defense Shelters, where as the rich are secure behind the walls of the gated communities they live in.

* In the ''{{Discworld}}'' murder mystery ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5423228/9/Murder-Most-Orrible Murder Most 'Orrible]]'', Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs are discussing the nation of [[TheApartheidEra Rimwards Howondaland]] (a South African expy turned UpToEleven) and its controversial domestic policy of apartheid....

** Same with the 192 bus route in Eanchester. Everybody gets on in the city centre. The majority of black Afro-Caribbean people will get out by Ardwick/Longsight. The majority of Asian people will get off in Levenshulme. The people who stay on into Stockport are going to be 95% white.