Map of America's Racial Segregation

I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of European social conflict, but I don't imagine there is a lot of catholic versus protestant tension in say London, nor do I imagine there are persistent and massive socioeconomic disparities between the two groups in London (or at least nothing comparable to the more than factor of 2x disparity between blacks and whites I cited for Chicago).

And running with your example, what do you imagine would have been the political situation in the U.K. if say London had consisted of 60-70% Irish nationalist Catholics in 1985?

Or is there still discrimination within categories of whites? Are Londoners whose families originally hail from say Poland still dramatically disadvantaged compared to ones who can trace their origins in England for centuries? And if so, what would the politics be in the U.K. if London consisted of 60-70% of these hypothetical disadvantaged poles?

Look closely at the map on this thread, and match it up to a Chicago neighborhood map. Look at the border between Beverly (where I grew up) and Gresham and Brainerd. Look at the borders around Hyde Park. Look at the border between Austin and Oak Park (where I live now). For that matter, look at Lawndale vs Little Village. The borders are sharp, they follow regular lines, and generally involve a 90+% majority black neighborhood on one side.

There are a bunch of reasons this happened:

* The Great Migration, during which Chicago was a giant magnet for rural black southerners

* Redlining, the overtly racist/segregationist practice of refusing home loans to black families in "non-black" neighborhoods

* The construction of the Ryan, which displaced black families who ended up moving to places like Englewood

* The construction of the CHA high rise housing projects, which were concentrated in areas that would eventually become majority-black

* The subsequent flight of white families from places like Englewood, which went from 10% black immediately after WW2 to 98+%(!) black in 1980

It's important to note that with the possible exception of Beverly, which really is a white Irish enclave, the non-black non-hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago aren't intolerant, and have black representation roughly in line with their representation in the population as a whole. If you live in Avondale or Rogers Park or Lakeview, it probably doesn't look at all segregated.

Also, Chicago isn't the most segregated city in the US.

I might be mis-understanding the context here: I've been to a few impoverished communities composed of 98% descendants of Western Europeans. Think: white trash.

"Physical attributes influence us as well" But which physical attributes matter and which don't is cultural. I'm tall. I don't only or even mostly hang around other tall people. I'm left handed. I don't hang out with left handed people.

"but has also extremely skewed gender distributions in professions such as engineering and nursing; with almost only men in engineering, and women in nursing, despite massive attempts to balance the situation. This could be easily misinterpreted and claimed as evidence that Norway does not respect gender equality, but in fact it's more likely evidence of the opposite! People in Norway are more free to pursue what makes them happy."

Or gender stereotypes which predated attempts at gender equality still persist and encourage people to think that certain jobs will make them happier than others even though this may not be true.