This section is structured as a compilation of short essays describing different levers or mechanisms of establishing and maintaining boundaries. These pieces may seem random at times, however, it is the hope that a common intent of boundary development will emerge, that is, there is a deliberate and durable separation of the poor, black and brown peoples from those who are not poor, black or brown. To many, this may seem obvious and, to others, preposterous. This separation is marked by boundaries of neighborhood, city and town limits, county and state lines or can be seen by site of (un)employment, schools, grocery stores and churches that have been in place for many, many years attesting to the durability.  The evidence of mechanisms I bring to bear on the presence of these boundaries is not only historical but contemporary leading me to believe that boundaries are not so much arbitrary as they are intentional, and, most of all, they are preserved through the continuity of mechanisms. I examine the boundaries using a city, Trenton, New Jersey, to uncover, really discover, the historical and existing mechanisms of boundary making.

In the following short essays, I situate the development of boundaries through questions of race, violence and disposability without displacing or setting aside the motives and agency of resident power internal and external to the halls of city, state and national governments and their policies. Nor do I avoid the class division within the city and the retention of the legacy of Trenton’s role in the founding of the country.  In other words, these essays are not just about violence within the community or busing to import racial balance in schools. Rather, they suggest highly linked connections between racism, the presence of continued violence (homicide and other forms) and the preservation of boundaries.