Unemployment in the city limits further feeds the belly of poverty. Unemployment rates for Richmond in August 2013 were 8.2% (United States Department of Labor, 2013). These rates represent only those that are documented as unemployed and does not consider the “under employed” as they may be working but not getting paid for a full work week. These unemployment rates would likely be higher if they were accurate and all inclusive of the unemployed in Richmond. The unemployment rate for the entire state of Virginia was reported at 5.8% in August 2013 (United States Department of Labor). The unemployment rate is related to education. There are not enough good paying jobs to support those who did not finish basic high school. There are not enough good paying jobs to reach citizens of the city that do not have adequate transportation.
Transportation appears to be a consistent barrier to obtaining and securing full time employment within the city and outside of the city limits. Richmond households have access to limited bus service routes and 18% of residents report that they do not own private transportation such as a vehicle (Poverty Commission, 2013). In order to secure a good paying job, one must be able to get to work. Not having reliable and adequate transportation is a major barrier that prevents many city residents from being self sufficient. Employment that is secured must be organized according to bus schedules that often do not mesh well with work hours. Employers will often choose to hire employees that do not have these barriers. Access to employers that are willing to pay a living wage seems to be limited for city of Richmond residents as this barrier appears to secure their spot in public housing. Contrary to...
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...up the pockets of poverty that crime will be eased. Breaking up pockets of poverty is a geographical project that is not an easy fix. In order to explore how the city ended up with these pockets of poverty, we must go back many decades and begin with racial segregation.
The City of Richmond has a history in regards to race relations and segregation that is anything but pretty. The current state of poverty and disorganization in Richmond and other cities like it did not happen by chance. Not only was it was very specific and intentional, it had the federal government’s signature all over it. How did Richmond end up with these neighborhoods that appear to be doomed with crime, unemployment of a sense of hopelessness and helplessness? To understand the current state of poverty and crime in Richmond Virginia, we must go back in time to see where it all started.
Rothstein (2014) states “long before the shooting of Michael Brown, official racial-isolation policies primed Ferguson for this summer’s events” (p. 1). Rothstein writes how African-Americans were denied access to better jobs, housing, education, and were placed into areas that eventually became slums. Blacks were relocated several times, which eventually “converted towns like Ferguson into new segregated enclaves” (Rothstein, 2014, p. 9). Government policies were a catalyst that caused what is known as white flight, or the movement of white residents to more private residential, upscale areas, in which blacks could not afford or were not permitted to reside. Some neighborhoods used eminent domain laws to keep blacks from moving into white developments. Blacks were targeted with unethical lending rates by banks. Deceptive real estate practices were the norm when it came to selling houses to African American families. Before 1980, laws allowed boundary and redevelopment policies to keep blacks from white neighborhoods. However, in 1980, the federal courts ordered all forms of government to create plans on school and housing integration. Rothstein (2014) adds “public officials ignored the order” and only “devised a busing plan to integrate schools” (p. 4). The housing market collapse, along with exploding interest rates, left the black neighborhoods devastated, as stated by Rosenbaum (2014, p. 9). Ferguson was less that 1% black in 1970, however by the time Michael Brown was killed in 2014, the community was nearly 70% black, with its schools nearly 90% black. In review, Hannah-Jones (2014) relays how the white flight from St. Louis caused businesses and jobs to leave along with the residents. With their departure, the schools also suffered. Schools
An academic study done on violent crime in San Antonio for the SciVerse Science Direct journal analyzes how built in environmental characteristics influence such a diverse and rapidly growing city. San Antonio’s population consists of 60% Hispanics, a poverty rate of over 18%, a teenage birth rate of 39/1000, and a homicide rate of 6.9 per 100,000 (302). The results of the study indicate that residential instability, poverty and low education rates are the biggest factors contributing to San Antonio’s crime increase (not forgetting the obvious population increase contribution). Almost 7% of San Antonio homes are “vacant” while 40% are rented, not owned (Sparks 304). The author explains that rented homes are usually what are inhabited by single mothers, military members, minorities, and lower income families that have increased chances of poverty and susceptibility to criminal involvement (Sparks 305). O’Sullivan shows how the relationship between crime and wage is very elastic, so a 10% increase in wages would lead to a 10% decrease in crime. In San Antonio’s case, the unstable nature of land use creates a lower opportunity cost for committing property crimes on vacant areas. A detailed map in the study showed how the north and northwestern areas of San Antonio with more housing turnover and housing construction consequently
The presence of crime in the inner cities of America is the result of many different factors. Although it is impossible to explain the issue with one single theory, it is possible to recognize the characteristics within society that have traditionally been associated with crime. These include poor neighborhoods, weak family structures and high rates of unemployment. However, they cannot be used to explain overarching mechanisms of extremely high rates of American urban crime today. Social structures as well as cultural conditions play strong explanatory roles in describing the causes of crime in American cities. Some prominent social structural theories include social disorganization theory, strain theory, and cultural deviance theory.
Yet another problem that could easily be solved by relocating the homeless is that of unemployment. American companies...
In his final remarks regarding his study, Philippe Bourgois states, “The painful symptoms of inner-city apartheid will continue to produce record numbers of substance abusers, violent criminals, and emotionally disabled and angry youths if nothing is done to reverse the trends in the United States since the late 1960s around rising relative poverty rates and escalating ethnic and class segregation.” Bourgois uses the sociological imagination to connect the problems faced by the drug dealers of East Harlem to those that span nationwide among minorities living in similar inner-city areas. He suggests that policies need to be changed across America to ensure that the quality of life for individual living in inner-city areas, like the drug dealers in East Harlem, will improve.
In this article, Squires and Kubrin argue that place, race, and privilege interact and combine to play a large role in the unequal opportunities that different citizens have in metropolitan areas across the United States. They first explain the existence of “bad” neighborhoods in these metropolitan areas and attempt to describe their development over time. They discuss how place has played a role in this. For example, they discuss sprawl, which they define as “a pattern of development associated with outward expansion, low-density housing and commercial development, fragmentation of planning…, auto-dependent transport, and segregated land use patterns” (48). They explain how sprawl has negatively affected inner-city neighborhoods. Additionally, the authors discuss the impact of race on the formation of unequal life opportunities. Racial minorities do not have access to the same opportunities as white people in America today. Although improving in recent years, the United States remains a highly segregation nation. This segregation, which is both a cause for and result of sprawl, is an example of how place and race interact in the formation of bad neighborhoods and unequal opportunities. Finally, the authors define how privilege affects inequality. Living in an area of large concentrated poverty as well as family social status, being born into either extreme wealth or poverty, have a large effect on the opportunities that one will have in life.
Currently there are about 600,000 people who live in the South Bronx and about 434,000 who live in Washington Heights and Harlem. This area makes up one of the most racially segregated areas of poor people in the United States. In this book we focus on racially segregated areas of poor people in the United States. In this book we focus on Mott Haven, a place where 48,0000 of the poorest people in the South Bronx live. Two thirds of the people are Hispanic, one-third is black and thirty-five percent are children. There are nearly four thousand heroin users, and one-fourth of the women who are tested are positive for HIV. All of this, and much more in one little area of the South Bronx. In the middle of all this chaos and confusion are children. Children who have daily drills on what to do if gunshots are heard, children who know someone who has died of AIDS, children who have seen someone been shot right in front of their face wondering if its their father, children who long to be sanitation workers, and children who die everyday. The lives of these children almost seem lost with depression, drugs, and death all around them.
“For thugs from the ghetto, violence is a way of life - it's what helps you survive.” That quote was said by Suge Knight a hip-hop mogul who grew up in the streets of Compton, California. Compton is another known area for its high violence and high number of gangs on its streets. Social inequality has worsen over the years, the gap between the rich and poor only has increased. Living conditions have deteriorated over the years. The window of success has shrunk in areas of inner city communities. If you can walk into an inner city hospital and go up to the window in the maternity ward and predict the future of the babies lying there, you know we have a major issue.
Crime in this country is an everyday thing. Some people believe that crime is unnecessary. That people do it out of ignorance and that it really can be prevented. Honestly, since we live in a country where there is poverty, people living in the streets, or with people barely getting by, there will always be crime. Whether the crime is robbing food, money, or even hurting the people you love, your family. You will soon read about how being a criminal starts or even stops, where it begins, with whom it begins with and why crime seems to be the only way out sometimes for the poor.
This state is full of more cities besides just Los Angeles and San Francisco, for example, my city Richmond, California. I wasn’t born there, but I have lived there most of my life, and there is a certain appeal is there, but its not the stereotypical beauty you see in any infomercial. This city isn’t celebrated nor is it world recognized for its accomplishments, but it is a small city with hidden treasure. The hidden treasure are the success stories that the community does not expect, and that can create a sense of empowerment for everyone around us. That empowerment is something that should be seen nationally, especially since Richmond is not the only impoverished city in
In the report A New Form of Social Dislocation in the Inner-City Ghetto, William Julius Wilson analyzes three research studies conducted in Chicago between 1986 and 1993. In these studies, Wilson identifies a new type of poverty, which he coins jobless poverty. Jobless poverty represents the growing number communities that are compromised of a high percentage of unemployed individuals. These communities have the same recurrent themes of isolation in inner-city ghettos where the surrounding area is abandon, desolate or deserted of economic opportunities and community benefits. In contrast to living in employed poverty or unemployed poverty in neighborhoods of high employment, jobless poverty causes negative effects that lead to individuals and their families becoming stuck in a continuous cycle of jobless poverty. As a result of these negative effects, it is important to consider policy solutions that would address this growing problem and provide opportunities for individuals to escape the cycle of jobless poverty. The most affective solutions to jobless poverty are more mixed-use developments and a larger public transportation networks.
Now with understanding the cause and effects of residential segregation and the many challenges that those in the communities face on a daily basis from lack of schools, high crime, and lack of jobs. With so many studies and statics the issue of so many people still falling victim to the everyday violence and little being done.
When the City of Atlanta is mentioned, individuals automatically associate the city with its positive attributes, such as, the beautiful lights, family activities and tourist attractions. The crime that occurs often goes unmentioned; however it is increasingly becoming an issue. Forbes ranked Atlanta as the sixth dangerous city in the US with a violent crime rate of 1,433 per 100,000 residents. The city’s crime rate correlates with its poverty levels and low education rates along with Beccaria’s ideas of punishment being swift, severe and certain.
In When Work Disappears, William Julius Wilson builds upon many of the insights he introduced in The Truly Disadvantaged, such as the rampant joblessness, social isolation, and lack of marriageable males that characterized many urban ghetto neighborhoods. In the class discussion, Professor Wilson argues that it is necessary to disassociate unemployment with joblessness, as the former only measures those still s...
Although homelessness is widespread and almost next to the catastrophic global hunger problems, it can be brought under control and its effect reduced to a greater percentage. By simply tracking the root causes of low wages and the lack of affordable housing as well as improving other support systems like housing vouchers and health care, homelessness can be solved.