According to the U.S. Census Bureau as of 2009, there are approximately 6 million people who live in the state of Indiana, of which 891,000 live in Marion County. Of these 891,000 county residents, approximately 67 percent are white, 26 percent are black and 7 percent are Latino/Hispanic. Because of these figures, central Indianapolis is home to a wide variety of neighborhoods. Some of these neighborhoods have been constant in their use and appearance others have gone through gentrification or reuse. I hope my description of a small part of Marion County will provide you with snapshot of the socio-economic differences that exist within this particular area. Today Haughville is referred to as the “historically black neighborhood”. It is located on the west side of the city, south of the White River and west of the Indianapolis Zoo. A century ago Haughville was home to a diversified working class who were employed at nearby factories. This small area survived a great flood, which cut the neighborhood off to the rest of the city, and the elimination of factories built there because of the location. Today, this neighborhood is made up of mostly African Americans and home to high crime rate and poor property values. Haughville was the first community to be part of Indianapolis’s “Weed and Seed” initiative, which targets high crime areas. The homes in Haughville are built close to the street, many lawns are untended, their porches filled with prize possessions. Empty lots are scattered with a few small business such as Goodwill or Judge’s Barbeque mixed in. Old smokestacks stand in the background, a reminder of what used to be. While driving down the street we saw an example of police presence in the neighborhood. Who w... ... middle of paper ... ...ughville, where many of the most violent crimes in the city take place. Haughville businesses have bars on their doors for security purposes; in Meridian Kessler they merely have signs indicating they have a security system. Massachusetts Avenue is urban with a trendy feel. Because of the cost of the housing in this location, a person’s income will be in the upper middle income bracket. The daily concerns for their neighbors living in Haughville are also different from theirs, but parking spaces are not one. Does location have anything to do with the socio-economic climate of an area, or is it the people who live there that decide whether they can make the American dream come true. According to Max Weber, founder of the conflict perspective, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. A few of the neighborhoods of Indianapolis may seem to support this idea.
Many of these ethnic groups still reside where their relatives first lived when they arrived many years ago, whereas a majority of the ethnic groups have dispersed all over the Chicago land area, creating many culturally mixed neighborhoods. Ultimately, all of these ethnic groups found their rightful area in which they belong in Chicago. To this day, the areas in Chicago that the different ethnic immigrants moved to back in the 1920s are very much so the same. These immigrants have a deep impact on the development of neighborhoods in today’s society. Without the immigrants’ hard work and their ambition to establish a life for their families and their future, Chicago would not be as developed and defined as it is now.
In the book The Great Inversion, author Alan Ehrenhalt reveals the changes that are happing in urban and suburban areas. Alan Ehrenhalt the former editor of Governing Magazine leads us to acknowledge that there is a shift in urban and suburban areas. This revelation comes as the poorer, diverse, city dwellers opt for the cookie cutter, shanty towns at the periphery of American cities known as the suburbs. In similar fashion the suburbanites, whom are socioeconomic advantaged, are looking to migrate into the concrete jungles, of America, to live an urban lifestyle. Also, there is a comparison drawn that recognizes the similarities of cities and their newer, more affluent, residents, and those cities of Europe a century ago and their residents. In essence this book is about the demographic shifts in Urban and Suburban areas and how these changes are occurring.
Approximately forty-five miles east of Sacramento, California, is the friendly town of Placerville, which marks a major “Gold Rush” historical landmark in the United States. In the early days of this small gold mining boomtown, Placerville was known as “Hangtown.” If you come into town, you will see the sign of Placerville, and underneath it you will see its nickname reading, “Old Hangtown.” Nooses can be seen all over town, on police cars, on historical landmark signs – even at the firehouse and on the Placerville City Seal. Placerville has a great deal of history behind its name. Many people who pass through the town, or even those that live there, don’t realize the history behind the town.
In his article, “Race and Housing in the Postwar City: An Explosive History,” Raymond Mohl focuses on suburbanization and racial segregation in post-World War II America. Due to discriminatory practices in the housing market,
Imagine living in a town that was once thriving with successful businesses to a community that barely exist. As you travel down the deserted roads of your community you are surrounded by boarded up memorable buildings, deteriorating homes, and empty storefronts. The water tower that stands tall for all to see is now covered by rust. While the streets in which you are traveling on show signs of frequent patchwork in an effort to salvage the road. As you pass by what once was your favorite mom and pop’s restaurant you began to reminisce on the time you spent there with loved ones. This has become the story of residents in Boley, Oklahoma; one of the first all black towns in the state.
Housing segregation is as the taken for granted to any feature of urban life in the United States (Squires, Friedman, & Siadat, 2001). It is the application of denying minority groups, especially African Americans, equal access to housing through misinterpretation, which denies people of color finance services and opportunities to afford decent housing. Caucasians usually live in areas that are mostly white communities. However, African Americans are most likely lives in areas that are racially combines with African Americans and Hispanics. A miscommunication of property owners not giving African American groups gives an accurate description of available housing for a decent area. This book focuses on various concepts that relates to housing segregation and minority groups living apart for the majority group.
The city of Longtown, Ohio is crashing down. The population of blacks is decreasing, and the population of whites is increasing. Individuals in Longtown have a past of integration, and Connor Keiser is trying to preserve the life him and his ancestors have lived. Riverside should adapt some of the ways Longtown, Ohio functions. The city has demonstrated unity and the positive ways black and white people live together. The article by Washington Post, “Ohio town holds rare history: Races mix freely for nearly 200 years” expresses the need for integration and how Connor Keiser plans to save it. The foundation of Longtown was by James Clemens, and according to the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson the town has a past history that should not be changed.
In the article, “‘Violence’ in Cincinnati,” Thomas A. Dutton brings up a conversation about the urban area of Over-The-Rhine. He speaks out about how this downtown area has extremely too much violence and there needs to be something done about it. He speaks to the age group of twenty-five and up and to all citizens of Cincinnati. This article was published in 2001 in “Nation” magazine. At this time in Cincinnati, there were many disputes about race. A white officer shot an unarmed black man in April in 2001 that had many offenses against him at the time and was killed shortly after. Riots broke out and curfews were set in to place. This is a major event that happened in Cincinnati’s history and still today has hurt the citizens and the Over-The-Rhine district. Violence has been fought against people of color for a very long time and it affects the people and various cities around us.
Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating such a grave societal problem and furthering social justice.
In the Origins of Economic Disparities, Douglass Massey recounts how racial violence and vigilantism impacted race-relations during the year of 1919 (Massey 49). To that end, Douglass Massey also describes the political mechanisms and policies instituted to maintain an embedded social and racial hierarchy in the increasingly multicultural North. He writes that “the distinguishing feature of racial segregation in the post-war era is the unprecedented role that government played not only in maintaining the color line, but in reinforcing and strengthening the walls of the ghetto” (Massey 61). Restrictive covenants, instrumentalized by real-estate agents, legally bounded sellers by deeds. Furthermore, these deeds, written in the form of contract law, enumerated which buyers fit the description of potential homeownership. In turn, only these potential residents were deemed eligible to buy a home in their respective all-white communities. If a white homeowner willingly decided to sell their home to an African-American family, they faced harsh repercussions and often-times extra-legal violence and intimidation from their neighbors. Given the economic impact of redlining policies, many white homeowners expressed their internalized thoughts about racial-mixing in their neighborhoods (ex. Levittown, PA and Chicago, IL) and followed unwritten codes of white flight to leave their seemingly “undesirable” neighborhood (Massey 55). Simply put, white homeowner groups produced a code of conduct and stringent deed contracts in which predominately white homeowner associations enforced through local administrative control. In sum, private actors and non-governmental organizations, such as a board of realtors, banks, and brokers, systematically excluded
Mobsters, drugs, and violence sounds like a plot for a 50’s gangster movie but it is the everyday life for people living in Camden County, New Jersey. The city is portrayed as falling apart, over run with corruption and violence in Chris Hedges article “City of Ruins.” Soon Camden County will become a forgotten ghost town if they do not make drastic changes with the government, education system, and bring jobs back to the county.
Furthermore, he attempts to dispel the negative aspects of gentrification by pointing out how some of them are nonexistent. To accomplish this, Turman exemplifies how gentrification could positively impact neighborhoods like Third Ward (a ‘dangerous’ neighborhood in Houston, Texas). Throughout the article, Turman provides copious examples of how gentrification can positively change urban communities, expressing that “gentrification can produce desirable effects upon a community such as a reduced crime rate, investment in the infrastructure of an area and increased economic activity in neighborhoods which gentrify”. Furthermore, he opportunistically uses the Third Ward as an example, which he describes as “the 15th most dangerous neighborhood in the country” and “synonymous with crime”, as an example of an area that could “need the change that gentrification provides”.
Poorly kept neighborhoods house more amounts of criminal behavior than other areas in the community because over time, everyone in the community stopped caring about the upkeep of the neighborhood’s appearance as well as the neighborhood as a whole. This lowers the social control of the neighborhood, or the strength of people holding each other accountable for the rules of society. According to Wilson, if the boys continue living in in the run down, poverty-stricken environment of Henry Horner Homes as they grow up, they will be more likely to engage in criminal behaviors when later in their
Each borough in New York City has different levels of income, whether it’s high, middle or low. Although no one can choose where there are born, they can choose where to live when they become adults. Many people remain in the same place where they were born. For some, it’s a choice and for others, it’s because of unfair circumstances. As a result, they contribute to the statistics of certain incomes in each borough. Socio-economic class plays a huge role when it comes to where and how people live.
In their Social Disorganization Theory, Shaw and McKay concluded that “bad parts of town” could be found in almost every large city. This is because as observed within the ecological model of expansion in the growth of large cities, there was a distinct interplay of factors influencing Social Disorganization in their zones of transition. Shaw can McKay concluded that it was a place that bred crime (the zone of transition) and that crime is much higher in the zone of transition because of the presence of poverty, residential mobility, and ethnic heterogeneity (Course Textbook, CH.7). These zones of transition were generally speaking seen as “ lower class