For many city residents, the country conjures up pictures of unpolluted air, garden-fresh food and physical activities. But these days, Americans residing in big metropolitans live longer, better lives compared to their country counterparts – a reversal from years earlier. One of the most prominent features of the industrial stage is the development of urban life. In early times, the populations habitually lived in settlements engaged in agriculture. Cities arose here and there as hubs of trade or government organizations. Today in all developed nations, the situation has been reversed. The city people in United States and England have expanded nonstop over the countryside residents. Although big urban areas were once infamous for law-breaking …show more content…
According to a report last year from the South Carolina Health Research Center, rural kids aged 2 to 5 are approximately twice as likely as urban kids to consume more than 24 ounces of sweetened beverages a day. For children aged 6 to 11, rural kids consume on average 80 grams of fat a day, compared to 73 grams of fat a day. One more reason why rural kids are less healthy is because they are more physically inactive and watch more television programs lot more than urban kids. Rural people tend to be less health conscious compared to the urbanites because they were not taught to eat healthy or be physically active. They just do not know what they are doing. And that is why they eat so poorly, and hence, why their health tends to be not as good as urbanites. For example, in Washington DC, it is very health conscious that if a person does not participate, he or she feels the odd one out. Bigger cities around United States are now more and more health conscious, with bicycles available around the cities and traffic congestion is everywhere, capital residents are less expected to be obese and more likely to bike or walk to work or take public transportation to work. In simple, a health conscious city produces a health conscious society. Banning smoking in public areas, both indoors and outdoors, adding new parks, walking trails and bike trails, and a population that prioritizes healthy habits are the little things that create a healthy
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.
As the world strives for convenience and a fast-paced lifestyle, an epidemic of poor health is on the rise. With constant life struggles, fast food readily available, and little time for preparation, citizens of the United States are not paying attention to what they’re putting in their child’s mouths. The state of Mississippi has developed the highest percentages of childhood obesity in the United States. Although this percentage has decreased in recent years, the numbers are still astounding. The children of Mississippi are slowly being poisoned by their parent’s poor choices. Due to parent’s poor nutritional education and poor health habits, the children of Mississippi will continue on the destructive path of obesity
The modern story of developed areas is a move from the inner city to the suburbs. This decentralization of metropolitan areas has left urban areas neglected. Such a transformation has had negative consequences, because it has inherently meant the abandonment of those left behind in urban centers. Furthermore, the issue is complicated by the fact that the distinction between those moving to the suburbs and those left behind has been defined largely by race. As Kain notes,
Urban life during the late nineteenth-century (the Progressive Era) was rapidly changing due to the gradual population shift into city landscapes, which occurred in tandem with the influx of foreign immigrants settling into the United States. These relatively new and overcrowded cities generated contemporary and stimulating ideas — however, at the same time, these cities also faced a series of unforeseen issues. As a result, middle-class reformers during this time began to feel threatened by major problems that continued to plague these cities, including tenement housing conditions, lack of child labor regulation, and corrupt political bosses.
After World War II, the United States of America became a much wealthier nation. As America gained wealth and the populations in urban cities and transportation technology increased, many Americans spread out, away from the urban cities, to fulfill the common dream of having a piece of land to call their own. The landscape constructed became known as the suburbs, exclusive residential areas within commuting distance of a city. The popularity and success of the suburban landscape caused suburbs to sprawl across the United States, from the east coast to the west coast and along the borders between Canada and Mexico. By the 1990s, many suburbs surrounding major urban cities developed into being more than merely exclusive residential areas. The new kind of area developed out of suburbia, the post-suburban environment, has the characteristics of the suburbs and the characteristics of the central city, or what postmodern political geographer and urban planner, Edward Soja calls, ‘the city turned inside out' (Foster 1). The post-suburban environment, is “a fundamentally decentralized spatial arrangement in which a variety of commercial, recreational, shopping, arts, residential, and religious activities are conducted in different places and are linked primarily by private automobile transportation” (Kling 1). The multifaceted aspects of the post-suburban environment make it an attractive and dynamic space with opportunities of employment. Topanga Canyon, near Los Angeles, California, is such an example of a suburb space that's developed into a dynamic post-suburban space. Since the post-suburban space of Topanga Canyon is dynamic and filled with employment opportunities, it's attractive to Mexican immigrants who wish to have a better l...
From the moment William Levitt created the first official suburb in 1950, the suburban lifestyle has been viewed as practically utopian. This adopted myth has boosted suburbia into the most popular residency for Americans, housing approximately 138,231,000 or 55% of all Americans (Gillespie 4). For the average citizen, this popularity seems encouraging, assuming that the majority of our country's population is actively pursuing a lifestyle that includes a desire to work honestly and live modestly as well as to provide a stable and protected living environment for one's family. Unfortunately, things are not always as they appear. If examined closely, the popularity of America's suburbs is more disturbing than encouraging. Suburbia is actually a representation of the dehumanized characteristics that America's citizens have acquired and not a symbol of their wholesome zeal for a utopia. Using the American Dream as a facade, suburbia is simply a manufactured myth that allows Americans to disguise their diminishing family values, their hunger for socioeco...
The Suburbanization of the United States. New York. Oxford University Press, 1985. Lemann, Nicholas. The.. The Promised Land.
adults are obese (“Adult Obesity Facts”). An estimated one third of school aged children are overweight or obese as well (Childhood Obesity Facts”). A country that is supposed to be healthy should contain citizens that are in fine feather alike. Everyday, people are forgetting what it feels like to be healthy, and/or live a healthy lifestyle. They are losing motivation to keep their bodies in shape; the only motivation they have is to get up and drive to the nearest McDonald’s. America is headed for dystopia, and it seems as if people are becoming too lazy to try and stop it.
While many people continue to live their lives in cities, some may come to the impression that they are “wasteful.” The individual who strives to do their best to eventually reach their dreams, and gain the material things they desire might not seem very effective, compared to the one who is content with their simple, more “pure” life in some vast land away from the city. However, there is a better chance of seeing more people like the former rather than the latter. Certainly, most people today do not live on farms, vacant marshes, or vast deserts, and instead live in cities. Most often, those people would avoid living in such provincial places because of their distinct conditions. Although if we were to determine which type of life is more
Suburban ascendancy radically altered the geography of America’s political economy, decentralizing wealth and power away from their traditional location in urban hubs and concentrating the poor in the central city. At the same time, the suburbanization redrew racial and ethnic
Sociologist … explained that open pattern of suburb is because of seeking environment free noise, dirt and overcrowding that are in the centre of cities. He gave examples of these cities as St. John’s wood, Richmond, Hampstead in London. Chestnut Hill and Germantown in Philadelphia. He added that suburban are only for the rich and high class. This plays into the hands of the critical perspectives that, “Cities are not so much the product of a quasi-natural “ecological” unfolding of social differentiation and succession, but of a dynamic of capital investment and disinvestment. City space is acted on primarily as a commodity that is bought and sold for profit, “(Little & McGivern, 2013, p.616).
People 's eating habits have also changed tremendously, American eat more processed foods, and people tend to eat out a lot, the problem is with the foods that are offered in restaurants and vending machines which are unhealthy compared to what is generally prepared at home. Portion sizes are much more and packed with fat, and more calories. Some communities are designed in a way that it is almost impossible to be active and stay safe. Children getting to parks may be difficult. Americans spend too much time in front of screens, be it for work or entertainment. The solution to childhood obesity is not a single solution neither is it an easy one. The solution to childhood obesity is multidimensional; Parents should restrict television-viewing time for their children. As a community, we can also expand access to fruits and vegetables, learn how to grow our own vegetables. Communities can also reach out to school health advisory councils to advocate for healthy food programs in the school systems. There is so much that needs to be done even from the level of the local and state
Susan S. Fainstein, Scott Campbell. 2003. Readings in Urban Theory. Second Edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Imagine having to choose to reside in one place for the rest of your life. Which would you opt for? Some people would argue that the hyperactive lifestyle that a big city has to offer has more benefits than living in the country. However, others would contend that the calm and peaceful environment of the countryside is much more rewarding. Several people move from the city to a farm to get away from the hustle and bustle. Likewise, some farmers have traded in their tractors and animals to live a fast paced city life. Of course, not all large cities are the same nor are all of the places in the country identical. Realizing this, ten years ago, I decided to hang up the city life in Indiana to pursue a more laid back approach to life in rural Tennessee. Certainly, city life and life in the country have their benefits, but they also have distinguishable differences.
In the early nineteenth century, during the Industrial Revolution, Americans gradually began selling their farms and trading the common suburban life with the adventurous fast-pace urban life. Today the majority of the American population chooses to dwell in cities, towns or suburbs; however, there are still many families living the country lifestyle. What influences an individual to select one way of living over another? The area in which one's home is located has effects on their way of life. Urban living and suburban living both have advantages and disadvantages, and these characteristics are what greatly influences peoples' decisions about where they should live.