Detroit once a vibrant city in the 1950’s has gone bankrupt and has become a place where the standards of living have dropped. Detroit has now become an unsatisfactory place to live, due to things like extreme poverty and pollution. “Today, the boomtown is bust. It is an eerie and angry place of deserted factories and homes and forgotten people. Detroit which once led the nation in home ownership, is now a foreclosure capital.” (LeDuff 5) The main reasons for the decline are the lack of economic diversity, racial tension, unreliable politicians, and the oil crisis. These factors all took major roles in Detroit having to declare bankruptcy in 2013; however even after the obstacles Detroit has had to overcome, it is now back on the path to success. …show more content…
Extreme rates of poverty became a major issue in the city and still continues to be one today. According to the Brookings Institution’s 2010-2014 census data, 40% of the population live below the poverty line, making that the most in one city in the United States. Problems arose like water issues, people were unable to pay their bills, but the city could not afford to pay people to turn off the water supply. With the growing poverty rate, there was also a lot of high school drop outs. The education system is in pieces and continues to have many financial struggles. The have been some actions taken to raise money for the school. Nevertheless, everything from the principles to the teachers needs reform. Detroit’s land also suffered from the urban decay. It was left in ruins when the automotive companies moved out, empty manufacturing buildings and lots of trash from the factories. These sites are an extreme hazard to the people living in Detroit (Thomason 1-4). “The EPA has said that more than 40,000 contaminated parcels have been forfeited to the city for failure to pay taxes.” (Thomason 2) The chemicals are known to cause many health problems such as cancer and asthma. People are debilitated by these health issues and require more medical assistance. This makes it almost impossible those in poverty to make enough money to get themselves out of poverty because of medical costs, and the city in unable to pay for the clean-up because they need to focus in on paying for education and other public services that are necessary in
Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 1993. U.S. History in Context. Web. The Web.
How has this book advanced the study of urban environments? In “The Origins of the Urban Crisis” we have learned what can happen in a very industrial city when it pertains to one major industry and what the differences are between the way that different races are treated when it comes to the hiring, laying off, and firing differences as the industry changes. I feel that this book has taught us that industries are always changing and that they need to advance and move to keep up with the demands that the industries have to offer. This book focuses on the 1940s through roughly the 1970s, this was a time when equal rights and major racial discrimination were very big issues that not only Michigan faced, but, cities have faced all over the United States. During this time, was also when there was a major rise in the automobile industry. As the automobile industry took off and we learned that as technology advances that there is not as much
Detroit, once known as a bustling city of fast cars and bling, is now known for its poor education system. Detroit, minus its Red Wings, has failed at every turn economically and educationally. With its population cut in half and poverty rates soaring, there is no telling what can stop this disaster of a city. The only hope, it seems, is to better educate the region that Detroit inhabits. Detroit Public Schools has been one of the worst performing school districts in recent years. In 2013, the city of Detroit filed chapter 9 bankruptcy, the largest account of bankruptcy to-date. Good teachers avoid Detroit Public Schools because of the poverty, job quality, and low pay, leaving children with the unqualified teachers they have today in this poverty-plagued city that they call home.
The city that I am going to examine is Toledo, Ohio. Toledo has gone through a lot of changes since World War II. It flourished with industry and grew out from there. Out of the many city models that the book covered, the model that a Toledo best fit into is the sector model. This essay will go into detail about the physical, economical, social, and political issues and changes that have faced Toledo in the past fifty years.
Mayor Mike Duggan has recently added his voice to the many others in regards to asking for state help for Detroit Public Schools. While he observed some schools that were properly maintained, he noted that conditions in some schools would “break your heart” including issues with heating and severe water damage that prevented children from using the gymnasium. Duggan’s tour came to a quick and early end, however. Many schools were closed in early January due to teacher sick-outs as a form of protest to what teachers call “deplorable conditions for them as well as students.” These protests are in direct response to the building conditions, pay cuts, and the recent plan by Governor Snyder. In addition, the school system is projected to run out of funds in April. Duggan encouraged the state to help fix Detroit schools. Of the districts ninety-seven s...
Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. Ed. Thomas Carson and Mary Bonk. Detroit: Gale, 1999.
The environment and the health of the surrounding population go hand in hand. The Environmental Protection Agency takes on this ever so important mission of protecting them both. The mission statement of the EPA states, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Small Business Programs is to support the protection of human health and the environment by advocating and advancing the business, regulatory, and environmental compliance concerns of small and socio-economically disadvantaged businesses, and minority academic institutions (US Enviromental Protection Agency, 2010).” The impact of its mission can be defined clearly as it examines the impact of contamination in the air, the water, and the land on human health.
Health care will shorten bankruptcy. It was said that over 50% bankruptcies are contributed from medical problems. Medical contributes 17% in bankruptcies. “This threatens the solvency of solidly middle-class Americans. They propose comprehensive national health insurance as a solution.” (Medical Bankruptcy: Myth Versus Fact) In 2008 politicians were used to show that the health care system needs to be changed. It needs to be changed so it can control costs and give more people coverage. “Debtors cited at least one of the following specific causes: illness or injury (28.3 percent of respondents), uncovered medical bills exceeding $1,000 in the past two years (27 percent), loss of at least two weeks of work-related income because of illness
Ratner, Lizzy. "The Economic Recession Is Increasing Homelessness." Homelessness. Ed. Tamara Thompson. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Boom Town and Bust City: A Tale of Two New Yorks." The Nation (14 Feb. 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
This is portrayed in the film, starting out in the community of Norco and Diamond, which respectively contain majority Caucasian (which are financially thriving) and African American (which are financially declining) people. Near the homes of these citizens, a Shell refinery is located which releases chemicals in the air and this negatively impacts the health of these residents. However, the difference in opinion of the health impact is clearly seen between residents of Norco and Diamond. In Norco, many of the citizens have either worked or work for Shell refinery and deny that any adverse health effects were caused by this company. On the other hand, the citizens of Diamond voiced their concerns about what chemicals the air contained, along with the adverse health impacts. Concerns that arose include the impact on health, how the pollution is affected the community, the types of chemicals that were inhaled, economic conditions, etc. The Shell company tried to propose a solution by buying out two out of the four streets, however, this is a smaller community, which means by doing this then families would be separated and left in this community that is still polluted. This offer was rejected, and instead these
The spatial isolation present in Detroit deepened anti-integration sentiment, and the resulting shift of whites out of the Rust Belt led to conditions conducive to deindustrialization. However, Sugrue notes that “[racial prejudices] are the result of the actions of federal and local governments, real estate agents, individual home buyers and sellers, and community organizations” (11). That is to say white flight is a phenomenon dependent on political climate rather than being an entirely intrinsic, prejudiced practice of whites. This is an important distinction to make, as it helps reinforce the idea that systems such as poverty and racism are exactly that—systems, and not a result of individual immorality. The same can be said for the urban crisis in Detroit: as opposed to being purely an issue of deindustrialization or poverty, Sugrue argues that the circumstances of Detroit may be in part an institutional problem. “The shape of the postwar city, I contend, is the result of political and economic decisions, of choices made and not made by various institutions, groups and
For our group community assessment, we assessed the neighbourhood of Moss Park. Throughout our assessment at Moss Park, we noted many of the community’s characteristics including physical environment, resources available, strengths and weaknesses etc… Moss Park is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, the area is mainly comprised of worn-out buildings and houses with a satisfactory number of resources including a public library, school, health care centers, pharmacies etc… During the assessment of this neighbourhood we noticed that the physical environment was contaminated with the presence of garbage on the streets and in residential areas. As we were walking through this area during our assessment, we noticed a strong smell of cigarette smoke in many areas on the streets and in some residential areas. We also observed many people smoking in the area which creates a harmful environment of second-hand smoke. Lastly, we noted th...
“ The state of Florida needs to take at the factors that have caused this”. What this is that the toxic waste the polluted Florida needs to be check out. In Pensacola , a superfund site abuts a play area where most of the children are black. Toxic chemicals produced throughout the world are found in extremely high levels in Inuit people’s bodies and in
3. "Overview: The Town." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2015. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Mar. 2015
Our cities are not what they used to be. Over the corse of fifty years the once proud, strong, and viable hubs of American economic prowess are but a shell of what they were built for. The problems that many cities have are no longer condensed to their city limits and the sprawl that was created over that fifty year period is now threatening to enter the suburban spaces that were created when the city’s citizens left. The metro sprawl is starting to loose it’s attractiveness and unless there is more acknowledgment of the problems creeping out of these cities, the same declining trends will create unoccupied commercial and residential districts not unlike the downtowns of many American cities. Without careful discussion about these trends and our communities embracement of a more regional approach, then there will be more problems in less dense suburban areas, making those problems hard to correct. In order to prevent the spread of this urban blight and avoid low occupancy rates, communities must implement regional tax policies, plan for more effective use of space, and encourage smart growth.