Chicago Plan For Transformation Case Study

Baltimore city had a strong economy, and it was among the top prosperous cities in the United States (U.S)leadingin wages, jobs, and industries up until the 1950s. Since the 1960s, however, the city has seen a decline in its economy as a result of systematic governance failures. Recently, Baltimore has been experiencing an increase in homicide unlike prior years, and in fact, by the end of 2015, various law enforcement organizations predict the city will break its homicide record. As a citizen, Baltimore’s murder rate is a crucial issue to tackle than police brutality because it is symptom indicative of larger issues that need to be addressed and solved in the black community. Three major issues often talked about in Baltimore

When a neighborhood is gentrified it will not only change the image of it, but also the services available there (Al-Kodmany 2011, 62-63). In other words, gentrification does not only have an impact on the physical aspect of the land, but also the resources that lie there. During the 90s, the Near West Side neighborhood located near Loop, an up-scale neighborhood, sought drastic changes within the area. The changes in racial demographics in the Near West Side indicated that the health risks that affected minorities dropped in the past decade (1992-2002) (Al-Kodmany 2011,

I read nine article that discusses various aspects of gentrification from health issues to detreated housing condition and ethnic cleansing. In my rough draft, I thought discussing only one side of Harlem gentrification might confuse readers because all of the subjects are linked to each other. Therefore, I took main the main ideas from each of the nine articles and discussed them chronologically in my rough draft to give audience a better understanding of the series of events that shaped today’s Harlem. In doing so, I failed to follow the instructions. Thanks to Professor Poltrack’s feedback, I was able to focus on one article and discuss Harlem’s gentrification more effectively. In my final draft, I found to easier to analyze and interpret the meaning of article because I concentrated on one particular subject. Going forward, I will read the instructions carefully, underline the key points and talk to Prof Poltrack if I have any question about the

A large influx of colored people created many problems. First, there was a major problem in the availability in housing, of which was responded to with racism. This is the root for the hatred between the black and white communities. There wasn’t enough housing in the “black belt” community, so Negroes began to spill into white neighborhoods. The very existence of a colored person in a neighborhood would lower the property values. When a house was sold to a colored person, the rent for the house would be higher than the previous, white owner’s rent. Real Estate companies believed that “it is a matter of common knowledge that house after house…whether under white or black agents, comes to the Negro at an increased rental” (Sandburg 46). They sold housing despite the fact that “the Negro in Chicago, paid a lower wage than the white workman” (47), and that black people would have

Today we live in a society where it is acceptable for a white and black family to be neighbors, even close friends. This situation has not always been the case. During the 1950’s, the time that the Younger family was living in Chicago, whites and blacks were living completely separate lives and a majority of the blacks were living in poverty. Although there are significant improvements we have made, there are still things that remain the same. Many African Americans in Chicago today are still living in poverty, just like they were over 50 years ago. Two important changes have occurred during these years. Our race relations between whites and blacks have improved tremendously. Today it is completely acceptable for two different colored families to be living next door to each other. The second significant change is not as positive. The homicide rates per 100,000 people have gone up by almost 10 times the amount it was in the 50’s. Many sociologist believe that the cycle of multigenerational poverty causes violence in the mostly black communities, therefore raising the homicide rates. Even though as a city we have improved our race relations there are still problems such as the rising homicide rates and percent of people living in poverty.

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

As stated before, communities within cities tend to be segregated by race and economics. Settlement patterns tend to show that people prefer settling with others that display similar outward traits, usually physical characteristics that can be recognized at first glance. Here, race again plays an important role in community poverty. Many communities create disadvantages for minorities based on the population and location. In the study, a white woman, her children, and her partner are evicted from the predominantly white trailer park. Upon eviction, the couple apply to multiple rental agencies and private apartment complexes with little luck because many property owners do not want the burden of children living in their complexes. As the couple become desperate, the woman considers finding a place in the black ghetto community because prices are much cheaper and there are fewer regulations. However, the partner clearly expresses that by lowering the family by living in the ghetto, they will forever be social outcast and seen as scum. The partner would rather be homeless than

Wilson (2011) research proves that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), contributed to the early decay of inner city neighborhoods by withholding mortgage capital and making it difficult for these areas to retain or attract families who were able to purchase their own homes. As the federal government created this program it excluded certain inner city neighborhoods. This exclusion created “redlining” which assessed primarily on racial composition. People who wanted to get out of public housing and purchase a home in a redlined neighborhood were denied proper mortgages, even if they had sufficient funds. Wilson (2011) says that such restrictions such redlining restricted many opportunities for building or even maintaining quality housing in the inner city, which in many ways set the stage for urban blight that many Americans now associate with black neighborhoods. Policies like this one were created to make blacks stay in the inner city

Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing project is notorious in the United States for being the most impoverished and crime-ridden public housing development ever established. Originally established as inexpensive housing in the 1940’s, it soon became a vast complex of unsightly concrete low and high-rise apartment structures. Originally touted as a giant step forward in the development of public housing, it quickly changed from a racially and economically diverse housing complex to a predominantly black, extremely poor ghetto. As it was left to rot, so to speak, Cabrini-Green harbored drug dealers, gangs and prostitution. It continued its downward spiral of despair until the mid 1990’s when the Federal Government assumed control the

For far too long, African Americans have been neglected the rights to decent and fair housing. In “In Darkness and Confusion,” William Jones expresses his discontentment with the almost cruel living conditions of the ghettos in Harlem as he stated, “It ain’t a fit place to live, though” (Petry 261). William was especially motivated to move to a better home to protect his wife, Pink’s, ailing health. William and Pink searched high and low for more decent places to live – however, they simply could not afford decent. Though marketed to those with lower than average incomes, the ‘better’ housing for blacks were still deficient and extremely pricy. In

Racial segregation has had a long history in Chicago. While separation by nationality had always been apparent in the city, with neighborhoods typically being dominated by a certain ethnicity, no group of Chicagoans experienced the degree of segregation that African Americans faced in everything from the housing districts to public services. Forced to live only in designated areas by de facto segregation, redlining, and other tactics, they had limited chances to escape the cycle of danger and discrimination of the city. Confined to only their deteriorating neighborhoods,they had little chance.

It was a way to constraint African Americans to areas that were far away from those with status, class, and power. Segregation led to discrimination in economic opportunities, housing, and education. The black culture has suffered from the barriers that were placed through segregation. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 tried to limit some of the discrimination associated with segregation. It was discovered that even a “rising economic status had little or no effect on the level of segregation that blacks experience” (Massey and Denton 87). The authors imply that “black segregation would remain a universal high” (Massey and Denton 88). The problem with the continuing causes in Segregation is that even though the Fair Housing act was placed, many realtors still discriminate against blacks “through a series of ruses, lies, and deceptions, makes it hard for them to learn about, inspect, rent, or purchase homes in white neighborhoods” (Massey and Denton 97). Segregation and discrimination have a cumulative effect over time. Massey and Denton argued that the “act of discrimination may be small and subtle, together they have a powerful cumulative effect in lowering the probability of black entry into white neighborhood” (98). William Julius Wilson had

The history of Chicago’s public housing can be traced back to the early twentieth century during the Great Migration, when hundreds of thousands of African-Americans

Viewing the complex matter of gentrification succinctly, it helps to uncover how multifaceted it is; in that gentrification involves the oppression, marginalization, displacement of vulnerable populations, particularly, the poor, and the black who are often already negatively impacted by the effects of classism, and racism. Gentrification threatens to erode the communities and livelihood maintained by these set of people because their displacement becomes a precondition for the total transformation of the area.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s failed housing campaign and the Bronzeville Project exhibit this disjointedness through black middle class Chicagoans ignoring the socioeconomic class divisions within Bronzeville by using institutionalized racial barriers as a conduit to produce a narrative of collective discriminatory practices faced by all blacks preventing social and financial equity for the race. However, these