Descriptive Essay: Union Grove

He describes the white flight from the inner cities to the suburbs, leaving neighborhoods with high concentrations of poor minorities behind. The Missing Class examines a similar theme of gentrification of neighborhoods, illuminated by the example of the Floyd family in the Clinton Hill neighborhood in north central Brooklyn. “Once in decline, the neighborhood is now on the upswing . . . various factories have shut their doors, the affordable housing has disappeared, and upscale apartments have sprouted.” (Newman & Chen, pg. 12). The Floyds lost their one financial asset, their home, when they were swindled by a contractor who promised to fix up the house, and allow them to pay their loan off over time. The Floyds lament about the influx of affluent white Yuppies in their neighborhood, a place where they know everyone and have lived for the past twenty years, wondering what it will mean for the neighborhood’s identity, wondering if it will still be a black neighborhood. According to another neighbor, despite the rising prices, most black residents won’t sell their homes. “Their family roots are in the South, where property carries with it both tradition and responsibility” (pg. 15). Clearly, the loss of a house or a neighborhood could deeply affect a person’s sense of self and a sense of pride, leaving someone grasping for their once stable identity.

In Streetwise, Elijah Anderson (1990) discusses the social forces at work in an urban area he calls the Village-Northton. His is a sociological field study of the daily interactions between the residents of an area encompassing two communities--in his words, "one black and low income to very poor (with an extremely high infant mortality rate), [and] the other racially mixed but becoming increasingly middle to upper income and white" (Anderson, 1990, p. ix). In keeping with valid sociological fieldwork, Anderson (1990) immersed himself in the community from the summer of 1975 through the summer of 1989.

The purpose of this paper is to identify common issues of concern in my community, Huntington Park. In order to identify those issues, I will interview four individuals that live in Huntington Park. The goal of this paper it to identify the problems within the community that are affecting people every day and identify when and how it started, why is it happening, who is getting affected, and what has been done. Each person will be interviewed separately to identify if there are common and current issues, challenges, concerns, or problems that have or have not been resolved in the community. Each person will be notified that their interview will consist of the interviewer taking notes and will be used for school purposes. Upon approval, this

The suburban life is a dream which people of all economic backgrounds sought. Although many families were not able to realize the ideal white picket fence suburb experience which one often imagines when speaking of the suburbs, they still created a suburb of their own. The desire for a suburban home to call their own was largely due to the notion that a home provided a sense of security; it was safety net (Nicolaides and Wiese 2006:213). This safety net could not be obtained in the central city because people were simply not able to buy an apartment or condominium and instead were simply forced to rent. Moving to the suburbs and purchasing a home was seen as a good investment, and people of all races wanted in on this investment.

In her book, “Strangers in their Own Land,” Arlie Hochschild, who is a liberal, attempts to escape from her bubble on the west side of the nation in order climb the “Empathy Wall” and understand the reasoning behind the most right wing, conservative members of the Tea Party. To get the best understanding of their motives, Hochschild traveled to the heart of the Tea in rural parts of southern Louisiana, like Sulphur, where the population is filled with white, badly educated, blue collar American citizens.

Growing up in the small town of Pocahontas, Iowa gives appreciation to the simplicity of tight-knit communities. With a population of 1,800 people, there is single café where local farmers enjoy a morning cup of coffee while discussing the news. Rural communities are a place where children have birthday parties at the local pizza place and teenagers’ first jobs are as detasslers. As a child, your mother knows if you got in trouble at school before you return home and everyone’s name is well known throughout the area.

A poor economy, outdated health care programs, and classism have propelled a majority of Americans into poverty. In a community, groups of people are often disenfranchised through the means of external factors; circumstances they cannot control. Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, conveys a powerful message demonstrating how people can become divided and deprived due to issues that affect a community. The message is appealing because the book is set in the 1930s; however, some of the very same issues are taking root in today 's society.

My hometown of Eldersburg, Maryland is fairly indistinguishable from the majority of towns in the rest of the United States. Eldersburg closely strattles the line of being the town mentioned in an All Time Low lyric, and that being placed in the crosshairs of somewhere. The main points about Eldersburg probably stem from the influx of supermarkets we have such as Food Lion, Martin’s, and Safeway, to name some of the larger ones, and the location of Liberty High School. However, despite this inability to have any truly positive distinguishing features, I have always found Eldersburg to be quaint enough to learn the lessons of growing up in a safe, community driven environment. Home is a place where you grow as an individual, flourish into what

My town has a way of sheltering me; it’s relative uniformity and low crime rates represent a different society than what appears in the media. But I read the news; I assumed I knew what the rest of the world was like. In reality, I had a muted perception of people’s lives in other places. It’s as if I were exempt from the effects of the violence and evils happening

It takes a lot to rip apart a town. It takes a lot to ravage a community, particularly one as tightly-knit as Ridgway, Pennsylvania. Nestled snugly at the southeastern edge of Allegheny National Forest, Ridgway’s population has dipped to just below four thousand in recent years, though in its 191 years of settlement, it’s never once been called home by more than roughly six thousand people at once. Its proximity to the forest attracts huntsmen and hikers alike, but unless one were actively looking for the town—the square mileage of which comes in at just over two and a half miles, total—it would be remarkably easy for Ridgway to not make a blip on someone’s radar at all. It’s small, out of the way, and most of all, quiet—a recipe for insignificance.

“Higher Education” explores how Perry Reese Jr., driven by his sense of equality, overcomes the burdens of racial and cultural barriers in a non-diverse community. He brings his culture into the Amish community, and he educates them about his own culture. He “annihilated what people here had been brought up to keep,” and he allows boys and girls inside his house to “grab a soda, have a seat, eat some pizza, watch a game, play cards, Ping-Pong, or Nintendo… and talk” (24). By destroying what the Amish community had been brought up to keep, their space, he starts to show them what his culture is like; the Amish were insular and kept their own space like they were taught to, but Perry breaks the barrier between his and the Amish cultures. Perry

There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America

Growing up in small-town Pflugerville, I never imagined what life would be like outside of a "country" area - until I moved to Killeen, Texas. Killeen is a town full of hot-headed, military, city-slickers that clog up the highway like ants. Often, I think of times when I was younger - looking up at the clear, blue, open skies; the smell of fresh-cut grass always awakened my senses. Now, I look up and I see wires, buildings, cars, and smog. They always say "There is no place like home," and in this case, there are no two places that differ more than my hometown and the town I live in now. The speed of life, the buildings, and most of all, the crime rates are all very new to me. The world is like bowl of fruit, sometimes the taste of each point on a map can differ as greatly as apples and oranges.

Bobby Lefebre says, “Watching everything I love about my neighborhood slowly walk into a mere memory is disheartening. It seems like every day there is a new institution, business, or mural being cleared away to make room for the new.” This quote not only helps you understand just how upsetting gentrification is to people who were rooted in these areas, but also how the original atmosphere is no longer apart of the neighborhood. These Chicanos, are not saying that people of other races or backgrounds cannot live in these neighborhoods as well, they just want it to be the same tight knit group of people who are able to help each other out and provide information to people of the same background. The idea of a tight knit community plays an important role in preservation and is imperative to these individual’s survival. Bobby Lefebre also writes, “Let’s honor our past by ensuring Northside communities of all backgrounds are not erased. Let’s work together to preserve our diverse traditions and cultural artifacts; even if preservation means creating things anew.” Even though gentrification is happening in multiple neighborhoods, there is still ideas for how to keep the original feel and the historical value that people who have lived in the area for a long time would benefit from and help give peace of mind, with the changes that are happening in their neighborhood. The ongoing stories of these people can remain in the neighborhood and will grow with them as well as the growing communities. Jolie Diepenhorst comments at the end of Bobby Lefebre’s article and her comment is another voice for how truly upsetting gentrification is to people and the history of the area. She says, “This is a beautifully written piece that illustrates everything that is

I will firstly explore the community I have chosen by speaking to local people, using photographs, and recordings of my observations. In doing so I intend to create a picture and overall feeling of the community as well as the people who live here. This data will be accompanied by my own comments in