Eric Klinenberg

Eric Klinenberg, assistant professor of sociology at New York University (formally of Northwestern University), wrote "Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago" in order to further investigate the devastating Chicago heat wave of 1995. From July 13h to July 20th, the heat led to over 700 deaths and thousands being hospitalized due to heat related illness. Following the catastrophe, there have been numerous medical, meteorological, and epidemiological studies done examining the reasons for the historic mortality rate, but none seemed to focus on the on underlying issues such as social etiology. In "Heat Wave", Klinenberg, a Chicago native, takes his fascination with the social possibilities surrounding the event to greater depths.

The Great Chicago Fire was one of the significant devastation that happened in the eighteenth century. Through this tragic event, hundreds of people died and thousands of buildings were completely destroyed in the fire. Before, the city was flourishing as more people traveled and decided to call Chicago their home. After the fire destroyed most of the surrounding area, people began blaming one another for the deaths of all the people. As time passed, Chicago slowly began to rebuild like never before. Although the city of Chicago continued to grow before the fire, after, the city boomed with the abundance of money and people. Moreover, because there was destruction, the people of Chicago, Illinois did not allow a fire to stop them from creating more opportunities for the future. The city has changed from the fire, but because of the help that was received, it was able to get rebuilt, and invite new individuals to explore the wondrous city of Chicago.

Elroy Berdahl was more than just a bald old man who lived in a cabin, but rather the person O’Brien needed the most. At the time, O’Brien finds out he was drafted and was scared for his life. O’Brien decided to go to Canada and ends up staying in a cabin which would forever change his life. Elroy represented a safe place for O’Brien because Elroy took him under his wing with no problem. O’Brien carried the weight of a decision that can forever change his life, a decision that would slowly drive him insane. O’Brien never directly told Elroy his situation, but Elroy understood and avoided influencing O’Brien’s decision in anyway. O’Brien’s definition of courage in this chapter was to to jump off the boat and swim to Canada. What stopped O’Brien

I have no passion or desire to write about a thunderous destruction of a city or the death of hundreds of people. Yes, I have no connection to this topic, besides my home being 30 minutes from downtown Chicago, but that does not mean that this fire does not pertain to me or anyone who lives in a completely different state for that matter. So, just because I have never experienced a disaster of this magnitude does not mean that my lips should stay shut regarding the topic of the Great Chicago Fire. What must be done is to look at events and, for that matter, life in a certain perspective that is not always one-sided. This one-sidedness can come from focusing on a particular outcome without realizing what else

During the mid-20th century there was much racial discrimination, specifically in home ownership. During this period there was mass immigration of Southern blacks to the north. In Lawndale Chicago, there was adverse reactions to this. As the

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.

Currently within the United States one of the fastest growing minority population (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) is the Latinos. In 2010 Census Bureau Brief ( Ennis, Rois-Vargas, & Albert, 2011) it stated how an estimated 15 million Latino individuals were living within the United States, which is approximately about 16% of the entire U.S. population. There is one big problem with addressing the Latino population, and that is the family patterns are either misrepresented or not properly understood, due to the label of Hispanic and Latinos being placed together. These two groups may share the same spoken language of Spanish and have similar cultural ancestry but the diversity among Hispanic and Latinos (Schwartz & Scott, 2012) make generalizations about their lifestyles difficult. The term Hispanic came to be used in the 1970’s by government officials (cdc.gov, 2011) in trying to provide a diverse label on this population that had connections to speaking Spanish and the Spanish culture. Latino became more of a termed to be used when distinguishing between Mexican (Hispanics) and Latinos who descendants from Latin America such as Cuba and Puerto Rico.

On March 13, 1900, a tenement building in New York City caught fire, killing fourteen Italian immigrants. The poorly constructed frame building housed three stories of tenement quarters, with ten apartments per floor. The rooms were five by ten feet, separated only by flimsy half-inch thick boards. With just one exit through the entrance of the building, and that only by way of a 42-inch wide stairway, their only escape was destroyed, leaving eleven families of “caged victims beyond help.” People became so desperate that they jumped from upper balconies as the firemen on the scene struggled to control the flames. The top floor proved to be the deadliest, with a victim in nearly all ten rooms. After the arrest of a suspect and an

Recent events that have highlighted racial tension in the United States have had even a larger number of opinions that vary regarding why the nation continues to struggle with such a challenging issue. In our text Chapter 6 titled “The City/Suburban Divide” (Judd & Swanstrom, 2015, p. 136) identifies a subject that very well may contribute to the tension. A reference to the “urban crisis” describes a landscape that is littered with “high levels of segregation, inequality and poverty, along with racial and ethnic tensions.” (Judd, et al., p. 165) Many scholars argue that the crisis was a result of the demographic changes the nation experienced following World War II as advancements in technology and infrastructure aided White Mobility. The term “White Flight” has been used to describe a massive relocation early in the twentieth century when the White Middle-Class population left the cities for suburban areas following the great migration.

Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools is an intense expose of unjust conditions in educating America’s children. Today’s society of living conditions, poverty, income, desegregation and political issues have forced inadequate education to many children across the country. Kozol discusses major reasons for discrepancies in schools: disparities of property taxes, racism and the conflict between state and local control. Kozol traveled to public schools researching conditions and the level of education in each school. He spoke with teachers, students, principals, superintendents and government officials to portray a clear picture of the

Thank you for the post, it was informative and educational. Adding some highlights on the health disparities between the Latinos and the Caucasian, there is greater socioeconomic difference between the Caucasian. According to the 2000 census, the number of Latinos in the United States has increased by approximately 60 percent, from 23 million in 1990 to 35.3 million in 2000 (Leo, Marielena, Raynard, Robert, & Jose, 2002). Statistics illustrates that the Latinos population is one of the fastest-growing racial/ethnic groups in the United States today.

On October 8, 1871 - October 10, 1871, the Chicago Fire, occurred on the westside 300 people died due to the wildfire. Many people that attended the Chicago Fire lost their house along with friends and family and the population decreased. Due to the Chicago Fire, many people lost, a cultivate items, family, and friends, most importantly they lost their home’s.

According to Klinenberg, the broad community and neighborhood-level factors that made certain residents of Chicago more vulnerable to the effects of the heatwave include high levels of poverty and crime, a large elderly population and lack of vegetation. Klinenberg notes that African Americans faced the greatest risk of mortality due to the heatwave. Although Latinos also faced high levels of poverty and crime, they were most likely to survive from the heatwave. Theories suggest that Latinos are more likely to survive the heat because they are the least isolated due to close relationships with family and relatives. Another theory is that Latinos have learned to adjust to the heat because of origins in Latin America, where the temperature is

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.

The immigrants from abroad and the African-Americans both left their homelands of restricted opportunities and sought to find better ones. The African-Americans came without proper clothing and skills, unaware of the future obstacles ahead. Their environment and surroundings were significantly different in the South than the lively cities in the North. Before migrating, the African-Americans lives consisted of mainly working in the fields in the blistering, hot sun, or working as servants or tenants for white property owners; they had never laid eyes upon a building or factory. For the immigrants, coming to urban America was an enormous change as well. They were oblivious to the American culture, American politics and economics, and were unable to read or speak English, in most cases. While settling in the northern cities, there were certain harsh conditions that the African Americans along with the immigrants experienced. They both were forced to live with their families in small, unsanitary living spaces due to the intense persecution and racialization from American outsiders. Families in neighborhoods grouped together, and each family member contributed economically to the family income. To relieve these challenges and harsh conditions, both African-American and immigrant groups were obliged to do certain tasks in the new, metropolitan surrounding.