Great American Cities

As a New Yorker, the author bases his article in the big apple and starts it off by notifying the audience that New York residents are familiar with gentrifying all too well. Davidson continues on to state that “Gentrification doesn’t need to be something that one group inflicts on another…” (349), rather, he suggests that everyone be on the same page when it comes to developing their communities. Later on in the article Davidson brings up a vital point that Jonathan Rose, a “private do-gooder” developer presents, “…the key is to make sure that residents and shop-keepers in low-income neighborhoods have equity and a political voice, before a real estate surge” (352). The point the

The Articles of the “Boyd Defensive Development” and “Hwang & Sampson Gentrification” discuss the idea of Gentrification through analytics, examples, and deep research through the city of Chicago during a relative time. The Boyd Defensive Development uses historical and ethnographic research to strategically protect total control of their neighborhoods by white residents and developers. Hwang and Sampson Gentrification uses many social observations with examples from google maps, census data, etc. to reflect effects on Gentrification throughout communities.

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.

Gentrification is a method by which poor and working-class neighborhoods in the inner-city are redeveloped. It is a phenomenon that happens when low-income neighborhoods undergo alterations due to an influx of wealthier residents. Kelefa Sanneh starts his article on gentrification with a conversation about the word ghetto; its origins and how the word is now being used in the context of predominantly low-income African American communities. After discussing a debate among sociologists about the usage of the word ghetto, Sanneh points out an interesting turn in popular view: while the term ghetto was once used as an insult, people are now trying to preserve the communities that are described as a ghetto. Later, Sanneh discusses the different

It is no secret that homelessness is quickly becoming an epidemic in the United States, but the homeless population is not one secular demographic. For every person in the US living on the street, there is a unique story of how they got there; nonetheless, that is not to say that many of these stories are without some commonalities. Along with homelessness, there is another issue plaguing American cities, but this issue is much more covert, and exists under a guise of improvements like fancy apartments and trendy restaurants. Gentrification is defined as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste” (Erikson); but what that definition fails to mention is the discourse it has on the

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 the communities I grew up in, there were frequent changing circumstances that actually left my family not really as part of the community. From dingy, cheap and tiny places for rent, there has been significant points brought to the attention of the reader in this book that could attribute to the failure and success of neighborhoods. In Suburban Nation, the opening pages give a lot of insight on the issues that can come from these big and fancy, new housing developments.

There has been a recent phenomenon throughout the United States of gentrification. As older parts of neighborhoods are occupied by new tenants with money, the neighborhood changes and loses its old character. Those who might have lived in those neighborhoods their entire lives are pushed out as rents begin to skyrocket and the surroundings begin to change. This has happened in many neighborhoods. One of the most well known is San Francisco, where technology companies have brought in new software engineers that have caused local rents to skyrocket and people to move out of the area. However, just as importantly has been the influx of new money to Brooklyn, where local neighborhood changes have forced people from their homes, traditional music to be replaced, and old businesses to go bankrupt.

Gentrification is most easily understood as occurring in various stages. During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, public subsidies and “urban renewal” altered many large cities as sporadic reinvestment battled increasing flight from the inner city to the suburbs. The second significant surge occurred in the post-recession 1970s, encouraged by public-private partnerships and assimilation into national and global economic and cultural developments. At last, in the 1990s, gentrification swelled with rising urban housing markets and increasing capital investment.

Throughout David Hulchanski’s article, titled “The Three Cities Within Toronto,” he divides Toronto into three cities by classifying neighbourhoods according to individual income. He describes the city as dynamic, as neighbourhoods have changed through the years between the different classes. A major factor that causes this change is gentrification, where low-income neighbourhoods are renovated, which results in replacing the low-income residents with wealthier individuals. In contrast, the population of low income neighbourhoods has also increased as the population of middle-income neighbourhoods have decreased. As a result of these changes, Toronto is increasing the number of high-income neighbourhoods and low-income neighbourhoods, phasing out the middle class. Hulchanski accurately describes polarization through the process of gentrification and by creating more cost friendly neighbourhoods for families throughout Toronto.

Suburbs started popping up outside the metropolis that were centered around manufacturing plants, railroads, streetcars, and finally, the automobile (Chen et. al.). This is evident by the fact that over 60 percent of American homes own a vehicle by 1929 (Chen et. al.). One of the terms that often is synonymous with the concepts of sprawl and suburbanization is the popularity of “lawn culture” in neighborhoods (Chen et. al.). This idea of having a green space in the form of a lawn, was a representation of autonomy because it allowed people to attach themselves to the marriage between city and country (Chen et. al.). The automobile allowed for people to easily commute from work to home, introducing cul-de-sacs and winding roads to the suburbs (Chen et. al.). However, this process of suburbanization largely favored white middle class, due to the unfair discriminatory practices loan agencies used to disadvantage minorities in their ability to buy homes (Chen et. al.). Today, we still see the vast plethora of effects that discriminatory decisions of Americas’ past have on today’s Americans; we have a long way to go towards rectifying the great injustices that have been done to minority races, we must continuously work towards educating the masses about history so that we can change the

Gentrification was previously supported by those with “cultural capital” in the arts; people like “artists, writers, teachers, professors.” These people specifically were the main reason that the mainstream middle class was being pushed out of their neighborhoods. Gentrification originally had been used to describe the improvements and modernization of close-to-demolished buildings. With "an increasing desire for the kind of cultural and intellectual pursuits”, it is argued that gentrifiers have been “establishing a new investment climate” that serves to create homes for middle-class caucasians, which pushes out the minorities of the surrounding area. However, this soon evolved with time, as more and more ethnic minorities and wealthy moved

In Jane Jacobs’s acclaimed The Life and Death of Great American Cities, she intricately articulates urban blight and the ills of metropolitan society by addressing several binaries throughout the course of the text. One of the more culturally significant binaries that Jacobs relies on in her narrative is the effectively paradoxical relationship between diversity and homogeneity in urban environments at the time. In particular, beginning in Chapter 12 throughout Chapter 13, Jacobs is concerned greatly with debunking widely held misconceptions about urban diversity.

The development of the suburbs has been appointed to be the result of the “white flight” from the inner cities. In the 1950’s black Americans moved northward to cities to find industrial jobs that were within walking distance. Discrimination in cities worsened, crime rates increased and educational facilities’ credentials weakened or gained bad reputations. The upper-class families left the cities and mass migrated to the suburbs to escape the increasing crime rates and worsening conditions. This movement was later termed the “white flight”. Every American wanted to begin building the “ideal family”: two parents, two children and maybe a pet or two. This newly invented middle-class prospered as

Cities are generators of economic life and source of changes in the world. Thereby, Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities puts into relief the role of cities on the social and economic levels, while denouncing the disastrous consequences of urban renewal programs. To that extent, in chapters 2 and 3, she discusses "The Uses of Sidewalks”, arguing that over all people need safety and trust in their city. Therefore, first she claims the necessity of keeping streets and sidewalks safe because they are the “vital organs” of cities (29). Secondly, she argues that the functioning of cities should be organized in order to foster human interaction in which “casual public