Miss Simpson Reflection

I have lived in only one location my entire life: Edwardsville, Illinois. A peripheral suburb of St. Louis, it stands as the rare oasis of people in a desert of corn, pinned in its own personal bubble. Due to this blend of time and isolation, I developed a natural familiarity with my hometown. But, throughout my childhood, I longed to break free from the confines of the bubble and venture outward. However, this changed last summer, as I walked through Richards Brickyard, our family heirloom, that my great-grandfather, Benjamin Richards, founded over 120 years ago. I felt these childlike sentiments slip away. The bubble that had surrounded me for so long began to vanish, and the picture that it had been obscuring was slowly revealed.

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,

South Street Philadelphia’s sidewalk’s safety is not determined by the strangers shuffling in and out of the area, but instead by the local residents and community members who live there. Based on my personal observations, the biggest asset to South Street in regard to safety and overall quality of the area are the locals who reside there. This idea of community investment relating to the safety of a street is presented in Jane Jacob’s novel The Death and Life of Great American Cities and is one of her ideas that is accurately displayed throughout South Street. By examining the various ways people interact in different areas and shops on South Street, I was able to evaluate what aspects of her writing proved to be beneficial to the overall safety of the area.

In the early twentieth century, East Liberty was a flourishing business district with affordable housing for its residents. Decades later, this neighborhood’s prosperity declined as residents began fleeing to other areas and businesses were forced to shut down. This left East Liberty in diminished conditions, like the conditions depicted in John Edgar Wideman’s story of Homewood in Our Time. Urban renewal efforts were quickly adopted for East Liberty, but these efforts failed. Today, the area is in a state of continuous revitalization, which is beneficial for the economy and some citizens, but African Americans don’t always benefit from these changes. Chris Ivy explores this division in his documentary Easy of Liberty. Failed urban renewal efforts of the sixties and continuing gentrification have transformed East Liberty’s booming business district into a racially divided neighborhood.

The term Gentrification was coined by a British Sociologist Ruth Glass to describe the movement of middle class families in urban areas causing the property value to increase and displacing the older settlers. Over the past decades, gentrification has been refined depending on the neighborhood 's economic, social and political context. According to Davidson and Less’ definition, a gentrified area should include investment in capital, social upgrading, displacement of older settlers and change in the landscape (Davidson and Lees, 2005).Gentrification was perceived to be a residential process, however in the recent years, it has become a broader topic, involving the restructuring of inner cities, commercial development and improvement of facilities in the inner city neighborhoods. Many urban cities like Chicago, Michigan and Boston have experienced gentrification, however, it is affecting the Harlem residents more profoundly, uprooting the people who have been living there for decades, thus destroying the cultural identity of the historic neighborhood.

Gentrification or displacement is not something that I thought about that often. It was a vague and distant thing that I heard about on the news sometimes. But it isn’t a vague and distant thing; it’s a real process happening all over the world that has real consequences. The OneDC tour of the Shaw neighborhood that my class and I went on made me realize that more clearly. In the media, gentrification is overwhelmingly depicted as a positive thing, very rarely is the displacement of the preexisting residents discussed. They don’t really talk about how the population that continuously gets the short end of the stick when it comes to gentrification is low-income black people. And it just isn’t right to push out long-term residents for the sake

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.

Bill de Blasio is the mayor of New York City who has a plan to build 80,000 affordable units of housing over a span of 10 years (The New York Times, 2016). His plans could have the potential to change housing patterns in New York, where there are a variety of ethnicities (The New York Times, 2016). In this New York Times story on the mayors struggle with integrating neighborhoods, there is a fight between keeping parts of New York’s housing reputation at an all time high or closing the gap between segregated neighborhoods, which is relevant to issues brought up in this course behind residential segregation. In this story we see the mayor of New York struggling with issues that were brought up in Amy C. Steinbugler’s Beyond Loving and Eduardo

Inwood has been able to develop into something more than just a place with the Dominican culture—way more—it’s a place in which the adventures are endless. There is so much more to Inwood than just this place in which no one else fits but a Dominican. Exploring Inwood has allowed me to break out of this idea and to understand that the small changes brought to Inwood have changed Inwood significantly as a whole. Change has become a part of Inwood: from the importance of religion to the people who live around it, to the foods found the restaurants and even the music that’s heard around the neighborhood. My group had to become open to new forms of interpretations and not allow our prejudices ideas and thoughts to have such an impact on what we wanted to state whenever we saw something. It was a challenge but we all learned to look at Inwood through a new perspectives and with new sets of eyes. Inwood has changed for the better and brought together a variety of cultures that all help resemble each other's

Before, I lived in a nice quiet neighborhood on Knollwell Way. When we lived on Knollwell, there were 6 of us, Dad, Mom, Me, Truman, Grandma, and Grandpa. After that, my home moved to The Woods Drive, a large community of apartments. This time, there were 4 of us, Dad, Mom, me, and Truman. On Knollwell, the house we lived in, we owned. We could make as much noise as we want. We could host lots of parties. We could decorate the house however we wanted. To live in the Woods Apartments, we had to make some changes. We didn’t own the house anymore. We couldn’t make noise without getting complaints. We couldn’t host as many parties as we wanted. On Knollwell, the neighborhood was always quiet. There would be the occasional robbery, or house break

As I drove around Ensley aimlessly, I felt familiarity in the area with each street I crossed. Old men and women gathered on porches with rocking chairs while a young woman picked weeds from her yard, everything seemed so normal and comfortable until I looked to the next lot. Each “next lot” featured an overgrown yard and a house falling apart as ivy climbed the subpar siding. Throughout Ensley, the feeling of abandonment is prominent. Businesses, even on 19th Street, are closed with bars on the broken, dirty windows and roofs collapse in

At first glance this neighbourhood this neighbourhood seemed very quiet, very boring. And for the most part this is true. Most of the area studied is residential space and

For my neighborhood study of Goose Hollow, I completed a research project to answer my research question, “What is day to day life like in Goose Hollow?”. This paper will reveal the story of my data through showing common themes between my research team’s data to highlight noticeable conclusions drawn from my research methodologies.

Whether you love them, or hate them, The Simpsons a key piece to young adulthood in many homes around the world. From depicting things such as struggling with disorders, problems with the boss, or average family life, most North American families are able to relate to the The Simpsons and that is why we keep crawling back each Sunday night. In the episode Mypods and Boomsticks, Bart Simpson meets a new friend from Jordan named Bashir. After learning they share many common interest, especially coming to food, Bart and Bashir become such good friends, Bart learns that Bashir is a muslim. After learning this, Marge is proud of Bart for meeting new people and stepping outside a comfort zone to meet and share new experiences. Homer’s reaction is quite the opposite. Once word gets out that Homer’s son has befriended a muslim, Homer’s friends begin to spit stereotypes in Homer’s face about muslims and the culture behind Islam. After long, persuasive conversations, half-witted Homer decides to invite Bashir and his family to a dinner in an attempt to Assimilate them to American culture, this includes offering them Pork Back Ribs and a large american flag cake that Homer later states is Poisonous. This shows Homer’s apparent inability to make decisions for himself and for the sake of his family. After this assimilation attempt, Bashir’s family realizes it is best if they leave. Upon leaving, Homer recognizes the mistakes and decides to go to Bashir’s home to apologize for his

Greyson, GA is a pretty small town in the middle’a nowhere, lived here all my life. Everybody knows everybody; one supermarket, one gas station, the smallest police station i’ve ever seen, we’re probably not even on the map. Everybody’s homes are at least a mile away from each other, course... there are only about 16 homes; about 4 are vacant, including the one across from mine, the only two homes this close to each other. Its a nice lil’ home.. Charming; four bedrooms, one bathroom, big backyard, perfect for a family. 3 families have come and gone.. I personally like it better when the house is empty. That way its just lil’ ole me in sleepy hollow. I live in a tiny little shack, built it up board by board. One bedroom, one bathroom, perfect. I do miss my sweet Melva, she passed a while back, married 38 years and counting, still love ‘er. There’s been a few families that have moved into the house.. Not sure what happened to them, I guess it was just too quiet for ‘em.