Rise Of A Social Class

In this course, we have learned about different social classes and how they developed over time. In fact, the idea of social classes has been around before what we know it as to today. The concept has not changed. The “higher” classes usually have land, money, and jewels. The “lower” classes are broke, servants, and no valuable possessions. Prior to this course, I only knew of the upper class, middle class, and lower class. In today’s society, the separation between classes is not as bad as it use to be. School is an example of this. I grew up in Cobb County, Smyrna- Vinings area and I went to school with people who parents are CEOs of companies, successful entrepreneurs or even music artist. I would consider my family middle class but we did have students who were also lower class families. Some higher-class families enroll their children in private school. Private schools charges tuition whereas public schools are free of cost. The upbringing up children can determine their social status in schools. In this essay, I will discuss “cliques” and their differences in high schools.

Social class systems in the nineteenth century were comprised of the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the underclass. The different social classes can be “distinguished by inequalities in such areas as power, authority, wealth, working and living conditions, life-styles, life-span, education, religion, and culture” (Cody). The poor, also known as peasants, were usually mistreated and segregated from the wealthy, or those of higher class. During his time, Charles Dickens “seen as a champion of “the poor” by some of the poor themselves” (“What was”). It is said that one of his greatest achievements “was to bring the problem of poverty to the attention of his readers through introducing varieties of poor persons into almost all of his novels, and showing the “deserving” majority of the poor, bravely struggling against the forces arrayed against them” (“What was”). This is clearly evident in A Tale of Two Cities. During the nineteenth century Victorian era, social class systems were a common excuse for the division and mistreatment of many individuals, as evidenced in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

I thought cities had more diversity, more poverty, and low income household than suburb areas and this was supported by the above data. I learned that the increase of wealth and income in a small community hinders the rest of community where middle and low income families live. The ability to live in a “good” neighborhood is linked to income. Income can be one of the factors that determine how a region can be segregated. Even in the city, the income of the household separates the lower income families from the higher income families. High income families tend to live together and low income families tend to live in the same

According to Stacey Sutton, PhD, member of the Department of Urban Planning and Policy, in her New York Tedx talk, gentrification is fundamentally a social justice problem.” This means that gentrification has many effects to its neighborhood and its residents. One main problem that gentrification had brought was displacement. Due to changes in the urban neighborhood, prices of living had increased, where many of the renters have no choice than to leave the neighborhood because it's unaffordable. As Tom Slater, an urban geographer, said, “gentrification is the spatial expression of economic inequality.” When higher class people moved to an urban area and invest and take advantage to a low property, it raised the property value and displaced the people who cannot afford it, hence, the low income people.

Zukin, an avid advocate for authenticity, discussed in detail how cities are losing their authenticity. Zukin described authenticity as “a continuous process of living and working, a gradual buildup of everyday experience.” The issue is many cities are that people are now coming and going all the time to the point where everyone stays a stranger to one another, shops are always being closed and changed, and nothing is ever around long enough to create a culture that leads to authenticity. Gentrification is taking away many neighborhoods authenticity as many corporate leaders and politicians look to “clean up” areas which usually has to deal with people of color that are poor. Authenticity and racial diversity are traded for capital. This leads to segregation of less fortunate individuals and families of color. When governments or businesses try and gentrify different neighborhoods they rely on laws, pressure, and lie in order to remove the people who live in these areas.

In Chapter 3 of Place Matters, Peter Drier, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom talk about place-based inequalities and how it plays an important factor in our lives. In this chapter, the authors document the “impact of economic segregation and urban sprawl on four

These new comers arrive to Chicago in the hopes they could get a better lifestyle, but fail to have the appropriate requirements to legally work causing the unemployment rates to rise. The city’s hike in population also has caused a major construction of housing units, but there seems to be a substantial disconnect between the increase in homes and the decline of occupied homes. This could be contributed to the fact that perhaps that although more homes are being built the population cannot afford to occupy them. The city of Chicago may also have such a successful population (in terms of quantity) due to the grid system of the streets. It has been proven that a city with a stable and easily comprehensible grid system is more likely to succeed no example of a city we can see that had a decline is Detroit of part of its failure was due to the structuring of the city.

Metropolitan segregation can be seen from both micro and macro levels, this divide is apparent through racial segregation across communities and also by examining the outcomes of district and industry zoning. Laden in urban segregation is the process of gentrification, which acts as an agent of change regarding spatial relationships among different social groups. Segregation has always been a component of the urban dynamic, this structure of divide has shifted and metamorphosed as a result of inevitable changes over time. These evolving social, economic and political frameworks must be addressed in order to provide a thorough study of the motives behind segregation, as well as the resulting ramifications.

“A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment” is an article written by Savage et. Al (2013), shows analysis of two surveys which results in a new way of mapping the social class in the UK. Savage et. Al. explains in his article the five steps of analysis that led to the division of the seven classes, and the explains the seven classes, and the economic, social, and cultural capital.

The selected articles for the topic of “Cities and social division” deals with a range of trends and challenges cities and urban areas face today, from the phenomenon of gentrification and urban sprawl to the provision of public services such as waste collection and education. The articles frequently explore these topics in the context of their relation to culture, demography, economics, and politics. This paper will explore the convergences and divergences between the articles and their choice of themes, approaches, and sources.

This example can be seen in the growth models of many scholars of this school of thought, such as Burgess’s co-centric zone model and the theory of how human (biological) competition allows for certain assembling of people/organizations in specific space(s) with distinct patterns of spatial growth. In addition, the Chicago School concentrated on connecting social phenomenon with spatial patterns and the linkages between the central business districts (CBD), spatial distribution, and social life. This school of thought focused on the individual in urban socio-spatial locations and tried to show patterns of human adjustment to socio-spatial location

The categorized ranking of individuals in a society who have dissimilar access to valued resources is referred to as social stratification (Kendall, p.221). The factors that play a role in selecting who is in which class depends on wealth, income, education, and occupation. These factors affect how much power and prestige a person has. Social stratification in American is broken into about four social classes; upper class, middle class, working class, and working poor.

“In 1800 only 3% of people lived in a city of 1 million or more; by the year 2000, it was 47%. In 1950 there were only 83 cities worldwide with populations over 1 million; by 2007 there were 468. In April 2008, the world passed the 50% urbanization mark. Cities have evolved into a more complex space inter-linked by a number of systems and planners generally have failed to read the ‘Urban Progression’ and thus cities have failed significantly in terms of the ‘Quality of Life’ of the urbanites.”

Social class is an ongoing problem in education, especially for those living on the lower end of the divide. More than one in five of Scotland’s children are living in poverty. In this essay I will consider why social class is an ongoing problem, its influence on wellbeing and achievement, and propose ways in which we can attempt to combat these issues. This will be accomplished with reference to concepts, theories and the scenarios detailed in appendix A, B and C.

The modern story of developed areas is a move from the inner city to the suburbs. This decentralization of metropolitan areas has left urban areas neglected. Such a transformation has had negative consequences, because it has inherently meant the abandonment of those left behind in urban centers. Furthermore, the issue is complicated by the fact that the distinction between those moving to the suburbs and those left behind has been defined largely by race. As Kain notes,