Rise Of A Social Class

The social class in America is everywhere but it is often quite hard to recognize only because it is against the American principle for the social class system to exist. Whether we know it or not, we tend to participate in the class system.. By doing so, this leads us to separate ourselves based on our social class system, including class discrimination and social mobility

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

Gentrification has its pros and its cons. Gentrification promotes community well-being, but also promotes displacement of the lower classes and inequality through this displacement. Purchasing these low-cost properties and turning them into high-class communities minus the gates promotes social and racial inequality. The process of gentrification motivates the economy, but the cost of displacement is much higher to the displaced citizens. The cost of displacement is burdensome to the already lower class of citizens being displaced.

Many neighborhoods in America are composed of people predominately of the same social class and race. When there is an increase of middle-class or wealthier people moving into deteriorating areas, it often creates a process of renewal and rebuilding that displaces the poorer residents. This is called gentrification. When someone moves into a house and increases the curbside appeal it makes the neighborhood more desirable. In turn, it raises the overall cost of real estate within the community, which author Daniel Hertz argues it results in “people can't move to the neighborhoods to which they'd like to move, and are stuck in places with worse schools, more crime, and inferior access to jobs and amenities like grocery stores”. Hertz’s insight on gentrification is that people who are more financially secure benefits from the improvement and raised value of a neighborhood while those who are struggling are increasingly limited in the options they have to move into safer and connected neighborhoods.

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

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.

During the 1880s, access was a large problem throughout the world for social class and women. One known sector that occurred around the 1880s was the ‘Cinderella ‘sector, the government created many evening classes to allow students to gain education throughout the nights. This increased the number of students that were in education as children would have worked all day to earn money for their families. The government never made this a priority, but they were becoming more focused to create elementary and secondary schools which we have today. This sector was more focused on further education as it was aimed for students who had left education (Bailey,2002).

Is gentrification causing segregation in urban cities? The majority of modern day cities are in a state of steady gentrification. Many people believe that gentrification is making the city more modern, safe, and appealing to other people. However, these people in their naivety fail to comprehend the hidden consequences and impact of gentrification on various ethnic groups and low-income families. Gentrification is a master of disguise that hides itself with assumed correlations to everyday people. One such assumption is that gentrification will increase the socioeconomic diversity of a neighborhood.

It has always been human nature to live in small concentrated cities because of the opportunity, the services that are provided, and the cultural diversity, however negative aspects do arise when people are closely compacted, such as poverty, pollution, overcrowding, and even violence (“Urban” np). Residential segregation can also come from diverse cities caused by Urbanization, i.e. Chinatown in New York City (Beall, et al. 7). Some cities have tried to limit the amount of cars used for transportation and fund many sorts of different modes of transportation, and the large amounts of transportation may make it difficult for people to switch to a different mode, although a taxi or bus may still get stuck in traffic thereby limiting the contributing

“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.

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.

The “Chicago School” model of assimilation highlights zones that move away from the central area, which have been known to initially concentrate ethnic groups (Gottdiener et al, 66). Immigrant groups from the introduction of Industrialization have filtered out into other zones, while African Americans have found it hard to leave the “black belt” (Gottdiener et al, 66). Zones throughout cities form based on where people desire the most as well as if they are affordable for that person. “Groups or individuals that were successful took over the better positions in the city, such as the choicest business locations, or the preferred neighborhoods. The less successful would have to make do with less desirable positions” (Gottdiener et al, 64). From this quote we can analyze that, in the model of assimilation, the less desirable positions are in the city center. The inner city zones have been noted to be sites of crime, as well as other social problems such as gangs and illness (Gottdiener et al, 65). While the inner city is less desirable, movement outwards towards the suburbs can be noted as the most desirable locations. With an increase in desire for these locations, comes the increase in price. Therefore, people living in the suburbs must be able to afford the higher prices of the real

Individuals within a society are grouped into certain rankings that is based on their wealth, income, race and education known as the social stratification. Sociologist use this to determine the social standings of individuals within a society. Social stratification can also appear in much smaller groups. These groups such as the work place, schools, and businesses can “take the form of a distribution of power and authority down the ranks”. (Cole, 2017) The Caste system is also another form of stratification that one does not get a choice in. They are born into it and regardless of their talents will hold positions that are given to them their whole life. Social mobility is the ability for individuals to move about their social standings.

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.

Social Class refers to a group of people with similar levels of wealth, influence, and status. As time passes by many of us start to alienate from each other in terms of what classes we belong to and what type of things we could afford and it also affects the social mobility people will experience, because of that it affects a lot of us greatly and you start to realize how it affects you when it comes to what type of neighborhood you live in or what type of work you do or where you go to school.