The City Of The Streets

Culture in urban communities, also referred to as inner-cities, are growing increasingly violent. In the article, The Code of the Streets by Elijah Anderson, he begins to take an in-depth look at the root of the evil. He deduces that economic factors, parenting and the troublesome environments largely influence the violent norms within this culture.

New York City’s old slum neighbourhood, the Five Points, was notoriously known for its vice and crimes. The first organized crime group in New York City was the Forty Thieves which was led by Edward Coleman, started in 1825, in the back of a grocery store. The Dead Rabbits were an Irish gang in the Five Points area, and are most known for the riot they caused in 1857. The Eastman Gang were a Jewish group in the Five Points area, which began in the late nineteenth century, and were the rival of the Five Points Gang. The Five Points Gang was another group, started by Paul Kelly and included future famous mobsters. In Five Points, where most of New York City’s crime started, it also started some of history’s most notorious gangs, and mobsters.

The collection of articles, “The Shame of the Cities” written by Lincoln Steffens, evidently reveals the history of corruption in many American cities during the 18th and 19th century. The chapter, “Pittsburg: A City Ashamed” focuses wholly on the effect Christopher Magee had on the city of Pittsburg during the time of his ruling. With the help of William Flinn, Thomas Bigelow, and E.M. Bigelow, Chris was in complete control over the city. While some of what he was doing was very helpful toward, it is undeniable that he was the cause of Pittsburgh’s extensive corruption.

An effort to understand and explain violence and related problems in the inner city are demonstrated within Elijah Anderson’s Code of the Street. Elijah exhibits the different lifestyles of the citizens in Germantown, Philadelphia by thoroughly explaining the code through different themes that make up the inner city lifestyle such as, family, violence, drugs, relationships or poverty through his point of view and people within the city as well.

In this paper, I plan to first describe the “Code of the Street” which is a term coined and a book written by Elijah Anderson. I would also summarize and describe two journal articles that test Anderson’s idea of the “Code of the Street” for a more definite explanation. I will tell how the two articles that I have chosen relates to some of the concepts that Anderson talked about in the book. I will then define general strain theory and social learning or differential association theory. Lastly, I will explain how general strain theory and social learning theory or differential association theory explain some of the behaviors that were seen by the individuals in the book published by Anderson. I will point out some of the individual’s behavior and demonstrate whether it may lead to crime or whether the behavior was learned in any way.

By far the most interesting topic to me the semester was The Code of The Streets by Elijah Anderson. After reading this, I started searching for solutions in my head. I refuse to believe that this is “how things are”. It’s unacceptable. The “eye for an eye” and “snitches get stitches” mentality that the people who live in black inner city communities is very troubling. What’s even more troubling is the fact that it’s due to their lack of faith in the justice system, rightfully so. These people are living in a world where they believe that the police are against them. The police, who are supposed to be their protectors are, in many cases, doing the opposite. However, I don’t believe that police officers are the enemy. I do think that everyone,

For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within

In the streets of Chicago, a young disabled teenager was beaten. He was actually beaten

Can you guess what street in Brooklyn is the longest? It's so long that there is a good chance that you traverse it daily and don't event realize it.

Beginning in the 1960s, middle and upper class populations began moving out of the suburbs and back into urban areas. At first, this revitalization of urban areas was "treated as a ‘back to the city' movement of suburbanites, but recent research has shown it to be a much more complicated phenomenon" (Schwirian 96). This phenomenon was coined "gentrification" by researcher Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe the residential movement of middle-class people into low-income areas of London (Zukin 131). More specifically, gentrification is the renovation of previously poor urban dwellings, typically into condominiums, aimed at upper and middle class professionals. Since the 1960s, gentrification has appeared in

In the first part of this article Anderson talked about the interpersonal violence and aggression in the black inner-city community. He talked about the environment people grow up in and the two groups they are classified as decent, people with good morals and want to be good people, and street, people who have evolved into the way of the streets and using violence to gain respect. After that he talked about, “the code of the streets”, which is when the street group does anything to be socially on top of their peers. For example if somebody disrespects them, they have no quarrels with attacking a person over the smallest thing and if they lose the attack they will continue to retaliate until they are superiorly respected.

The United States has had its share of economic prosperity, but none as thriving as the 1920s era, labeled the “Roaring Twenties”. The 1920s era saw great political and social change to the United States society. The US economy blossomed, and the nation's total wealth more than doubled in the 1920s era. As a result of this social and political change as well as the success of the economy, transformed many Americans into a "consumer society". The great economic success during the time period also created an excess of money to spend, which was used and spent aimlessly on unnecessary luxuries due to the fact that it was affordable and accessible. During this time period, some freedoms were expanded while others were restricted. Evidence of this is the ratification of the 18th amendment, banning the production and sale of alcohol. Although the purpose of the law was to prevent alcohol related crimes, the 18th amendment created a greater demand for alcohol. Renegades became common, and many people would purchase bootlegged alcohol through illegal manners. Criminals and gangsters viewed the prohibition as a method of making money fast, and created an organized system concentrated on manufacturing and distributing of alcoholic beverages. Organized crime has always been notoriously feared; however, they became successful during the Prohibition era in the 1920s. They established an organized system and evolved into a successful, established, and dangerous organization that

In Jeff Ferrell’s “Tearing Down the Streets Adventures in Urban Anarchy”, it introduced themes of image of the city, rights to the city, and given different examples of anarchist activities in urban environments. In my opinion, I enjoyed the book’s narratives on urban cities trying to clean the streets of unwanted acts and people; along with the collective movements attempting to retake the open space and streets. However, Ferrell’s actions in his daily life to retake space are questionable. Ferrell considers cities are changing their images by undergoing “Disneyfication” (Ferrell, 2001, p. 8) with unnecessary security, planned entertainment and making it ‘beautiful’. Ultimately, it forces authorities to restrict and isolate unwanted acts

Define American is a non-profit transmedia organizational campaign led by undocumented activist Jose Antonio Vargas. It was founded in April 2011 and has become staffed by dreamers, immigrant rights activists, and undocumented people themselves. Define American’s mission is to use the power of story to surpass politics and shift the conversation about immigrants and citizenship in a changing America.

          The city I propose as a perfect city, would be as close to an ecocity as possible, although have some differences. For example, for electrical needs, I would suggest the city have a solar power plant, but on those desperate times, energy would be bought from other electrical plants from nearby towns or states.