It is not hard to realize that the vast majority of cities in the world are located near a body of water. However, I never really thought about the reason why many American cities are located near the great lakes until I learned about the canals and rivers connecting the lakes to the ocean. One thing I got out of reading about the rise and fall of Detroit is that education is key. This is evident in New York’s ability to rebound from economic crisis. Education correlates with innovation and the spread of new ideas, which is something Detroit did not have and led to its downfall. The crimes against African Americans throughout the history of this country were further expressed and one can see why they rioted in Detroit. What was also interesting
Urban growth is described as the increase in the number of people who live in towns and cities and suburbanisation can be defined as the outward growth of urban development.
In the years subsequent to the Civil War, African-Americans experienced little advancement in American society and remained on the bottom of the social pyramid. Immigrants as well as African-Americans believed cities would solve their problems of poverty. As a result of their poor background, an image of inferiority was created by the Anglo- Americans for the ethnic minorities. Document C discusses how the urbanization of Birmingham, Alabama, a southern city, demonstrates the old confederacy as the New South. Suburbs were created in close proximity to the city and this suburbanization established further class distinction between the wealthy elite and the working class, particularly African-Americans. As the wealthy white class moved to suburbs, the African-Americans remained in the industrial city. The purpose of this document is to exemplify such segregation through the suburbanization of southern cities such as Birmingham, which became the most segregated city in
The author argues that The Great Lakes region is entering an era of unparalleled water tension. Agreeing with this argument, The Great Lakes are just another piece of Earth that us humans are ruining. Since The Great Lakes are one of the largest fresh water sources in the world we are forced to protect against losing it's surface area. 40 million Canadians and Americans live amongst their basin. The author, Peter Annin, brings up clean water scarcity, this is a huge problem around the world and right in our "back yard". The city of Flint's toxic, unusable water has become an embarrassment for all of Michigan.
The racial undertones of Detroit have been extremely problematic to Detroit’s real estate market for well over 50 years. These social disruptions continue to have an effect on the current residents of Detroit. During the middle of the nineteenth century, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) introduced real estate tactics such as redlining, which is the practice of flagging minority dense neighborhoods for the purposes of denying approval of mortgages or inflating the price of the homes. Redlining had a profound social and economic effect on all residents of Detroit. The white majority began abandoning and selling their homes in fear that the value of the home would plummet, leading to a great financial loss when minorities moved in the area. This idea is known as white flight, and is the primary reason that Detroit has one of the highest African American populations in the country. However, through revitalization and gentrification of the Midtown/Downtown area, Detroit is slowly becoming more diverse. Throughout history, racial politics of the mid-to-late twentieth century affected Detroit 's real estate market by excluding minorities from the real estate market. Although adding stadiums, high end retail, small shops, and restaurants is economically valuable to the city of Detroit, this is conflicting and potentially problematic for the original residents of the area because the prices of these new establishments are often much higher than the residents can afford.
Recent events that have highlighted racial tension in the United States have had even a larger number of opinions that vary regarding why the nation continues to struggle with such a challenging issue. In our text Chapter 6 titled “The City/Suburban Divide” (Judd & Swanstrom, 2015, p. 136) identifies a subject that very well may contribute to the tension. A reference to the “urban crisis” describes a landscape that is littered with “high levels of segregation, inequality and poverty, along with racial and ethnic tensions.” (Judd, et al., p. 165) Many scholars argue that the crisis was a result of the demographic changes the nation experienced following World War II as advancements in technology and infrastructure aided White Mobility. The term “White Flight” has been used to describe a massive relocation early in the twentieth century when the White Middle-Class population left the cities for suburban areas following the great migration.
When you hear about the city Detroit do you ever think of it as a city that needs to be gentrified? Gentrification is the process in which renovating or improving a house or district so that it accepts to middle-class taste. Gentrifying the city of Detroit is a great thing because the city needs to show improvement, develop into a better place, and it needs to increase its population numbers from a low rate to a more advanced rate.
The Artificial River, a well thought of 177 paged book written by the author Carol Sheriff whom at the time was an graduate at Yale University and finished it off while an assistant professor at William and Mary. This compelling book captures and emphasis the success and downfall the Erie canal has brought to the people. Sheriff has a clear notion that “progress” viewed differently through the eyes of conflicting people and status. What one envisioned the Canal turn out to be fluctuated from another. Progress to them meant in large part men and women take apart an active role in the community that they are in which the construction of the Erie canal consisted of people doing just that. She apprehended that whomever supported the canal had some dream and hope to actively be apart a wider range or market exchange. In Sheriff words she says that progress would play a central role in defining Northern sectional identity in decades. The book will explore six topics which are titled Vision of Progress, The Triumph of Art over Nature, Reducing time and distance, Politics of land and water, Politics of Business and The Perils of Progress all of which I will touch on throughout the paper.
Kevin Boyle explained that the racial tension between the minorites and the white community did harm to Detroit's economy. Most of the immigrants were blacks from the southern states. While they were migrating into Detroit in a fast pace, housing were also getting filled up fast. The demand for more housing created and impact of how Detroit neighborhoods were being set up in order to keep up with the pace. Most neighboorhoos were seperated by race. White neighboroods were being created as weel as blacks only neighborhoods. The anglo-saxon European immigrants also created their own neighborhoods. While some blacks gained finacial wealth, they tried to move into white neighborhood since it was more secured and nicer. This came into an obstacule for the blacks. The white community tried everything to keep the blacks away from their neighborhood. They used local real estate agents to keep the blacks away. One of their strategies was charging the black community a price above value
In American society, race and racial issues are viewed in a black and white manner. The media portrays matters of race in the simplest terms without taking intersectionality into account. Social class, economic factors, and historical factors impact how racial issues are regarded and handled in specific geographic locations. John Hartigan demonstrates this in his book, Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness of Detroit, which describes the dynamics of three local communities: Briggs, Cork Town, and Warrendale. Hartigan examines how white identity varies in these three neighborhoods due to other social factors. Comparing how these local communities respond to race versus the media’s response shows how categorizing people into monolithic groups based only on race is a tactic that ignores the real issues and delays finding solutions.
I received the opportunity to interview one of my father's close friends and business partners, Mr. Joseph E. Hutchison Sr., for the purposes of exploring how he perceived the Detroit riots of 1697. Mr. Hutchison is an African American man, which has lived in multiple neighborhoods throughout Detroit all his life, and has raised a family in the city as well. Furthermore, Mr. Hutchison has a funeral home on Detroit's East Side, which has been thriving for more than forty-years. Moreover, he has a love for the city, no matter what condition the city is in. Pursuing this idea further, Hutchison has experienced about three race riots throughout his life, in which he
A team of researchers from The George Washington University in conjunction with key leaders – evaluated the Detroit area to assess the state-of-healthcare deliverance to those in need. The problem was presented in a clear and concise manner: The uninsured and poor had limited to no access to the care they needed. Many resorted to the Emergency Department (40% of admissions were non-emergent), leading to overcrowding in the hospital. Those that are part of the safety net are providers of the poor and vulnerable populations: hospital systems, clinics, volunteers, primary care workers, and prevention workers that are there to prevent the overflow and influx that we see in the assessment. We will be addressing our main stakeholders, the
Gentrification in Detroit, with whites beginning to move in and occupy areas that have been previously inhabited by blacks is gaining momentum, with a cheerleading media and political elites leading the way with tax breaks for corporations, new residents who are predominately white and economically middle to upper class, and a heavy police presence. All of the above factor are manifestations of a political climate in the United States of Republican led initiatives of austerity programs. Spurred on by the idea of privatization, and the Free Market economic policy of corporations having the freedom to influence and control the resources of Public institutions and politics, further eroding the opportunities for the average person, which is magnified in the Black community with disastrous results. Juxtaposed with the majority of the city, where, blight, unemployment, closing of schools, crime are all remnants of a once great city are evident to anyone that courageously visits these
Detroit, once the New York City of its time, nick named the “Motor City” as it contained one of the leading car manufacturing centers of the automobile industry. As a metropolis for the first half of the twentieth century, Post World War II, Detroit became an economic fortress and focal point in American History. Detroit’s economic stronghold placed the city in a position that was once beneficial. From the surging employment opportunities perpetuated by the booming automotive market to the development, and implementation of substandard housing and the casual labor market, Detroit became the land of opportunity that loomed with an air of new beginnings. Today, however, Detroit continues to reap the aftermath of contradictory political
Detropia is a documentary directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady that explores the decline of Detroit, Michigan. The film is to raise awareness of the city that used to flourish but is now struggling to support its citizens with the downfall of its automobile industry. Detropia was made in 2012 and highlights important stories and viewpoints of citizens still living in Detroit who are filled with hope for its future. I chose to review Detropia because it really corresponds with what we have been discussing in Geography, such as urban geography and population growth. Urban geography is a subdiscipline of geography that deals with areas of the Earth’s surface that have a high concentration of buildings and architecture. The documentary Detropia goes into depth of why Detroit’s population is dissolving and what is being done about it.
Part two of Death and Life explains several conditions for city diversity based on the observations of different American cities and discusses in depth the four factors that Jacobs believe are critical for the development of a city. The basis for generating diversity lies in these conditions, and cannot be secludedly achieved by planning and designing. This part lays out the foundation and is the basis for the rest of the book. It shows urban planning and many possible remedies for creating equal diversity, and studies why these are not applied and the effects of it not being so.