The Social And Economic Environments

In Streetwise, Elijah Anderson (1990) discusses the social forces at work in an urban area he calls the Village-Northton. His is a sociological field study of the daily interactions between the residents of an area encompassing two communities--in his words, "one black and low income to very poor (with an extremely high infant mortality rate), [and] the other racially mixed but becoming increasingly middle to upper income and white" (Anderson, 1990, p. ix). In keeping with valid sociological fieldwork, Anderson (1990) immersed himself in the community from the summer of 1975 through the summer of 1989.

I live at 383 East, 143rd street and my zip code is 10454. It is an area in which Latinos are the main population. This area is called Mott Haven in which there are many public housing projects. I live in one of the housing project in which my neighbors I can see they are mainly Hispanics and Blacks. Around my specific zip code area, there are different neighborhoods. In addition, even though these neighbourhood are very close to each other, there are still a lot of differences between them. I will focus on the varieties of people’s races that inhabit certain areas of the zip code 10454 and how certain areas have more schools while other areas have more businesses.

The book, Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling, tells us about the problems that inner-city students face in schools across America. There is an apparent problem with discrimination towards black and poorer families within some suburban districts. The effect of this is a vicious cycle of limited/ scare resources of educational opportunities for students. Author, Lewis-McCoy examines a suburban area in which a “promised land” of educational opportunities and beneficial resources has failed to live up to it’s name. America’s suburbs are seeing an increase in diverse families, yet there is still a challenge of giving equal and high quality educational opportunities to them.

People of different classes are moving away from each other not just in how much income they make but in where they live. America is breaking down into economically homogeneous enclaves. (Dreier, Mollenkopf, & Swanstrom 12)

Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating

Geography played a huge part in my experience with K-12 education. In the study titled, The Geography of Inequality: Why Separate Means Unequal in American Public Schools (2012), Logan, Minca, and Adar noted that inequalities of performance between schools that have a majority of minority groups and found connections between the performance of school when looking through the lens of race and ethnicity. Key findings included that African American, Hispanic, and Native American students were most likely to attend a school that averages between the 35th-40th percentile (Logan, Minca, Adar 2012). Three types of high poverty schools were outlined; location in city center, majority African American and mixed location, and majority Hispanic (Logan et al., 2012). The school district that I attended for my K-12 education experience was nearly 95% white, located in the suburbs, and had low poverty. My education experience directly counters the education experience that my student engage in on a daily basis. This has created an internal motivation to

Before getting into the case of Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Podair begins by discussing how the New York population became so divided in the first place. After WWII ended in 1945, the industry landscape shifted from on one that mainly relied on manufacturing to one contrived of service occupations. As a result, there was a plummet in the demand for low education labor, and a spike in the desire for workers with higher education. Resultantly, black communities were marginalized and jobless. Similarly, housing constraints and de facto segregation lead to mainly black neighborhoods, leading to neighborhoods that provided abysmal education for its local youth. A region in the Bronx that epitomized this lackluster educational system is the schooling system of Ocean Hill-Brownsville.

The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While

The loss of public housing and the expanse of the wealth gap throughout the state of Rhode Island has been a rising issue between the critics and supporters of gentrification, in both urban areas such as Providence and wealthy areas such as the island of Newport, among other examples. With the cities under a monopoly headed by the wealth of each neighborhood, one is left to wonder how such a system is fair to all groups. Relatively speaking, it isn’t, and the only ones who benefit from such a system are white-skinned. With the deterioration of the economic status of Rhode Island, and especially in the city of Providence, more and more educated Caucasians are leaving to seek a more fertile economic environment.

The racial segregation between Worcester Metropolitan area and the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY metropolitan area is very similar. For both of the area, it shows that White-Black, White-Hispanic, White-Asian, Black-Asian, and Hispanic-Asian have a moderate level of segregation. Black-Hispanic have a low moderate level of segregation in both of the areas. The segregation of poverty and of affluence is greater in the Worcester Metropolitan area than it is in the Albany-Schenectady-troy, NY Metropolitan area.

“People Like Us” by David Brooks examines diversity in America and argues that even though society tends to idealize diversity in a way, most of us don’t really care too much about it as long as we are happy. In the first paragraph Brooks states “ what I have seen all around the country is people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves”. This is something that most of us notice on some scale, but what does it say about the need for diversity in America? Brooks explains “The United States might be a diverse nation when considered as a whole, but block by block and institution by institution it is a relatively homogenous nation” This is an irrefutable truth, we all know that cities like Laredo Texas and Lincoln Nebraska are predominantly white and in cities like Detroit Michigan and Jackson Mississippi the population is predominantly black. However, what we fail to realize is the extreme racial separation that is taking place naturally at a much smaller scale, not even city to city but neighborhood to neighborhood and house to house. Brooks backs up his claim with the following example, “In Manhattan the owner of a three million dollar SoHo loft would feel out of place moving into a three million dollar Fifth Avenue apartment”. Politics, religion, income, lifestyle and general outlook on life can change in a matter of blocks. This may all seem

Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol explains the inequalities of school systems in different poor neighborhoods. Kozol was originally a teacher in a public school in Boston. This school didn’t have very many resources and was unable to keep teachers for very long. After pursuing other interests, Kozol took the time from 1988-1990 to meet with children and teachers in several different neighborhoods to better understand issues relating to the inequality and segregation in the school systems. Kozol writes from his own perspective as he visits six different cities and the poorest schools in those cities. These cities consist of East St. Louis in Illinois, the South Side of Chicago in Illinois, New York City, Camden in New Jersey, Washington

The statistics regarding the Bronx and Queens depicts a substantial difference between the two boroughs. The population in Queens is nearly a million more compared to the Bronx. However, the major cause of death for both happens to be Heart Disease as it takes the lives of thousands in the districts. The racial and ethnic composition is vaguely alike besides the percentage of Hispanic or Latino, Asian, and Black or African American. The Bronx has practically double the percentage of Hispanics and African Americans, yet, Queens has 22.3% more Asians than those in the Bronx. Nevertheless, the boroughs happen to be very diverse despite the differences. There is still a wide gap between the level of median household income as Queens is much more

Iowa is viewed by many as lacking diversity in many areas, such as culture, careers, and even income. However, when one takes the time to look closer, there are many socioeconomic differences, even within the span of a few miles. To highlight this, I have selected Cobblestone Estates in DeWitt, as well as Broadway Street in Charlotte. These two neighborhoods are within a fifteen-minute drive, yet they are vastly different in many ways. Cobblestone Estates is a brand new suburb in DeWitt. Broadway Street, on the other hand, is an old neighborhood that’s been in existence since the town’s founding in the mid 1800s.By studying the locations, home values, and physical appearance of these neighborhoods, we are able to draw conclusions about their socioeconomic statuses.

The federal government played a role in establishing and maintaining residential segregation in metropolitan areas. For example, Rothstein states that after the New Deal and World War II, federally funded public housing was explicitly and racially segregated (5). The projects were designated for either whites or blacks, later becoming increasingly black. Neighborhoods that were historically segregated still continue today with the very same characteristics – racially and economically homogeneity. Children who grow up in and attend schools in these neighborhoods encounter what Sherman refers to as “youth disconnection”. In essence, youth disconnection is the lack of exposure to important influences that help with human development. Sherman takes into account statistics about disconnected youth which include being twice as likely to live in poverty, three times as likely to leave high school without a diploma, half as likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree, and etc (“How Disadvantages Caused by Residential Segregation End Up Costing Billions”). How can students thrive in environments that are historically segregated and disadvantaged? Access to a better education along with other influences beneficial to development should to be decided based upon the location in which a student