The Tale Of The 4 Train

Anderson makes a strong case for the inevitability of ghetto life--in other words, once "ghettoization" begins, it continues its course without regard to a neighborhood's tentative and transitory movement toward gentrification. The middle class and well-heeled whites and minority cultures who move into regenerating urban communities are attracted to city life for its vibrancy and "charm," yet they ultimately are playing with fire when it comes to sharing the same neighborhood which was formerly the turf of gangs, prostitutes, drug dealers, and other societal deviants. Such areas are frequently called "colorful," when they are, in fact, dangerous. Charm and color quickly turn to fear and suspicion after more than enough reports of car break-ins, gang retaliations, and drug deals gone bad fill the local news. As Anderson (1990) points out in his conclusion:

When a neighborhood is gentrified it will not only change the image of it, but also the services available there (Al-Kodmany 2011, 62-63). In other words, gentrification does not only have an impact on the physical aspect of the land, but also the resources that lie there. During the 90s, the Near West Side neighborhood located near Loop, an up-scale neighborhood, sought drastic changes within the area. The changes in racial demographics in the Near West Side indicated that the health risks that affected minorities dropped in the past decade (1992-2002) (Al-Kodmany 2011,

I read nine article that discusses various aspects of gentrification from health issues to detreated housing condition and ethnic cleansing. In my rough draft, I thought discussing only one side of Harlem gentrification might confuse readers because all of the subjects are linked to each other. Therefore, I took main the main ideas from each of the nine articles and discussed them chronologically in my rough draft to give audience a better understanding of the series of events that shaped today’s Harlem. In doing so, I failed to follow the instructions. Thanks to Professor Poltrack’s feedback, I was able to focus on one article and discuss Harlem’s gentrification more effectively. In my final draft, I found to easier to analyze and interpret the meaning of article because I concentrated on one particular subject. Going forward, I will read the instructions carefully, underline the key points and talk to Prof Poltrack if I have any question about the

Orphan trains and Carlisle and the ways people from the past undermined the minorities and children of America. The film "The orphan Trains" tells us the story of children who were taken from the streets of New York City and put on trains to rural America. A traffic in immigrant children were developed and droves of them teamed the streets of New York (A People's History of the United States 1492-present, 260). The streets of NYC were dirty, overcrowded, and dangerous. Just as street gangs had female auxiliaries, they also had farm leagues for children (These are the Good Old Days, 19). During the time of the late 1800's and early 1900's many people were trying to help children. Progressive reformers, often called

How would you feel if someone wanted to take you away from your family? Would you go? Or Would you make a fuss? In this story it's a short story called “Train Time” by D’Arcy McNickle. The story is about a guy named Major Miles that want to help kids, to get a better lifestyle, then they have right now. In the situation he gets interested in one of the kids life that is Eneas; the boy that has to take care of his grandparents because their sick, has to do their chores in the house ,and cut wood for his family to be warm. Major asked or more like request, that Eneas should go away to help him only, but Eneas didn’t like the idea. After, the situation, Major Miles made a list of kids and put the kids names, (Eneas) that didn't want to go. The characteristic Major miles provide me from his actions was hard-headed,cocky, and that he acts like a guardian because he believes his decision will make their lives better.

What’s the best way to face a difficult situation? Day in and day out, life circumstances force people to live their lives differently than planned. Some struggle with this concept, never seeing the silver lining in the unexpected turn of events. Others however, live their lives as normally as they can, regardless of whatever they’re faced with. During the second world war, America was faced with the question of how to keep their country safe from enemies that might live within its borders. Although every American citizen is legally innocent until proven guilty, all’s fair in love and war. America saw no choice but to lock away immigrants and their American born children. This is detailed in The Train to Crystal City by Jan Jarboe Russell as

“When a child of the streets stands before you in rags, with a tear-stained face, you cannot easily forget him. And yet, you are perplexed what to do. The human soul is difficult to interfere with. You hesitate how far you should go.” – Charles Loring Brace

Chicago’s notorious reputation for crime-ridden, poor quality public housing is a direct result of public policy during the reign of former mayor Richard J. Daley. Instead of using public housing to give lower income families a decent place to live, as was the intent of most public housing at the time, it was used to segregate blacks by concentrating them into certain parts of the city. Cabrini-Green was obviously one of these places. The architecture of Cabrini-Green also played a part in the inevitable doom of the project. City officials realized that the renowned architect LeCorbusier’s “island in the sky” concept of urban community, where giant high-rises grew out of the ground with enormous green space in between them, would be good for public housing. In reality, the green space separated the projects from the rest of the city, concentrating slums into ugly concrete structures that quickly fell into disrepair, resulting in “hulking high-rises in poor black neighborhoods.” Also, 95% of those living in public housing in

Starting in the 1850s, there were great increases in urbanization. Movements such as The Great Migration lead to huge populations in newly industrialized cities. In addition, there was a great increase in immigration, especially from families of eastern and southern European descent. The Orphan Train Movement’s purpose was to give the thousands of children in New York City that were left without homes due to increased urbanization and industrialization a new family out west with good living conditions and values and to increase the number of farm workers. The children mostly were placed with good families, but some children were treated as slaved by their families. Additionally, most of the children were excited to work; however, some were

“We are not victims of sprawl…we are sprawl!” Urbanization in Los Angeles was through “Selfish, profit-driven presentism” (pg.65). This has deafened Angelenos (natives to Los Angeles) to the warnings of environmentalists who have cautioned about environmental crises and ways to prevent them. This later becomes linked to social injustice. For example, when homes are on fire in Malibu, where they should have never

The term Gentrification was coined by a British Sociologist Ruth Glass to describe the movement of middle class families in urban areas causing the property value to increase and displacing the older settlers. Over the past decades, gentrification has been refined depending on the neighborhood 's economic, social and political context. According to Davidson and Less’ definition, a gentrified area should include investment in capital, social upgrading, displacement of older settlers and change in the landscape (Davidson and Lees, 2005).Gentrification was perceived to be a residential process, however in the recent years, it has become a broader topic, involving the restructuring of inner cities, commercial development and improvement of facilities in the inner city neighborhoods. Many urban cities like Chicago, Michigan and Boston have experienced gentrification, however, it is affecting the Harlem residents more profoundly, uprooting the people who have been living there for decades, thus destroying the cultural identity of the historic neighborhood.

“The themes of the play are Two Trains Running is a political play that makes extended reference to the black power movement and its impact on poor urban communities like the Hill District of Pittsburgh. The issue of continued white oppression of African Americans and the response of the black community during the 1960s is at the foreground of the characters ' experience. The community surrounding the restaurant is undergoing a major redevelopment, probably one which has been precipitated by the social initiatives that came in the wake of the civil rights movement. However, the legal rights and privileges that the African American community won during the 1950s and 1960s do not seem necessarily to extend to impoverished city-dwellers. An underlying sense of tragedy and hopelessness pervades even short-term victories such as the city awarding Memphis thirty-five thousand dollars, since Memphis remains estranged from his wife and has the foreboding..”

“It got to be easy to look at New Yorkers as animals, especially looking down from some place like a balcony at Grand Central at the rush hour Friday afternoon.” (Tom Wolfe). “O Rotten Gotham” argues that New Yorkers are in a state of behavioral sink. It would not be long before a “population collapse” or a “massive die off”.

New York City is made up of five boroughs, which include the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Within these boroughs, there are high and low-income neighborhoods that contain either high or low status organizational structures or facilities. Each division has their own characteristics and top attractions, such as the Empire State building, Central Park, or Times Square. As New York City may be known for great food and fun attractions, New York faces infrastructure problems within each borough. New York City’s infrastructure funding is limited in lower income neighborhoods, where money needed to upkeep the city goes toward prime tourist’s areas or residents living in high status neighborhoods, such as The Upper East Side of Manhattan, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and Lenox Hill, Manhattan. Moreover, abandoned buildings, poor sewage conditions, and rocky roads and streets are examples of low-income area infrastructure problems that may hinder neighborhood growth both structurally and economically. Harlem, East Brooklyn, and South Bronx are low-income parts of New York that lack new and refined facilities, roads, plumbing, and fundamental structures, which contribute to high crime and arrests.

The most significant of the newly constructed transportation network was the Cross-Bronx Expressway, a road cutting through the heart of the Bronx. To make way for this expansive construction project the city employed eminent domain, displacing upwards of 60,000 local residents. Uprooted residents, mainly impoverished African American and Puerto Rican families without enough resources for better housing winded up in the expansive public and subsidized housing of the South Bronx. Once a safe haven for the upwardly mobile first and second-generation immigrants in the prewar era, the Bronx was not always thought of as one of the nation’s poorest slums. The shifting post war economy took its toll on the once thriving manufacturing businesses