Urban Poverty In Rural America

Poverty is everywhere in America, and there will always be poverty. Nobody has found a solution to it. If you live in a city you will probably see it every day. A lot of times people do not have a

The current poverty rate in America is 13.5 percent (US Census Bureau). That measures out to roughly 43.1 million Americans. What exactly is poverty? Poverty means not having enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. However, poverty is so much more than just not having enough money. Poverty is not having access to a doctor or medications you may need, poverty is not having access to a good education. Poverty can be the people who are barely able to pay for food and shelter and simply can’t afford other expenses such as car repairs, field trips with their children and any other extracurricular activity.

staggering? Poverty occurs when a person’s need for food, clothing and shelter are not being

A growing problem that the United States is facing is poverty. Poverty affects around 46.5 million people in the United States. Poverty in America is decreasing according to the census “In 2013, the official poverty rate was 14.5 percent, down from 15.0 percent in 2012. This was the first decrease in the poverty rate since 2006.”("United States Census Bureau." 2015). One town in Pennsylvania shows an entirely different story though. For the town of Reading, Pennsylvania almost half of the population falls below the poverty line.

Affordable housing has become the paramount issue of cities and dense urban areas. San Francisco is the posterchild of an unaffordable city that regardless of immense investment from blue chip firms like Google, Facebook, and their ilk of startups evaluated at $1 billion or more, policymakers and elected officials must wrestle with the housing affordability crisis that is considered endogenous to swaths of homelessness and record statistics on crime. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has made affordable housing the centerpiece of his legislation and championed the cause as a social justice issue—neighborhoods must remain affordable to maintain diversity for all races, ethnicities, and low-income families. A small sample of 827 New Yorkers by the NY1-Baruch College City Poll found the main concern of respondents was affordable housing while crime, jobs, and homelessness were peripheral problems (Cuza, 2016). The public discourse on how to address housing across the United States has pointed to negative externalities that surround rent-regulation and homeownership. Conversely, for this essay I will present various cases in order to illustrate the housing crunch is influenced less by housing and land regulations, or antagonistic homeowners but is induced by global market forces.

In the constantly changing economy of cities, the growth of city housing is oftentimes neglected. In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification” Timothy Williams recounts how gentrification has evolved over the years. Mentioning how cities have changed in order to appease the younger professionals, Williams shows how the city itself is in jeopardy due to the tax increases. Slowly loosing their faithful residents as well as historic culture cities face a big deal. Williams gives quotes from faithful residents, “…long time homeowners are victims of the success story”, (Williams 346). In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification”, Williams uses his credible quotes and modern statistics to generate the reader’s emotions, with desire to change how city officials go about gentrification in culturally infused cities.

Public housing is another program that helps to provide a roof over a family’s heads for reduced costs. Rent in some places can be quite high and a family of four may find it hard even to afford a small 3 bedroom house without breaking their pockets.

“I took a trip to Oakland, California and fell in love with the area. We stayed at an Air B&B for the three days of our stay and the house was absolutely beautiful, it looked like my dream home. Despite all the glitz and glamour around us we noticed a large amount of homelessness compared to Columbus. We found out that this property is not someone’s home but a house used strictly as an Air B&B. When you hear something like that and see the amount of homelessness it makes you wonder how many of these homes are strictly for show? So after researching I found out, the reason for the rampant homelessness can be attributed to large increases in rent. Even worse, the cause for the increase is due to Silicon Valley” (Kasongo, 2017). Unfortunately, rent increasing virtually overnight is the reality of many low-income families. This situation is called gentrification and is felt throughout the world, from the Midwest, East coast or even Western Europe, no region is immune to this process. Gentrification in the Midwest is extensive and wide causing the displacement of many low-income minority residents which can lead to even bigger issues.

Adding to the inequalities and misfortunes within communities of color, gentrification has taken the Bay Area by a storm. Gentrification is the purchasing of deteriorated urban homes and areas, then the renovation by higher-end and middle class communities. An abundance of high-end people rush into the Bay Area and purchase up the real estate. Incoming middle and higher class take the Bay Area real estate and revitalise it into up-and-coming neighborhoods, then increase rent prices. Therefore, reducing affordable housing for communities of color. Therefore, this revitalization is changing the character of communities because the Bay Area may appear nicer, the communities of color are unable to afford the standard of living. Communities of

Sanneh states, “A gentrification story often unspools as a morality play, with bohemians playing a central if ambiguous part: their arrival can signal that a neighborhood is undergoing gentrification, but so can their departure, as rising rents increasingly bring economic stratification” (Sanneh). This demonstrate gentrification is a social justice issue because it leads to economic stratification which refers to the grouping of people according to differences in income, occupation, power, privilege, manner of living, region where they live, age, gender or race. Martin Luther King defines injustice as, “any law that degrades human personality is unjust” (MLK 15). Many sociologists have researched how people, as they move from villages to cities, lose communal bonds and moral codes, which are essential to one’s psychological well-being. Many inner-city neighborhoods now constitute similarly vibrant communities, and leaving them can have profoundly negative consequences. To prevent such social dislocation, we need to lessen the incentives that are driving gentrification. We should increase the stock of housing, offer microcredit in poor neighborhoods, and provide legal protection against unscrupulous banks and real-estate agents. Otherwise, gentrification will continue to drive people from the places where they have

According to Elizabeth Kneebone, author of “Confronting Suburban Poverty in America”, the growth of suburban poverty is partly due to the dark economic situations that forced people beneath “the line” and by migration. She added that most low-wage jobs in America are in the suburbs, and that people mistakenly believe that more services are offered in the suburbs than in the cities. Looking at the fast-growing poor population in the suburbs, this phenomenon has become a community situation where anyone is susceptible of. Furthermore, it indicates that there needs to be a synergistic, universal change to better the situation (the government and organizations should change as well).

An issue that impacts the world globally is poverty. Poverty is a problem that is not to be taken likely. Poverty affects almost the majority of the world's population, and it can turn into hate, lust and other things that can affect family, friends, cities, government, and even nations. Take Germany for example. During the era of WWII, the Germans started to go down an economic slump and recession because of the harsh Treaty of Versailles that France and Britain dictated on. Corrupt leaders in Germany influenced the poor that Jews were the reason for the loss of the first World War. Because the people were tired of living in poverty, they decided to believe these so-called "leaders" and scapegoat the Jews, and they did not take the acceptance

Gentrification is a general term for the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban, district a related increase in rents and property values and changes in district’s character and culture. Gentrification works by accretion which is gathering momentum like a snowball. Gentrification has been the cause of painful conflict in many American cities. America’s renewed interest in city life has put a premium on urban neighborhoods, some of which have been built since World War II. It tends to occur in districts with particular qualities that make them desirable and ripe for change. Word travels that an attractive neighborhood has been “discovered” and the pace of change accelerates rapidly. An increase in median income and a decline in the

Gentrification is a problem that is occurring in many communities. The city of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles is one of the communities that the citizens of the community are notice new apartments build, galleries owner by rich people, and high prices for apartment the people are not able to afford to live there. Because the renewal of neighborhood environments that transform and attract middle and upper-class households and investors, creating problems for those who cannot afford rises of rents. According to O’Regan, “some of the biggest concerns about gentrification-potential displacement and increased rent burdens-are driven by rent or housing cost increases” (152). The only way to

In today’s society, it may seem that gentrification can eliminate poverty and increase neighborhood opportunities. Low-income residents and property owners will be the first to be altered by gentrification. In an email to the editor at the Atlantic, Freeman, the director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia states “ Gentrification brings new amenities and services that benefit not only the newcomers but long term residents too. Full service