Washington Heights: Neighborhood Analysis

The Upper East Side, zip code 10028, and East Harlem, zip code 10035 are two very different neighborhoods. Overall health varies between The Upper East Side and East Harlem because of differences in social determinants such as socioeconomic status, education, and environment. More specifically, East Harlem has the highest percentage of hospitalizations due to asthma when comparing neighborhoods in NYC.1 Using my observations from doing fieldwork, I will focus on the structural differences in The Upper East Side and East Harlem that result in differences in asthma prevalence.

Park Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of New York City, home to the ultra rich, the top tier of the American upper class, the 1% (Park Avenue). Those who reside in Park Avenue not only have vast amounts of wealth, but an immense amount of influence that has turned the tables in their favor. But, if you go a couple of miles North of Park Avenue and cross the Harlem river, you arrive at the other side of Park Avenue or otherwise known as the Bronx, one of the poorest districts in all of New York (Park Avenue). Here you see the real hardships average Americans must voyage through in order to put food on the table and provide shelter for their families. 40% of the 700,000 residents who

“Bienvenidos a La Villita” is spelled across an arch that marks the entryway of Little Village, a southwest neighborhood of Chicago known for its diversity and culture. There are all types of neighborhoods throughout the city. Little Village is just one of these ethnic neighborhoods that Chicago is known for. It is often referred to as the “Mexico of the Midwest,” but was not always occupied by the large population of Latinos it is known for today. The population composition of Little Village has changed dramatically from predominantly Czech and Polish to a Latino population in the present. This shift in population is what created La Villita (Little Village), a point of entry for Latino immigrants to Chicago. The identity of a neighborhood

Gentrification can be a scary thing when one sees the neighborhood they grew up in and rapidly changing. One might not know how to feel about all of the new developments and businesses. Now that many are figuring out all the cool, unique benefits of one’s neighborhood, one has been appreciating for many years in silence, one might start to get worried. One might even start to overthink about how these changes will affect them. Well, if you are like most Dominicans living rent stabilized in Washington Heights, you have nothing to worry about for maybe about the next few years. So one can still go out and enjoy the few Starbucks franchises there are and try out the new Thai place that just opened.

East Harlem, colloquially referred to as El Barrio, represents an urban neighborhood that has historically been home to marginalized groups of working class people. The massive movement of Puerto Ricans to East Harlem in the 20th century created El Barrio as it is discussed in Bourgois’ ethnographic study. Many residents are first or second generation Puerto Rican Americans struggling for survival. Moreover, they grapple with issues of identity, language, and culture while adapting to generational evolution and persistent poverty. The study outlines the following major social problems facing residents: poverty, addiction/drug abuse, unemployment, sexism/violence and disintegration of families.

I live in Jackson Heights. According to ‘census.gov,’ total population of Jackson Heights currently is around 67000. It’s about 57.2% of the population is Hispanic or Latino. Not Hispanic or Latino is 42.8%. Ecuadorians, Colombians, and Mexicans are the three largest ethnic groups among Latinos. Non-Hispanics White takes up 18.4% of the populations (total whites take up 64% of the population). Black or African American takes up 3.0%. Asian takes up 22%. Asian Indian is the largest Asian group in the community.

You have lived in your dream home that you designed for over twenty years. It is in a middle class tree lined family neighborhood. You have raised five upstanding children, two who are still living at home. You find out that a drug and alcohol rehab center has bought your neighbor’s home and plan on putting 16 people who are recovering from drugs and alcohol in this home. What is your reaction? Do you have any say in the matter? What do the laws say? Most of us do not worry about this situation or ever think it can happen to us. It can and it does. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA guidelines a drug user who is currently participating in a

New York City is composed of some of the world’s most unique and eccentric neighborhoods the world has ever seen. Amongst these neighborhoods, one can expect to find Bushwick (Community District 4) and Williamsburg (Community District 1), nestled in in the northern tip of Brooklyn borough. The earliest colonizers included the Dutch, French, Scandinavians, and English farmers. Today, however, the spectrum of racial distribution has changed drastically in which the top ethnic groups include Puerto Rican, African American, Dominican, Ecuadorian, and Mexican, Polish, Italian, and Hasidic Jews. Both neighborhoods have an abnormally large rate of preventable illness and death issues. Reasons as to why these districts are facing such high illness rates could be because of language barriers, economic conditions, and lack of a primary care physician monitoring health.

Overall, Crown Heights has majority West Indian and African American population; however there is a significant number of Hasidic Jews (Rule, 1994). The areas we are focusing on has a total population of 2,647 and 2,432 of this population are black (Census, 2010). This population have 38% foreign born and out of that 52 % are foreign born non-citizens. Female’s makes up 55.8% of the population. The education rate for those graduating from High School is 56.4%. However 17.4% of the youth are disconnected by not working nor attending school. The median age of the community is 38 years old and it’s mostly housed with single mothers. There’s an enormously high poverty rate amongst minority and foreign born residents. The median income is $39,503 with 61.1% are in the labor force. 27.1% of the population lives in

West Grand Neighborhood Organization and it’s partnership with ATPA has been reciprocal in nature, benefiting both ATPA and our neighborhood. We want to ensure the program continues to be successful not only for our neighbors but also the state of Michigan.

Chicago neighborhoods are different but closely similar to style and layout. It’s a diverse city with areas that have different atmospheres with parks, restaurants, etc. I want to focus more on ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ and ‘middle’ as a whole. The people would be the main source with the part of living standards about the neighborhood I’m from. This would give a better understanding of how exactly the area is.

Pittsburgh is considered as one of the Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods established by African Americans in 1883. The community was named Pittsburgh because the industrial area resembled the famous steel mills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (wiki). The neighborhood, occupies 554 acres southwest of Downtown Atlanta. In the late 1800s, Atlanta’s economy was dependent upon three major rail lines and the railroad played significant role shaping the development of the neighborhood. During the early 20th century Pittsburgh experienced considerable growth (SCI report). However starting in the 1950s, the neighborhood began to experience several decades of decline (Pittsburgh Community Improvement Association, Inc., 2013).

According to newworldencyclopedia.org, sociological concepts such as “social distance” and “the marginal man” were first used by American urban sociologist Robert Ezra Park in 1982. (Used source: newworldencyclopedia.org) By Wikipedia this term is defined as “a situation in which an individual suspended between 2 cultural realities may struggle to establish his or her identity”. In addition to this, Wikipedia has another definition too, which says that marginalization is “a social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society”. (Used source: Wikipedia.org) For me, marginalization simply means being outside of a particular society or culture. Consequently, marginal can be the person who is wealthy or poor or is in the middle class.

Most residents rent their homes, because people are always coming and leaving Rochester. Most people only stay in Rochester to save up money so thy can move to a better community like Greece, Pittsford or Henrietta. Faith based organization are very active n the community. They are always having a food drive, clothes give away and church services in the street. Churches are always looking to recruit resident into their religion. Churches hope that if thy can get a person to believe in their religion that people will turn away from their sins and do better in life. Business and property owners do not spend a lot of their time in Rochester or even keeping up their property in Rochester. Business and property owners spend most of their time and money in other community’s. Most business and property owners own property in Rochester and multiple other community’s. I have never came across any business person or propty management who only has a business I the community. The reason that they have several business is because a person could not live off of the money that they would bring in if they only had business in my community. There are not a lot of resources so resident spend their money in other community’s that have the resources that they need. Most resident are on social services such as section 8 and other welfare services. We do not have an headquarters for social services in my community it is in Pittsford, which is thirty eight miles away from my community. Most residents do not drive, so in order to get to the headquarters residents would have to get on fours buses just to get to the office. Larger institutions and community organization profit in the community. McDonald and Burger king always have business in their stores. Community organizations are not after money, but they are after volunteers. Most people that volunteer do not live in the community, they live in better community’s in the city. Community

Living in a very poor neighborhood can cause many bad instances. In a sense, people are not living in the poor neighborhood willingly. They don’t have more capability to afford rents and taxes in a better neighborhood. These poor people are restricted to the dark side due to their below average employment, and other financial reasons. Other factor is that each race and ethnicity can put a different outcome in the same scenario. The lifestyle in different ethnicity differs. In some countries, neighborhood does not influence people, while in some other culture neighborhood affect a personality/behavior very much.