Urban Sociology - Test 3

Chapter 10: Stratification and Social Class

Social Stratification Marx bourgeoisie v. proletariat Weber class, status, power Socioeconomic Status ranking results from how many status symbols a person possesses Social Class Distinctions Upper Class Only contains, at most, 5% of the total population Baltzell three stages of upper class movement 1. Lived in downtown areas 2. Shifted to quieter areas away from the downtown 3. Moved out to the suburbs Middle Class 40% to 45% of the population Depict the American Dream Working Class About 1/3 of the population Lower Class 20% of the total population Income Distribution Nationwide The top 20% earn 49.4% of all income The gap has been steadily widening Incomes Within and Outside Cities Those living outside have higher incomes Wealth and Net Wealth Wealth 1. Marketable assets, such as real estate and other property, bank accounts, and stocks, bonds, and other securities 2. Financial assets (all of the preceding minus owner-occupied housing) Net Worth all of ones assets minus all liabilities Poverty Nationwide Threshold in 2007 for a family of four was $21,386 In 2007 it was 12.5% Poverty Within and Outside Cities Partly explain higher concentration of poverty in the cities by the greater number of foreign-born residents In New York City, one in five residents is poor Urban Social Class Diversity Urban life: tremendous human variety Upper-Class Urban Neighborhoods The Upper East Side

Wealthy, secluded area with a lot of high end shopping Other Elite Neighborhoods History and Terrain Middle-Class Urban Neighborhoods Most are in suburbia Chicago: became destination for yuppies Drive out lower income residents Milwaukee During White Flight there were a lot of discriminatory practices occurring Residents are able to keep it as a middle-class neighborhood Working-Class Urban Neighborhoods Become distinctive by the ethnic and racial minority groups who predominate Become ethnic villages Newarks Ironbound Area in New Jersey where it is surrounded by tracks Ironbound that has drawn a lot of immigrant groups specifically Portuguese immigrants Many European activities and groups are found within this neighborhood Other Ethnic Villages Most cities have an ethnic village Mixed-Income Urban Neighborhoods Intervention: public housing designed to reduce the concentration of poverty From planned gentrification programs Be simply non-planned result from the social dynamics of people opting to move The keys to the quality of life in a mixed-income neighborhood, then, are not only household income levels but also the desire and ability of residents to remain there Grand Rapids 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Strong religious communities Positive feelings about the schools Social networks both between and among neighbors were also important factors Family connections to the neighborhood Well-organized, professionally staffed neighborhood associations completed the steadying elements

Fragility: concerned about the increase in rental households, poorly monitored properties and renters who would cause noise, visible blight, and neighborhood change Toronto St. Lawrence neighborhood was deliberately created Achieved the social mix by planned housing condominium apartments, non-profit cooperatives, private nonprofit units, and owner-occupied townhouses Stay because the neighborhood gives them a sense of place Low-Income Urban Neighborhoods Typically in the cities older historic districts Face social isolation Chicago

Gage-Park became a low-income neighborhood because it experienced a 4/5 change in population now many of the residents are Hispanic Los Angeles Area became rundown Suffers from a high crime rate The Homeless Urban Renewal has caused an increase in homelessness The situation in some places worsens and betters in others Suburban Social Class Diversity Suburbs are becoming more diverse Upper-Income Suburbs Somewhat older, mostly white, highly educated Middle-Income Suburbs College education and a white-collar job emphasis Race and ethnicity appear to be less important attributes of differences in social class than educational level and income Working-Class Suburbs Many are suffering from loss of jobs because of industry Suburban Cosmopolitan Centers College towns Minority Suburbs Most suburbs are now racially diverse but some communities try to remain racially segregated Black suburbs invasion-succession, spillover, ghetto sprawl, upwardly mobile suburbanization

Chapter 11: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

Cities and Immigrants Cities have long been a place for immigrants Most immigrants pay 46% as much as Americans in taxes while only receive 38% in return Ethnic Enclaves and Ethnic Identity Little Italy Many of the immigrants from 1861 to 1960 were white Many different people serving many different kinds of food, not necessarily from their own homeland Ethnic Change Ethnic villages do not always hold up when the second and third generations come along New York City Leading destination for immigrants Many different ethnic communities Los Angeles Nearly half of all residents are Hispanic 2/3 of which are Mexican Americans Racial and Ethnic Minorities Blacks

Many went North because of slavery The Lure of the North Economic and lack of discriminatory laws against African Americans The Great Migration Moved north and now moving back south Black Flight Black suburbanization Black Majority Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta Residential Segregation Hypersegregation Evenness, exposure, clustering, centralization, and concentration American Apartheid Slowly and steadily decreased Rust belt metro areas where black-white segregation has been particularly resistant to change The Truly Disadvantaged Face social isolation Dont have schooling and communication skills needed for jobs Asians and Pacific Islanders Chinese Low-rent urban enclaves Bi-polar occupational distribution about 30% are in professional and technical positions Chinese are also over-represented as low-skilled, low-paid service workers Filipinos More than half arrived since 1980 and the new arrivals tend to have better educational and occupational skills than most of their native-born ethnic cohorts Asian Indians Almost of the immigrants are in professional or managerial occupations Consequently most Asian Indians settle in large metropolitan areas Vietnamese Largest Asian group in Texas Japanese Most are U.S.-born and have high educational and income levels higher even than whites Koreans Their rate of self-employment is higher than that in any other racial or ethnic category The Model Minority Stereotype Many Asians have a record of educational achievement, high income, and overall success in metropolitan areas Hampered by language difficulties, poor education, and weak job skills, many Southeast Asian refugees remain on welfare Hispanics

Now constitute the nations largest minority Many first-generation Hispanic Americans cluster in urban ethnic neighborhoods, repeating a centuriesold pattern of earlier immigrants Cubans Their main concentration were in South Florida, particularly Miami, and New York Puerto Rican More Puerto Ricans live in poverty than do all other Hispanics High level of female-headed families: more than one in four Puerto Rican families, compared with one in six Mexican American families Mexican Americans Mexican immigration continues into both rural and urban areas, but most immigrants are settling in urban neighborhoods Are segregated in urban neighborhoods where these ethnic enclaves have the potential to isolate them from the societal mainstream Many of the central-city residents are of low socioeconomic status and live in areas where the school dropout rate of Mexican American youths run as high as 45% with student alienation serving as a major cause Central and South Americans Mixture of educated professionals and low-skilled peasants seeking a better life in Norht Americas cities Residential Segregation Hispanic residential segregation is less than that for blacks but is higher than that for Asian Americans By far, Dominicans are the most segregated of the Latino groups Muslims This group finds itself the frequent target of racial profiling both in antiterrorist law enforcement actions and in stereotyping Native People Women and Urban Life Changing values and times led to greater life opportunities for women Work Many women went from farms to industry jobs Dual-career families are now a norm Urban Space Specialized services have appeared child care, household cleaning, lawn care, shopping assistance to working women More attention needs to be given to creating safe environments The Public Sphere Many women have now moved into the public sphere and hold public office Early Chicago A possible water link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River The key to the economic success of the city was its position in the growing urban trade network With the railroad, Chicago became the center for the entire Midwest, a break-of-bulk point for goods shipped in all directions The Burning and Rebuilding of Chicago

Became more of a growth machine than ever before Jane Addams and Hull House Her house was a refuge for displaced people to aid in the solution of social problems engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city Immigrant Aid Was situated in an ethnically diverse section Social Activism Strong child labor laws as well as laws protecting women Juvenile court system, playgrounds, demanded enforcement of housing and sanitation laws worked for womans suffrage advocated for the legal protection of immigrants Early Feminism Addams believed that dramatic changes could be made in the U.S. society, and to that end, she provided a forum where people of all classes, races, and genders could speak together Chicago in the Early Twentieth Century Success did not come to all, however, African Americans had an especially hard time The Postwar Period Affluent population moved out The Chicago Machine Three of five tallest buildings in the nation A commitment to improve housing for the poor was lacking until recently Ordered Segmentation Race and ethnicity are thus fundamental parts of the social organization of Chicago While some housing was surely dilapidated and many people were poor, the area was far from disorganized Chicago Today These days is mostly positive Remarkable changes are under way physically, economically, and among its residents New immigrants introduce fresh dimensions of social diversity

Chapter 12: Housing, Education, Crime

Housing: A Place to Live Adequate Housing: Who Has It? Millions of people do live in such substandard housing and most of them live in our cities The worst housing is concentrated in areas occupied by the poor and minorities who are subject to discrimination in short, the people with the fewest social choices Housing Problems: A Brief History Government leaders for generations made little effort to regulate housing A New Deal The federal government became more involved in everyday life than ever before Federal housing programs had four specific goals 1. Government directed federal funds to encourage the construction of new housing 2. Because some 500,000 families had lost their homes because of an inability to pay their mortgage debts, agencies offered assistance to homeowners faced with foreclosure 3. The Federal Housing Administration guaranteed construction loans to increase the housing supply

4. The Public Works Administration, begun in 1938, hired unemployed people to build low-rent public housing in 30 U.S. cities Rapidly improved urban housing Postwar Programs One was a broadening of federal mortgage guarantees through the FHA and the Veterans Administration Another major initiative, the Housing Act of 1949, initiated the suburban boom that followed Developers sought profitable redevelopment, so little of the new construction was affordable to the low-income residents who had previously occupied the neighborhood most often, urban renewal projects created new housing for the middle class Critics often charged that urban renewal meant poor or Negro removal many of the displaced poor had no choice but to crowd into other low-grade housing that they could afford, and the resultant overcrowding only hastened the decay of those buildings thus ironically, slum clearance actually created more slums Many redevelopers did not build as many housing units as had been destroyed Public Housing Public housing has never been that successful in the United States People tend to judge those living in publicly supported rental housing as somehow deficient Instantly they became ghettos, places to avoid, out-of-the-way reservations designed to contain an unwanted segment of society Banfield suggest that residents themselves are largely to blame Architectural critics point to the design of such structures, condemning high-rise buildings as anonymous spaces vulnerable to crime and vandalism Rainwater point to the pathologies of concentrated poverty not to the people themselves as the fundamental cause of public housings rather dismal record Different Approaches The housing act of 1968 attempted to place home ownership within reach of more families through loan guarantees and direct subsidies Low income families would pay only 20% of their income toward the home, and the government would pick up the rest Section 8 program which provides rent subsidies to low-income tenants in private housing Program offers subsidies to developers to build or rehabilitate rental housing Waiting lists can run into the years, and many local housing authorities close their waiting lists Evaluation 1. Because of the deep involvement of private banking and construction industries in renewal programs, for many, profit overshadowed any sense of social responsibility to help the poor furthermore, the design of some redevelopment projects was intended for more affluent buyers at prices out of the reach of those who originally lived there Deterioration and Abandonment in the Inner City The Inner City Today: A Revival? Urban Homesteading Gentrification The New Urbanism Columbia Point/Harbor Point

Water as an Amenity Replacing High Rises Limitations A Comparison Education: The Urban Challenge Meeting the No Child Left Behind Challenge Learning Outcomes Language Proficiency Environment Funding Political Clout Magnet Schools School Vouchers Charter Schools Crime: Perception and Reality Public Perception of Crime Crime and City Size The Race Issue Explaining High-Crime Areas Cultural Patterns Lower Intelligence Persistent Racial Inequality and Poverty Residential Segregation Effects of Crime on Everyday Life What is the Solution? Physical Design Community Involvement Get Tough New York City

Chapter 13: Cities in the Developing World

Latin American Cities Early Cities European Dominance Modern Cities African Cities Early Cities European Dominance Modern Cities Middle Eastern Cities Islamic Cities European Dominance

Modern Cities Asian Cities India European Domination Modern Cities Kolkata (Calcutta) Mumbai (Bombay) Outlook China Foreign Domination Modern Cities Special Economic Zones Hong Kong Japan Early Cities Modern Cities Southeast Asia Singapore Jakarta Bangkok Common Legacies Economic Legacies Political Legacies Common Problems Spiraling Problems Quality of Life Environment Shantytowns