Benchmark - Social Problems in Education and the Family

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Chapter 14 Urban Life

Tracking the Trends: Urban Life

By in 1920, a majority of people in the U.S. were counted as city dwellers.

Today, almost a century later, more than 80% of people live in cities and suburbs.

Q. Do you think that most of the social problems we face can also be thought of as urban problems?

Percent Urban

5.1%

(1790)

51.2%

(1920)

80.7%

(2010)

1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 5.1000000000000004E-2 6.1000000000000006E-2 7.3000000000000009E-2 7.2000000000000022E-2 8.8000000000000037E-2 0.10800000000000003 0.15400000000000003 0.19800000000000001 0.25700000000000001 0.28200000000000003 0.35100000000000009 0.39600000000000007 0.45600000000000002 0.51200000000000001 0.56100000000000005 0.56499999999999995 0.64000000000000012 0.69900000000000018 0.7360000000000001 0.7370000000000001 0.75200000000000011 0.79 0.80700000000000005

Percentage of U.S. Population Living in Urban Areas

Urban Life: Housing Crisis

The recession beginning in 2008 resulted in millions of people struggling to make payments on their home loans.

For many unable to pay, foreclosure was the result.

Foreclosure rate peaked in 2010 and has fallen since then

By 2013, more than 5 million homes had been lost to foreclosure.

National Map 14-1 Foreclosures across the United States, 2008

Cities: Then and Now Colonial Villages: 1565-1800

1565-1800: Period of tiny villages

By 1776, barely 5% of the population lived in cities.

Largest city was Philadelphia, with 42,000 people.

Today, there are 4.5 million people in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Cities: Then and Now Westward Expansion: 1800-1860

After 1800: Westward migration

Followed new transportation routes

National Road, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Erie Canal

By 1860, about 20% of the population was living in cities

Urbanization: The movement of people from the countryside to cities

Cities: Then and Now The Industrial Metropolis: 1860-1950

Civil War: industrial and urban expansion

Cities grew in population

Immigrants, mostly from Europe

Expanded “upward and outward”

New urban forms of transportation

Steel beams enabled skyscrapers to be built

Cities: Then and Now The Industrial Metropolis: 1860-1950

Social Problems in Industrial Cities

Large immigrant populations

Ethnic prejudice and anti-urban bias

Tenement housing

Factory smoke, sewage

Rampant crime

Loss of jobs during the Great Depression

Cities: Then and Now Postindustrial Cities and Suburbs: 1950-Present

Post WWII: migration to the suburbs

Suburbs: urban areas beyond the political boundaries of cities

1960s and 1970s:

Service work and information technology relocated work to the suburbs

Decentralized population from central city

By 2012, 52% of the entire country’s population lived in suburbs

Fiscal Problems of the 1970s

During the 1970s, bankruptcy was likely for many cities.

Suburban industrial parks, corporate mergers, downsizing, and loss of jobs in the city led to a smaller tax base.

Poor were left behind, along with an increase in demand for city services.

The Postindustrial Revival

Post-industrial economic growth revitalized cities

New jobs in the service sector

Rising immigration

Recent Recession and New Fiscal Problems

Recent recession caused cities to

lose jobs

suffer devalued properties

collect lower tax revenues

People lost their homes to foreclosure.

Factory and office jobs moved overseas.

Recovery has been a “jobless recovery.”

2013: Detroit declared bankruptcy

Urban Sprawl

Megalopolis: a vast urban region containing a number of cities and their surrounding suburbs

Government policies

Interstate highways

Low cost housing

Urban Sprawl

Urban Sprawl: Rapid, unplanned, and low-density development at the edge of urban areas

Mixed pattern of new construction, including roads, homes, schools, and shopping areas

no regional distinctiveness

consumes land at a rapid rate

threatens farmland

requires automobile

Edge Cities

Business centers miles from the old downtowns

Mostly commercial developments

Population higher during the day vs. residential suburbs with populations higher at night.

Most major cities contain one or more edge cities

Poverty

Migration of jobs to the suburbs left high concentrations of poverty in central cities

Disadvantaged minorities

Lack of economic opportunities

2012 Poverty Rates

14.5% for all urban areas

19.7% for central cities

11.2% for suburbs

17.7% for rural areas

Housing Problems: Tenements

Tenement housing in the early industrial metropolis

Built to house greatest number of families in smallest amount of space

Poorly constructed

Crowded living conditions

The 1930s and the New Deal saw improvement in housing

Housing Problems: Urban Renewal

Urban Housing Act of 1949

Gave local city governments right to seize a decaying neighborhood, forcing out families who lived there, paying them nominal amounts for their homes

Developers re-built areas; most housing was out of reach of those who were displaced.

Result was often a reduction in low-income housing

Housing Problems: Public Housing

Public Housing: typically high-density apartment buildings constructed to house poor people

Unpopular with most people

Liberals: Public housing was often worse than the neighborhoods knocked down during urban renewal.

Conservatives: Government should not be in the housing business.

Tenants:

Stigma of living in “the projects”

Illegal drug use, crime, and violence common

Housing Problems: Public Housing

Oscar Newman’s study in 1972

High-rise buildings and higher crime rates

High-rise living breeds anonymity

Many projects demolished

1974: Section 8

Government subsidies to developers who rehab existing rental property or build new units

Developers then allocate a share to low-income families at a lower rent.

Racial Segregation

Hypersegregation: Entire districts of a city, racially segregated, and cut off from larger society (Massey & Denton)

Poor minority urbanites can be spatially isolated and socially isolated

Hypersegregation affects about 1 in 5 African Americans

Less prevalent among other disadvantaged people

Homelessness

2013: 610,000 people living in shelters, on the street, or in transitional housing

1.5 million at some time during a year

Largely an urban problem

30% of homeless people reported having no source of income

An additional 40% reported income of less than $1,000 per month

Homelessness

Supportive housing:

Combines low-income housing with on-site social services

Costly, but may save money in the long run as social services cost less than alternatives (prison)

After receiving care and treatment, 75% of homeless families move to “an improved living situation.”

Attitudes toward homeless have softened due to tough economic times and foreclosures.

Snowbelt and Sunbelt Cities

Population transfer from snowbelt cities to the sunbelt

Sunbelt cities have expanded their city limits to maintain their tax base.

National Map 14-2 Population Change across the United States, 2000-2010

Cities in Poor Countries

About 80% of the population of high-income countries live in and around cities.

Fewer than 30% of the population in the poorest countries live in cities.

Urban population is increasing globally.

By 2011, for the first time, a majority of the world’s people were living in cities.

Global Map 14-1 Urbanization in Global Perspective

The urban population of the world is increasing twice as fast as the overall global population.

In Latin America, Africa, and Asia, people are migrating from rural areas to cities in search of a better quality of life.

Only one of the 10 largest cities in the world is in the U.S.

Structural-Functional Analysis: A Theory of Urbanism

Ferdinand Tönnies: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

Gemeinschaft Type of social organization in which people are closely bound by kinship and tradition

Rural villages; strong sense of community

Gesellschaft Type of social organization in which people interact on the basis of self-interest

Cities; strong sense of looking out for oneself

Structural-Functional Analysis: A Theory of Urbanism

Emile Durkheim: Mechanical and Organic Solidarity

Mechanical Solidarity

Social bonds based

on common sentiments and shared moral values

Organic

Solidarity

Social bonds based on specialization and

mutual interdependence

Urban people benefit from more individual choice, moral tolerance,

and personal privacy than people who live in rural areas.

Rural social ties; similar to Gemeinschaft

Structural-Functional Analysis: A Theory of Urbanism

Louis Wirth: Urbanism as a Way of Life

Urban life shaped by large, dense, and socially diverse populations

Social ties fleeting and impersonal

Urbanites identify people not for who they are, but for what they do.

Symbolic-Interaction Analysis: Experiencing the City

George Simmel: Urban Stimulation and Selectivity

Urbanites develop a blasé attitude

Means of survival due to over-stimulation

Focus time and energy on what really matters

Leo Srole: Mental Health in the Metropolis

Cities pose no harm to mental health

Many people thrive in urban environments

access to many other people and activities

plenty of choice about how to live

Social-Conflict Analysis: Cities and Inequality

Urban Political Economy

Sharp differences between lives of the rich, working-class, and poor and homeless

Physical development of the city reflects private property and capitalism

David Harvey’s study of Baltimore

Growth and decline of urban areas have much to do with process of capital investment.

Conservatives: The Market and Morality

Economic expansion has greatly improved living standards of city dwellers

Market economy should shape the city; downturns are temporary

Conservatives support creating enterprise zones, inner city areas where government tries to attract new business with the promise of tax relief.

Conservatives: The Market and Morality

Oppose growth of social welfare programs

Cause of the long term rise in public assistance and, indirectly, in violence and crime

Strength of the city lies partly in its economic prosperity; mostly in the moral character of the people

Liberals: Government Reform

Problems of cities due to increasing economic inequality:

poverty, low-quality housing, and ineffective urban schools

Liberals look to government intervention to reduce the income and wealth gaps that divide society.

Support a host of social programs to increase economic opportunity for poor people living in inner-city areas

The Radical Left: The Need for Basic Change

U.S. cities are in crisis.

By giving free rein to market forces, the U.S. is making urban problems such as poverty, crime, and urban sprawl much worse.

Solutions to the problems of the city would require a major overhaul of society and the economic and political order.