Urban Problems

1
Urban Problems

• Edge city a middle to upper class area that has
  complete living, working, shopping leisure
  activities so that it is not dependent on the
  central city or other suburbs
• Megalopolis a continuous concentration of two
  or more cities their suburbs that have grown
  until they form an interconnected urban area

2
Urban Problems

• Fiscal crises
• NYC almost collapsed financially in 1975
• Cleveland went into financial default in1978
• Detroit, Boston, NYC closed some public
  hospitals, other health facilities, laid off
  employees, cut public transit, etc.

3
Urban Problems

• Middle upper class people left the city moved
  to edge cities where they had all the services
  they needed
• This caused the cities to lose revenue
• Plant closings have caused problems in major
  cities of Detroit Flint, Michigan as well as
  other cities

4
Urban Problems

• Housing problems cause urban squatting -people
  occupy buildings without permission or title to
  the property
• Federal housing criticisms
• Provides better housing for the affluent
• Public housing is often not practical or well
  managed

5
Urban Problems

• Public housing seems to work best in areas that
  have lower concentrations of people with a
  small number of families on any one housing
  project
• Gentrification when people renovate or restore
  properties in central cities
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v4teq7aKTNJ4

6
Urban Problems

• Between 250,000 3 million homeless
• Blacks 50
• Whites 35
• Latinos 12
• Native Americans 2
• Asian Americans 1

7
Urban Problems

• Federal Fair Housing Act 1968 encouraged
  desegregation especially prohibiting
• Steering realtors guide people of color to
  certain neighborhoods
• Redlining refusing loans to people of color for
  properties in certain areas

8
Urban Problems

• Observe table 16.1 on page 363
• 1900 110 lived in a city
• 2005 12 lived in a city
• 2025 predict that 23 will live in a city
• Core nations are dominant capitalist centers
  characterized by high levels of industrialization
  urbanization (US, Japan, Germany, etc)

9
Urban Problems

• Peripheral nations depend on core nations for
  capital, have little or no industrialization
  (African, South American Carribbean nations)
• Semiperipheral nations are more developed than
  peripheral but less than core nations (India,
  Iran, Mexico, etc)

10
Urban Problems

• Functionalist perspective focuses on three
  contributions to urban problems
• Mass migration to urban areas during the
  industrial revolution
• Large scale immigration during the late 19th
  century early 20th century
• Mass suburbanization

11
Urban Problems

• Rural individuals have these values
• Egalitarianism
• Person Orientation
• Family Solidarity
• Mutual Support
• Faith
• Self-determination
• Creativity
• Sense of Place

12
Urban Problems

• Functionalists suggest fixing urban problems by
• Metropolitan areas having a single govt
• Creating urban enterprise zones to attract
  businesses to central cities

13
Urban Problems

• The Conflict perspective
• Capitalists political elites make decisions
  that help some and hurt others
• Symbolic interactionist perspective
• The inner city is so overstimulating that people
  avoid emotional involvement with each other

14
Urban Problems

• Cosmopolites view the inner city as a place where
  they can be close to cultural facilities people
  with similar interests
• People w/o children want to be close to work
  entertainment
• Ethnic villagers wants to live in ethnically
  similar neighborhoods