Tuesday, December 21, 2010

How to Change a Bad Neighborhood to a Good Neighborhood?


This is what I wrote in busy final week..many grammatical errors remaining.
I wish you would ignore it..

What has caused the “bad neighborhood” in America? As a foreign student who lived in some different neighborhoods in America from time to time, I was purely curious about why this situation was created. While the racial segregation in residential areas in Chicago is known as especially severe (as an old city whose basic structure was built well before the civil-rights period,) I already made some research on this issue in my sociology class; ..but the more I learned about the background, or heard about gloomy situations from some of my class mates about their home towns, I tended to feel dismal or have negative views about faces of the city. When I find the racial separation seen outright in each CTA line’s neighborhood (which almost appears as..Brown Line=for whites, Green Line=for African Americans, Pink Line=for Mexican?) as a new comer, I wondered if it wasn't shameless in the name of modern city. Why CTA train station’s facility itself should remain seemingly different, depends on each area's economy? I don’t think the CTA should abandon their facilities’ obvious physical decay in low income neighborhood.. I think the people of the government and legislators should initiate the reform of situation, having much different mindsets..

Then what do the government legislators, or do the residents of the neighborhood need to do for improving bad neighborhood? It seemed to be not solved unless the federal government’s strong, reformative measures are exercised, because it was the consequence made by the government’s poor urban policy and the structural exploitation of low income people, such as the unequal tax system kept over the decades. I noticed there were long historical or structural backgrounds: not only for the deeply institutionalized “racial economy” which still influences to perpetuate the segregation, but also, the cultural traits of both white and black people have been interlocked in entrenched situation..

I even didn’t know that the term “inner cities” would mean bad neighborhoods. Sociologists explain how “inner city” has been created: It was brought about by “industrial decentralization and the excessive suburbanization of the cities,” “federal government’s failed public housing policies and defective welfare policies in the past,” or there has been also many hidden forms of “racial economy” (..such as contract system in Chicago, reported by Beryl Satter’s “Family Properties.”) “Inner city is a euphemistic term, usually applied to the poorer parts of the city center area or the outlying parts of cities, perhaps a ghetto or slum…where residents are less educated, and more impoverished and where there is more crime...” (Wikipedia, p1).

W. J. Wilson argues the cause of the deterioration of inner cities as follows; “Because of the suburbanization of employment and improvements in transportation, inner city manufacturing jobs were no longer a strong factor pulling migrants to central cities.” As a consequence, these neighborhoods’ high poverty concentration has been aggravated, “along with the outmigration of higher income families, joblessness, crime, and poor performing schools...” He also says,

“Research suggests that the adverse effects of living in such neighborhoods are not solely structural. Among the effects of living in poor segregated neighborhoods over extended periods is repeated exposure to cultural traits that emanate from or are the products of racial exclusion, traits such as verbal skills, that may impede successful maneuvering in the larger society” (Wilson A, p42) .

While we at least know the world is only, primarily driven by savage economical principle, reform of neighborhood is not an easy task to do for individuals, but it should be basically a government’s job. However, American people have long tradition of detesting the idea of becoming a “socialistic, welfare state” (although sounds nonsensical to foreign outsiders, who don’t see so many homeless people in one's home countries as what they see in America..) Even if America has been first created as a defiant child separated from the old European world, and its people still support such proverb “freedom of individuals,” how come Americans still need to restrict sufficient social welfare system for its own people, as a progressed..independent society?

Today, critics announced that America becomes resembling to the “banana republic,” whose richest 1 percent accounts for 24 percent of the nation’s income. Today’s income distribution in this country is now more unequal than that of Latin American countries, such as Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (Noah, P1). When I often tend to see dispirited people, especially dark skinned aged men on the streets or public transportations in late night (some of them look like as if really, hopelessly feeling agonized in their situation?) I just feel quite disturbing seeing them, while I know they are good-hearted people. While wealthy Americans are craving to keep their privileges in unequal society.. what is the use for us to talk about improving the neighborhood?


In order to rescue low neighborhood’s people, and make the community upward, naturally the most important things should be creating more jobs for the adults; improving the quality of local schools; and also, you should provide strong spiritual awareness for them, to stimulate the people to improve their own situation. Primarily it has to be the government who should become serious to eliminate the excessive racial segregation of the local communities. At first, it should be eliminated artificially by the effective law enforcement, as a strong medicine. For example, the state government planned to convert the infamous public housings' neighborhood: such as former Robert Taylor Home's area in South Side Chicago, or Cabrini Green's... into artificial “mixed income neighborhood”, where now three different income level residents would be induced to live together. Because the goverment people thought: if some people of better income moved into the area, they can generally push up the living standard of entire area.. while supposedly, middle income people would buy more fresh produce and daily commodities, and it would activate local grocery store business. The jobs in local business may increase, etc. However, the reality is, these mixed income neighborhoods are reportedly still remaining to look like low income area..where you could only see particular people of particular colour of skin.

If decent job opportunities are provided for the adults, it will facilitate them to raise children, and give them good education for their future. For having better job position instead of low-waged menial job, people need higher education, to win the competition in the job market. While such holistic approach is required in urban policy, actually Obama administration has already created “White House’s Office of Urban Affairs” to enhance comprehensive national urban policy including educational reform, (including their “Choice Neighborhood” program..etc.) However, amid his political difficulty in the adverse wind blowing against him, I wonder how much his administration could excercize effective reforms..

While I have already lived in some racially mixed neighborhoods in America, such as Queens or Upper West Side in New York, Cicero/Humboldt Park/Edgewater in Chicago.., I recall something. Three years ago when I briefly lived in the Upper West Side's Puerto Rican neighborhood, my landlady who rented me her apartment was a divorced woman. Her teenage daughter, called Cathy, was a high school student, but always staying at home doing Internet, being truant from her school everyday. She said she didn’t like to go to her school, because she was horrified by the gang violence rampant in her school. “I even saw, a pregnant black girl was thrown out of the window of the classroom on upper floor.. by other students,” she said. She wanted to go to a college in Utah, once if she could graduate her high school. Her mother Clara also told me she was feeling fed up with the deteriorated family moral or corrupt sex moral in her society, especially about the degeneration of white people—she said she knows degenerate white people commit incest everywhere around her. As a divorced single mother having a heart disease, she was living on renting her rooms for young “innocent” Asian students. She said her blood was a mixture of Puerto Rican, Spanish, Italian and Native American, but she was “especially proud” of her Native American blood, shared with her grand mom. “Because Native Americans are ethnically Asian-descents, who are the only people who keep pristine traditional family ethics or sex moral even today, unlike the corrupted European whites,” she said. She also mentioned that she sometimes saw the ghosts going around the house, mostly victims of the troubled family..for example, she saw a young girl used to live next door, and killed herself after raped by her father, while it sounded creepy. Although New York has an image of always new & trendy, thriving big city, in fact it looked like an old city..with many old buildings, where old spooky spirits are haunting? When I heard such story from her, I didn’t take heed of her words so much.. I was preoccupied by other things—but now I feel like recalling what she and her daughter Cathy said for no special reason.. Since lately I also find it in Chicago, some people whom I befriended looked also have problems.. distressed and threatened in their neighborhood..and it has become trouble for myself again...

Maybe at first I preferred to live in highly racially mixed neighborhood such as Queens, because I had some childish curiosity for living in a strange neighborhood, which was completely unimaginable in my country.. (especially..for me, Queens almost looked like a fairy tale city, where the renowned Taiwanese actress Lucy Liu grew up..) Of course, Queens must be a moderate or low income neighborhood of immigrants which has high crime rate, and I was soon..somewhat fed up with living in the neighborhood, within three months. I never forget the dark, depressed eye of a skinny, blonde white cop guy- while I bothered him to take a police report for me, when I was stolen my purse. It was also, around the time when the black guy, Sean Bell was shot dead by police’s 52 bullets on his wedding night, in Jamaica, Queens. I saw 40,000 African Americans marched on Manhattan’s 47th Street, protesting against police’ violence.. I never really wish to preferably live in New York again..unless any particular reason would arise..

Until now I haven’t had any room for breath by myself when hearing about other people’s troubles in their neighborhood in foreign city, maybe because I was feeling unsarisfied, hasty and unfulfilled staying abroad. However, maybe I’m returning home again very soon. I might get a decent job this time—or I might also transfer to the other school next year in Chitown, if I get a chance. If I get such stable new life, I wonder..what kind of new thing I can do next by myself, about other people who are living in troubled neighborhood..

Ref..

*Wikipedia: Wikipedia “inner city”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_city


*Wilson A: “The Obama Administration’s Proposal to Address Concentrated Urban Policy” by William Julius Wilson, Harvard University (ASA, City & Community 9:1, March 2010)

*Wilson B: Book Review about William Julius Wilson’s “More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City” (written by Paul A. Jargowsky, on ASA City & Community 9:2, June 2010)

*Noah: “The United States of Inequality- Introducing the Great Divergence” by Timothy Noah, Slate.com, September3, 2010
http://www.slate.com/id/226625/entry/226626


*Re. Infamoust public housing: 'Robert Taylor Home' & 'Cabrini Green' in Chicago


“Mixed Results on Mixed-Income Chicago Public Housing” by Natalie Moore (Oct. 05, 2009)
http://www.wbez.org/story/news/local/mixed-results-mixed-income-chicago-public-housing


"Won't You Be My Neighbor?" By Kari Lydersen (The Chicago Reporter, May 21, 2008) http://www.chicagoreporter.com/index.php/c/Inside_Stories/d/Won%27t_You_Be_My_Neighbor%3F


"Cabrini-Green's sad saga ends as last family leaves last high-rise" (Dec 10, 2010)

A symbol of squandered hope soon to be rubble, fading memories
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-schmich-1210-20101210,0,276957.column


"Cabrini-Green through the years"


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