African American Ghetto Research Paper

When a neighborhood is gentrified it will not only change the image of it, but also the services available there (Al-Kodmany 2011, 62-63). In other words, gentrification does not only have an impact on the physical aspect of the land, but also the resources that lie there. During the 90s, the Near West Side neighborhood located near Loop, an up-scale neighborhood, sought drastic changes within the area. The changes in racial demographics in the Near West Side indicated that the health risks that affected minorities dropped in the past decade (1992-2002) (Al-Kodmany 2011,

The Great Migration was a relocation of 6-7 million African Americans from the rural south to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West from 1916 to 1930 which had a huge impact on Urban life in the United states. They were driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregations laws, many blacks headed North, Where they took advantages of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the first World War. Between 1910 and 1930, The African American population decreased in the South and increased in the Northern states by about forty percent as a result of the migration. This “Great Migration” was on the largest internal movement of people in the history of the United states and it is a shift that impacted culture, politics, and economics as a new African American communities struggled

Trotter, Joe William Jr., ed. The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions of Race, Class, and Gender. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. A collection of essays examining the role of black social networks in spurring the exodus from the South.

First, let's start with what gentrification is. Google defines it as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste”, but the image Gentrification usually evokes when brought into discussion is hipsters moving into a run-down but charming neighborhood and transforming it into something completely different. What is a hipster? Some may call them the fairy godmothers of the once neglected area, and others may refer to them as the monsters that are displacing families to make an artisan beard oil shop, but we’ll touch on that later.

According to Stacey Sutton, PhD, member of the Department of Urban Planning and Policy, in her New York Tedx talk, gentrification is fundamentally a social justice problem.” This means that gentrification has many effects to its neighborhood and its residents. One main problem that gentrification had brought was displacement. Due to changes in the urban neighborhood, prices of living had increased, where many of the renters have no choice than to leave the neighborhood because it's unaffordable. As Tom Slater, an urban geographer, said, “gentrification is the spatial expression of economic inequality.” When higher class people moved to an urban area and invest and take advantage to a low property, it raised the property value and displaced the people who cannot afford it, hence, the low income people.

Many families have been replaced in order to create a more refined neighborhood suitable to the tastes of the middle class. Benjamin Grant brings forward the idea of the positive effects of change and Barbara Eldredge presents insight to the negative effects of gentrification. Gentrification - “the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban district, a related increase in rents and property values, and changes in the district’s character and culture” became a common shift in the early 1960’s (Grant). The definition of gentrification has gone through

Gentrification is a general term for the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban, district a related increase in rents and property values and changes in district’s character and culture. Gentrification works by accretion which is gathering momentum like a snowball. Gentrification has been the cause of painful conflict in many American cities. America’s renewed interest in city life has put a premium on urban neighborhoods, some of which have been built since World War II. It tends to occur in districts with particular qualities that make them desirable and ripe for change. Word travels that an attractive neighborhood has been “discovered” and the pace of change accelerates rapidly. An increase in median income and a decline in the

Gentrification is the process of renovating an area so that it conforms to middle-class tastes. Low-income minority neighborhoods are often the targets of gentrification, which makes this subject rather controversial, and rightly so. Gentrification often has the effect of pushing the native low-income residents out of their neighborhoods due to rising rent costs and increased cost of living. The process typically starts with young, educated, artistic, mostly white people beginning to move into predominately low-income minority neighborhoods, because they are attracted by the low housing costs and low property values compared to the rest of the city. Lofts are built and music venues are opened along with new bars and restaurants. These new developments begin to attract more traditional middle and upper-class people, they too are drawn in by the relatively low property values and begin to buy homes and renovate them. This new influx of people has caused developers to begin buying and renovating houses in the area to attract more middle and upper-class people. All the while, the native residents have been having their rents raised to the point that they can no longer afford to live in their neighborhood anymore. They are forced to relocate and attempt to find more affordable housing elsewhere. This sad cycle has been repeated countless times in cities across America. As a student at Temple University, I see this process firsthand each day in North Philadelphia as our campus

The term Gentrification was coined by a British Sociologist Ruth Glass to describe the movement of middle class families in urban areas causing the property value to increase and displacing the older settlers. Over the past decades, gentrification has been refined depending on the neighborhood 's economic, social and political context. According to Davidson and Less’ definition, a gentrified area should include investment in capital, social upgrading, displacement of older settlers and change in the landscape (Davidson and Lees, 2005).Gentrification was perceived to be a residential process, however in the recent years, it has become a broader topic, involving the restructuring of inner cities, commercial development and improvement of facilities in the inner city neighborhoods. Many urban cities like Chicago, Michigan and Boston have experienced gentrification, however, it is affecting the Harlem residents more profoundly, uprooting the people who have been living there for decades, thus destroying the cultural identity of the historic neighborhood.

Human Geographer David Ley defines Gentrification as “the transition of inner-city neighborhoods from a status of relative property and limited property investment to a state of commodification and reinvestment.” (Ley Artists 1) In the past 50 years gentrification has swept over cities across the globe and has completely reshaped the way people think about why people live in certain neighborhoods. British sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification in 1964 to describe what was happening in the London borough of Islington, where Indian immigrants were being forced out in favor of creative young professionals. (Thomson). The term comes from the old english word gentry, which generally means wellborn well-bred and upper class people. For the most part of the last five decades gentrification has made large cities and downtown urban areas safer, more desirable for commercialization, more affluent, greener and more eco-friendly and has played a role in the vast change of demographics of many neighborhoods. This ‘urban renewal’ has been subject to many political debates, academic studies and research to figure out its positive and negative impacts on the socioeconomic nature of the cities it takes place in. Here on the eastern seaboard of the US we see gentrification in every city from Center City Philadelphia, to Chelsea, to Columbia Heights in DC. However this movement to gentrify is not reserved for the

Living in a highly urban city (NYC or LA) in the United States, one tends to hear the phase “gentrification” in everyday conversation. As an example, a New Yorker maybe asked what part of Brooklyn he resides in and he answers the “gentrified part”. Although the word gentrification has settled in the contemporary language of city dwellers, the process of gentrification is a controversial issue for all parties involved. Gentrification is defined as the “process of renovating and improving a district so that it conforms to middle/upper-class taste” (Oxford). Gentrification improves depleted neighborhoods/areas due to upper/middle class buyers purchasing large majorities of the properties in a specific area and renovating it.

The first half of the twentieth century saw millions of African Americans migrate from the American South to the cities of the North and West for the better employment opportunities that seemed to exist in urban manufacturing. However this migration often led to an expansion of racialized urban ghettos, as blacks were usually denied access to these jobs, except as temporary strike breakers (which only worked to inflame the anti‐ black sentiments of white

Conversations surrounding gentrification have evolved, as many in the social-scientific community have questioned the negative connotations associated with the word gentrification. One example is that gentrification can lead to more displacement for lower-income families in gentrifying neighborhoods; however, every neighborhood faces unique challenges and reasons for displacement vary. Generally, gentrification is considered to improve the neighborhood for the people moving into the

Gentrification is the result of renewing or rebuilding in urban neighborhoods , which has become a common controversial topic in urban planning. As the rise of gentrification increases basic upgrades such as sanitation and safety requirements are being put in the environment. Two distinct articles contemplate on the idea of gentrification are, The Independent’s “Artisan cafes and luxury flats: How bad can gentrification really be?” by Kashmira Gander from the June 2, 2016 and CNN News’ “American Opportunity: How gentrification may benefit the poor” by Patrick Gillespie from the November 12, 2015. Gander interprets gentrification does not improve the economy but affects the wellbeing of owners to be displaced and in greater terms lose their job and become homeless whilst in contrast Gillespie focuses on the benefits and the greater opportunities for the proletariat. Both articles differ on the topic between gentrification.

By the year 1919, over two million black people had moved to the north. More than half of the black population lived in the north after the movement, and people were still moving. Many cities, like Detroit and Chicago, had their black population increase exponentially. The influence of their culture can still be in these cities today.