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This post is meant to discuss the fundamental differences and spatial divides between our current era of income inequality and reduced rates of upward class mobility throughout the lifecourse. In order to shape policy and create impact, one must first understand the future trends and likely policy outcomes which will need to be shaped. To do so, I'd like to begin by introducing a few points on the differences between boomer and millenial social dynamics by spatial residency, in order to build a case for the likely course of urban politics and quality of life without proactive policy intervention. 1. Fit is in, fat is black How can you know a man's social class in half a second? By looking at him and correlating him with others whom you've seen as similar with obvious spatial clues. In the last guilded age, meat was more expensive than vegetables; in the current era, calories are cheap and health expensive. Consider: The average calories for a McDonalds meal in 1950 was 360. In 2013, the average calories for the same meal is 720. The purchasing power required for the 2013 meal is less than that required for the 1950 meal. Calories have decoupled from purchasing power. Result: The less calories one purchases, the more one spends to purchase them. Thus, a major contributing influence to the present obesity epidemic in America. Implication: Fat is poor. Fit is health. Therefore, those activities which increase activity and decrease unhealthiness are associated with prestige and social status. To keep up with the Jones, one does not purchase a better car; they jog more and cook better. 2. Transition of racism to classism We are less racist, for we are less able to immediately discern an individual's SES based upon their race. We an approximate; we can never know the precise rules and social dynamics in which they live under. This is the result of power sharing with minority groups. What this means is that overt racism is absolutely unacceptable in the globalized world, while overt classism is completely normal. No longer can race be assumed to mean class; therefore, context must be considered before assignment of class by race. Is an individual morbidly obese and black? Lowest SES grouping possible is assigned. Is an individual white and morbidly obese? Slightly higher, mostly same level of SES grouping assigned. Implication: Less unwillingness to move into area of medium SES by race as primary factor. Thus, gentrification. 3. Collapse of labor intensive manufacturing Trends in labor and productivity have separated manual labor work from physical fitness status. Growth of service sector has resulted in decrease in caloric expenditure per hour of labor performed. Trends in transportation and methods of arrival to work have resulted in decreased average worker metabolic rate in service sector. 4. Gentrification and bifurcated housing market Statua is no longer determined purely by race before wealth. Therefore, communities structured around race as identifier are gentrifying as non-equivolent racial community groups move in to accumulate capital at faster rate. Thus, community safety increases and role of race as primary and sole identifier of community SES decreases. Self-reinforcing feedback loop initiatied until capital-conscious individuals transition to new community after failure to advance class status or desire to maintain labor mobility. Thus, there are two housing markets of primary growth: sub-$1 million rent-orientated properties under active management, and over-$1 million home and condo ownership. 5. Urban Rebirth Millenials are living in urban areas at a higher rate than non-millenials. Preference is towards downtown and inner-ring living with access to non-personal automobile orientated transit options. Cost of vehicles for millenials and opportunity cost of home ownership makes non-ownership of vehicles with renting a more cost-effective method for increasing potential for upward class mobility over the lifecourse and increasing capital accumulation throughout life. Consider the following demographic trends for millenials compared to boomers: increased age at first marriage, increased age at child birth, decreased rates of home ownership as compared with boomer cohort at same age. My explanation? Low age for childbirth, marriage, and home ownership is not effective for attainment of upward mobility through lifecourse. Different social dynamics over pre-digital and post-digital demographics incentivize high sociability as a reaction to hypercompetition; the more social capital one can accumulate through their most productive working years, the more effective an individual is at transitioning social capital into capital. Urban living simply provides increased chances to form social capital that can be translated into capital than suburban living. Thus, there is an age-drain from suburbs, with auto-centric suburbs aging at a more rapid than average rate as compared to rural and urban areas with options other than automobiles. 6. Trends in gentrification Due to variety of incentives which promote residence in urban areas zoned for mixed-use, millenials who would be purchasing a home if they were a boomer are increasingly residing in urban neighborhoods. This raises prices in those neighborhoods, which pushes out individuals who cannot afford to maintain life in same neighborhood. The individuals priced out are most likely to be those with the lowest rates of upward class mobility throughout lifespan and lower maximum lifetime earnings potential: black, incomplete education, service sector, and non-English speaking minorities primarily employed in service sector. Translation? Neighborhoods in cities are becoming safer because individuals most likely to be caught for committing crimes are less likely to continue affording residence in those neighborhoods. Due to trends in development, high concentration of poverty neighborhoods have decreasing capacity to absorb new residents, allowing individuals with home ownership or stable employment residing in those neighborhoods to move further out into the suburbs. 7. The sherriff's a N-*gong*! Implication of point 6 is that the neighborhood of Ferguson, MO represents an increased trend in American society and such communities will continue to be created at a greater rate than during peak years of boomer attainment of home ownership. Expectations: Tax base decrease in built-up suburban areas. Increased rightwing voting trends in those neighborhoods/increased Republican share of non-minority household vote in suburbs as boomer reaction to racial mixing. Decreased funding of infrastructure and increased funding of racially-orientated security forces. Decreased ability for boomers to maintain independent living, increased short-term costs for care at the community level with decreased long-term state and federal outlays necessary for boomer care. Decreased funding and walk-orientation of infrastructure increases opportunities for racial incidents and auto-related morbidity and mortality. 8. The American experience America is aging and will spatially reorientate itself to fit changed social dynamics. Housing values will decrease in auto-orientated suburbs while increasing in urban areas and those with multiple, and viable, safe and accessible transit options. Communities where this process is more likely to occur are those with primarily boomer property ownership and 3-20% poverty minority demographics; process already underway or complete in communities with over-20% poverty minority population. Where do you flee to when you're underwater on your mortgage, on a fixed income, and don't have young children to consider? You don't; you shelter in place until a race riot forces your migration at a capital loss. From the trends in property purchases discussed earlier, we can see that inter-generational transition of capital from boomers to millenials will be reduced for most Americans with sub-$1 million net worth. This in turn provides an incentive for millenials to continue lifestyle which maximizes potential capital accumulation: if you got nothing to inherit, why stay in place when you can earn more and live better elsewhere? Urban centers maximize opportunity for upward class mobility; reductions on inheritance taxes for sub-$1 million net worth is therefore a progressive and proactive policy. However, these reductions in taxation are not sufficient to offset the losses from differences in habitual perceptions of race and spatial constraints between boomers and millenials. I'd like to hear your experiences with these dynamics and your perceptions of successful and unsuccessful policy interventions which impact these dynamics.
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Dec 25, 2014 19:52
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[reserved for compilation of case examples in case this thread takes off]
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Dec 25, 2014 19:53
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What initiatives currently exist? Glad you asked! WHO has an Age-Friendly Cities initiative which has seen varying degrees of success in its implementation: http://www.who.int/ageing/age_friendly_cities_network/en/ To quote on what it means to be an age friendly city: quote:WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities See also: http://www.who.int/ageing/age_friendly_cities_guide/en/ This is a fairly decent summation of currently developed best-practices for age-friendly cities. For WHO, age-friendly cities are defined by a matched matrix of 8 core pillars, which are: quote:Housing Unfortunately, WHO fails to account for the voracity of racism and differences in generational perceptions in its policy proposals. Good loving luck getting WHO to admit that, "Outdoor Spaces, Quality 7: A Secure Environment," means, in practice, 'an environment free of ethnicities which I perceive to be criminal elements and prone to violence.' My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 20:00
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I'd like to see some actual sources of evidence for the claim that "overt" racism is no longer an issue. Is it as bad as fifty years ago? No. Is it still a huge issue in many urban centres? It sure as hell seems to be. I'd also like to see some actual data backing up the claim that pricing minorities out of neighbourhoods actually causes a decrease in crime. Crime rates are going down across the country and people have hypothesized all kinds of reasons; legalization of abortion a generation ago, decreasing usage of leaded gaosline, the availability of alternative activities like video games, changing police tactics, etc. If you wanna argue that gentrification is actually decreasing crime (rather than, for instance, lowered crime rates causing gentrification, or merely correlating with it) then you need to demonstrate that crime goes down after gentrification begins, goes up in places where property values drop, and remains high in visible minority neighbourhoods. It's a bit suspicious when you make a data free post that acts like its just common sense that racism isn't a big issue in urban politics and that we all just know that driving out those drat minorities will lower crime rates. If you're gonna make a potentially controversial argument like that you should have good evidence to support it. Anyway, that having been said it would be nice to have more threads on issues related to urban planning and politics. Something that I'd like to see more discussion of is decreases in federal funding for cities and increasing competition by city government, following the lead of writers like Richard Florida, to try and attract young professionals through city branding.
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Dec 25, 2014 20:35
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Helsing posted:
Sure, thanks for calling me out on that. I have a tendancy to assume that everyone is as familiar with the dynamics which I reference during leisure time, and save the citations for professional work. Helsing posted:
quote:Incorporating Unstructured Socializing Into the Study of Secondary Exposure to Community Violence: Etiological and Empirical Implications quote:The Influence of Gentrification on Gang Homicides in Chicago Neighborhoods, 1994 to 2005 My argument is that gentrification, as defined by demographic shifts in neighborhoods, preceeds decreases in violence at the community level due to chances in situational opportunities presented through daily activity. I go further and attempt to explain trends which I've witnessed in my experiences as a community organizer and social activist during my time in the midwest. What I've done during my time is ask individuals about their perceptions of trends and their explanations for them; if you want to know why demolition of public housing has a positive impact upon gang-related homicide, ask gang members, gang officers, the families of gang members, the community leaders and front-line employees in communities in which gangs operate, and integrate oneself into gang life as closely as possible in order to understand the real meat of the why? Would it be helpful if I provided a vertical slice narrative to show where I'm coming from with my views and explanations, or would you prefer that I stick to the lit? My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 20:43
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I'll have to check that paper out when I have more time but based on the abstract it sounds like the record on gentrification is mixed. I'd also like to see research into how closely gang related homicides track other forms of crime like burglary and assault. Also, here's a blog post from the same author. From the conclclusion: quote:My research captures a unique historical moment in Chicago, 1994 to 2005, a period of increased gentrification and overall crime decline. However, the relationship between gentrification and crime remains unclear—my research and the research of other urban scholars have found mixed results on the relationship between gentrification and crime. The implication of all this is rather than treat gentrification as a silver bullet crime prevention strategy, we should investigate the characteristics that make gang homicide neighborhoods more volatile during public housing demolition. This approach would continue to serve at risk populations even after they have been relocated or displaced. Just to be clear I am not categorically ruling out the idea that gentrification decreases crime because there is a certain intuitive plausibility to the idea. But a lot of intuitive sounding ideas turn out to be totally wrong so if we're gonna make that kinda claim it has to be investigated thoroughly. As I was saying above, the crime drop in Chicago correlates with a drop in crime rates across the country. I'll have to wait until I have time to read the paper before commenting further but I hope the author addresses how they are controlling for that fact. My Imaginary GF posted:My argument is that gentrification, as defined by demographic shifts in neighborhoods, preceeds decreases in violence at the community level due to chances in situational opportunities presented through daily activity. Like I said above: totally plausible, but we need to really dig into the evidence here (that having been said, yeah this is a thread on Something Awful so we're not exactly gonna be peer reviewing each others posts). quote:I go further and attempt to explain trends which I've witnessed in my experiences as a community organizer and social activist during my time in the midwest. What I've done during my time is ask individuals about their perceptions of trends and their explanations for them; if you want to know why demolition of public housing has a positive impact upon gang-related homicide, ask gang members, gang officers, the families of gang members, the community leaders and front-line employees in communities in which gangs operate, and integrate oneself into gang life as closely as possible in order to understand the real meat of the why? That sounds really interesting so I'd definitely encourage you to elaborate on what you've learned from talking to people on the front liens of gentrification in Chicago (I get the impression that is where you're based?). I find Chicago fascinating. I grew up in Toronto, which is in some ways a very similar city and in other ways a very different one.
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Dec 25, 2014 21:06
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Helsing posted:That sounds really interesting so I'd definitely encourage you to elaborate on what you've learned from talking to people on the front liens of gentrification in Chicago (I get the impression that is where you're based?). Sure, names changed and abstracted for obvious reasons. I'll presume knowledge of basic history for Chicago's spatial development and population migrations over time; I've got lists of books on the subject if you'd like any sector or topic specific recommendations. I'll let this NYT article on Richard M. Daley serve as a quick primer: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/richard_m_daley/index.html quote:For the better part of 56 years — for better and for worse — the Mayors Daley ran Chicago: first, Richard J. Daley, the former mayor’s father, from 1955 to 1976, when he died in office, then Richard M. Daley, from 1989 to 2011. He was the longest-serving mayor in the history of the city, surpassing his father. In '92, Daley decided to tear down the projects and force the affects of concentrated poverty out from Chicago's core. That's what residents of the city know and understand as the driver behind Daley's housing policy. Have an article from the National Housing Institute which quickly summarizes the history of this and the impact of HOPE VI: http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/138/chicago.html quote:A year after she left Chicago’s notorious Robert Taylor Homes public housing development, 30-year-old Lee-Lee Henderson said she was ready to return. “I’d rather live in Robert Taylor,” she answered when asked whether she would prefer to live among private-market neighbors or public housing residents. A curious reply when one considers that popular and academic opinion has written off high-rise public housing as harmful for poor families. Yet this single mother of two, who has lived most of her life in public housing, says quite confidently that she prefers to inhabit the dark, distressed corridors of Robert Taylor. Sitting in the house that she moved into after leaving Robert Taylor, where rats are coming up through the vent from the basement, and where the landlord has repeatedly refused to make repairs, it is easy to understand why. Soon after stating her desire to return to Robert Taylor, Henderson says, “It was not supposed to be this way. They told us they were tearing down the buildings ’cause we would have a better life. I’m still waiting.” What did this mean on the ground? Communities bordering or containing pockets of concentrated poverty contained family units and individuals with social capital and relations to those displaced beginning in '92. Real-world: If you got nowhere to go, you go live with family in the best community available, especially if you have children and want them to get the best possible education. In suburbs which had controlled and stable rates of human develop, the sudden influx of individuals with disrupted social networks, support systems, and employment opportunities at the same cost-point meant that formerly middle-class black neighborhoods in predominantly working-class and lower middle class white communities transitioned from decreasing rates of concentrated poverty to rapidly and unexpected increasing rates of concentrated poverty. This is how you end up with a Ferguson, MO, Chicago Heights, IL, West Garfield Park, IL, North Lawndale, IL, Park Forest, IL, and Waukegan, IL: boomers understood what occured to them and, minds filled with their parents' stories of the family's white flight, began to flee those outer-ring, auto-centric, commuter communities. Individuals at higher human development brackets understood the process and began to gentrify areas surrounding Chicago's Loop where social bonds, family networks, or several other incentivating factors existed to capture them in the revitalization of the city; for others, flight further outwards began. One interesting sidenote of this process and example of it in practice for non-poverty black families is a Federal civil rights lawsuit in 1995/96 due to continued redlining practices which prohibited black middle and professional class families from residing beyond certain spatial boundries, such as west od Interstate 55 in Will, Cook, and Kankakee Counties, Illinois. The elimination of this dividing line and defto end of segregation resulted in black flight from the communities which were absorbing individuals displaced by demolition of housing projects, which created a feedback loop that accelerated white flight and concentrated political control of communities and enforcement of previous standards of social order into spatially-separated neighborhoods. In Ferguson, MO, white and black families in non-concentrated poverty neighborhoods, when examined on the block level, genuinely have no issues with residing closely and in semi-integrated settings; "I have no problem with black people, its the niggers I hate" is a common refrain and a genuine sentiment expressed by individuals residing in non-concentrated poverty block units spatially proximate to, yet perceived spatially divided from, concentrated poverty blocks and neighborhoods. Unsurprisingly, this sentiment is found expressed across boomer demographics of mixed-race with similar class backgrounds and block levels of human development, when phrased appropriately. This similarity speaks to a common, underlying dynamic: the perception of capital loss due to association with stereotypes of concentrated poverty communities. Basically, this is how you end up with Ferguson, MO, and why Ferguson's issues are not, by any measure available, unique in America. With millenial generations, the increased rates of exposure to different races during formative years has manifested in reduced rates of association of race as the primary factor determining an individual's likely character traits, which manifests in an increased willingness to move into low cost, minority-majority communities with spatially variable rates of concentrated poverty. So, what have I seen in Chicago? Teardown of the projects resulted in migration via least-barrier system dynamics and increased perception of suburban, auto-orientated communities as "going to poo poo [the niggers]". Whereas there existed a positive rate of total networth over $1 million individuals produced by schools in communities with racially stable demographics between 1950 and 1994 in Chicago suburbs which benefited in quantified capital migration from urban white flight, the rates of individuals with comprable net worth produced by those schools post-1994 are drastically decreased for millenial graduates as compared to rates at similar ages for boomer and pre-1994 graduates. I can't show you data for this; I could take you on a drivethrough of precisely where I'm talking about in Chicagoland and point out the history of where and why what had occured. I can suggest that you build a political donor database and track highschool classes of all individuals contained within so that you can maximize your contributions. On the ground, I'd recommend speaking with teachers in public education who began their employment pre-2000 in these transitional communities and discuss with them their perceptions on the quality of education provision and human development capacity of their student body over time. Going back to the OP, these neighborhoods are not age-friendly and have an aging boomer base with decreased quality of healthcare provision available and decreased perceived general safety of community. You mention actual rates of crime: those don't matter, what matters is perceived rate of crime. Does this address the issue in sufficient enough detail to understand the social dynamics which I attempted to summarize in the OP?
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Dec 25, 2014 22:05
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