Urbanism Final Paper - Using five sources, create and analyze a theme we tackled in class, writing PDF

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Using five sources, create and analyze a theme we tackled in class, writing a 6-page essay. This essay talks about the division among society due to various reasons from racial segregation to Charles Darwins' Theory of Evolution....

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Urbanism 17 April 2020 Social Class Perils The social hierarchy in the United States has created perilous divisions within societies rendering the land unable to give people the equal opportunity they deserve. Mark Gottdiener, a professor of Sociology at the University of Buffalo, contends in “The Chicago School”, that divisions in labor and spatial arrangements within societies derive from the ongoing Theory of Evolution formulated by Charles Darwin through the works of Robert Park and Roderick Mackenzie, early practitioners of the Chicago School. Park presumed that a division of labor would emerge from a system of laissez-faire economics in which businesses and corporations are not ruled over by the government. The United States is a predominantly capitalist society that withholds a policy of laissez-faire economics, which indefinitely has allowed for a division of labor to arise. Additionally, Charles Darwins’ Theory of Evolution claims that the fittest people will prevail in areas like cities through natural selection, “The city offers a market for the special talents of individual men. Personal competition tends to select for each special task the individual who is best selected to perform it” (Gottdiener 28). Due to cities’ extreme competition, people will find themselves losing opportunities for work, living areas, and even resources required for survival. Similar to Park, Mackenzie recognizes that economic competition and natural selection lead to divisions in labor, but he also postulates that these barriers to equality constitute specific

2 spatial arrangements. Gottdiener states, “Mackenzie added biological processes such as the ‘Internal Structure cycle’ of invasion, competition, succession, and accommodation - that is, a cycle of competition between populations of living organisms over a spatial location” (Gottdiener 30). Both of the arguments made by Park and Mackenzie explain the circumstances in the United States societies and the everlasting effects of the Theory of Evolution. The division of labor and division in spatial locations account for the creation of ghettos. Although Gottdiener explains that many are against the claims as mentioned above of the Chicago School, I agree with them. Cities are propagated as places of economic prosperity and opportunity, yet the majority of people end up at the bottom of the social structure due to high economic competition and demand. Ultimately, these barriers have led those who suffer at the bottom of the hierarchy to form their communities, ghettos. While many upper-class people refuse to accept the reality of the “underclass” due to the United States’ promise of equality, millions of people suffer from the harsh conditions created in ghettos by our own society’s class system. William Julius Wilson, a professor of Sociology at Harvard University, argues in “Cycles of Deprivation and the Ghettos Undefined”, that the higher classes in society overlook the “underclass” through a liberalist perspective. Upper classes deny the existence of an underclass and because they believe the term is misleading and spreads false stigmas about inequality. However, in reality, those stigmas are real, and Wilson seeks to explain the creation of ghettos, a home to the underclass, through racism towards Blacks. Primarily ghettos are inclusive of “the most disadvantaged segments of the black urban community… individuals who lack training and skills and either experience long-term unemployment or are not members of the labor force, individuals who are engaged in street

3 crime and other forms of aberrant behavior, and families that experience long-term spells of poverty and/or welfare dependency” (Wilson 8). There is a difference in class structure among areas like ghettos and upper-class districts. Crime is far more likely in ghettos, and unemployment rates are unimaginable. Blacks dominate ghettos and racism is the catalyst of these segregated communities. Wilson poses a response to the liberalist perception of ghettos, “I should like to emphasize that no serious student of American race relations can deny the relationship between the disproportionate concentration of blacks in impoverished urban ghettos and historic racial subjugation in American society” (Wilson 10). The United States promises equal opportunity for all, but racial segregation prohibits this. Blacks and other minority groups constantly throughout history have been berated by the elite for their differences from the socially “accepted norm.” Racism has led Blacks no choice but to seek support from others who are similar to them. The social class structure has created not only a division in labor, but it created a division among races that keeps the United States from being able to give an equal opportunity to all. Douglas Massey, a professor of Sociology at Princeton University, and Nancy Denton, a professor of Sociology at University at Albany, alleges that ghettos are an aftermath of unresolved racial segregation and over-looked civil rights policies. They point out in their book, “American Apartheid”, that racial segregation “is only because civil rights laws passed during the 1960s have not had enough time to work or because many blacks still prefer to live in black neighborhoods” (Massey, Denton 1-2). According to them, civil rights movements and laws have not had enough time to take action; however, I feel that there has been enough time and preferably a consistent incomprehensibility of the underclass, as Wilson exclaims. I do agree that

4 many Blacks prefer to live in Black neighborhoods; however, their reasoning for living in those neighborhoods is due to the division from social classes. Massey and Denton proclaim, “by those who have power, both to confine those who have no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness… inhabitants are subject peoples, victims of the greed, cruelty, insensitivity, guilt, and fear of their masters” (Massey, Denton 3). The use of the term “masters” professes the preceding racism dating back to slavery. The master has total control over his slaves, and in the United States’ capitalist society, money means everything. Due to the laissez-faire economics, argued by Gottdiener, the upper classes will uphold control and power over the lower classes. Lower classes do not get the same opportunity as those bestowed upon upper classes. An idea of social hierarchy arises here, similar to a food chain. If the United States’ society is depicted as a food chain, there is no equal opportunity for all; people will fight for survival rather than live in peace, among others. Adding on to the divisions in communities based on economic status, Enzo Mingione, a professor of Sociology at the University of Milano Bicocca, asserts the poverty in lower-class areas is developed through the limitation of resources offered. Mingione states, “niches of poverty may persist even in conditions of affluence and after the impact of fiscal and welfare redistribution entails the need to qualify poverty as an exclusion from access to a minimum of resources held to be vital” (Mingione 11). Poverty can be thought of as the ability to use resources to satisfy basic needs. In a society severely based on money and power, the upper classes will have the best resources at their disposal, leaving the lower classes to suffer for their survival. Furthermore, with Wilson, Massey, and Denton, Mingione believes that the underclass is overlooked, as he argues the problems of poverty in areas inhabited by the lower class. He

5 writes, “There is little doubt that poverty is still a serious problem in the advanced industrial world… For the very reason that they [impoverished] are poor, instead of receiving help from their affluent communities, they are viewed with suspicion and fear, marginalized, and excluded” (Mingione 1). Although there is a reality of poverty to most, it is for that very reason that the impoverished do not receive help with their survival. With the massive distribution of wealth in the United States, upper-class members should be helping create equality among the nation. Although many are hopeful for a change in human nature to not be greedy for power and money, I believe that there will be no change in society without an external creation, like sanctuary cities. Vojislava Cordes, a professor of Urban Studies at Fordham University, insists that sanctuary cities can be used to solve many problems within urban areas. I believe a solution to the social hierarchy in the United States is sanctuary cities. Cordes states, “Sanctuary cities represent ‘sovereignty from below’, but this sovereignty is limited by serious constraints that cities face ranging from surveillance and the privatization of public spaces to the rise of the luxury city and an increase in homelessness. Rebel cities are similar to rebel governance in that they both seek to obtain the legitimacy that the state has failed to provide… suggesting that resistance and protests on the part of sanctuary cities may thus be the current weapons of the very weakest” (Cordes 20). As Cordes claims, sanctuary cities, although right now, are struggling to do justice for the poor, they will be able to. Sanctuary cities create living spaces for immigrants to live out of fear, and since a large portion of the United States’ lower class is undocumented immigrants, these areas will provide a staple of equal opportunity for all. With the appropriate installation of these cities, the lower class could obtain more resources to help them

6 break from this poverty defined by Mingione. Sanctuary cities can cure the problems of the ghettos and even bring crime rates down as they would remove the stigma of fear and unjust ruling in communities by the upper class. Not only must sanctuary cities be incorporated for a chance at fixing the corrupt hierarchy of the United States, but people must not overlook the severity of these divisions among society. Massey and Denton conclude, “The topic of segregation has virtually disappeared from public policy debates… Until policymakers, social scientists, and private citizens recognize the crucial role of Americans own apartheid in perpetuating urban poverty and racial injustice; the United States will remain a deeply divided and very troubled society” (Massey, Denton 16). Without public debate about racial segregation in ghettos and communities as a whole, the United States will continually suffer, and many people will not get what they deserve, equality in opportunity. The current state of the United States social hierarchy is in complete chaos. The United States is said to be a land of equal opportunity for all. However, for many, the United States serves to be the opposite, a land of unjust inequality and unfair opportunity. Social classes create divisions within society based on people’s economic status. However, with the proper assertion of sanctuary cities, government programs to bolster the impoverished, and public debate about racial segregation, the United States could withhold its promises for everyone.

7 Works Cited Mark Gottdiener, “The Chicago School” [selection from Chapter 2] in Social Production of Urban Space ( 1985), pp 27-35

William Julius Wilson, “Cycles of Deprivation and the Ghetto Underclass Debate,” in The Truly Disadvantaged  (1987), pp. 3-19

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid: segregation and the making of the underclass (1993) [selection]

Enzo Mingione, “Urban Poverty in the Advanced Industrial World: Concepts, Analysis and Debates,” in Enzo Mingione, ed. Urban Poverty and the Underclass: A Reader  (1996), pp. 3-23 [selection from the chapter]

Vojislava Filipcevic Cordes, “City Sovereignty: Urban Resistance and Rebel Cities Reconsidered” Urban Science (2017) Vol. 1, Iss. 3, No: 22, 2017, pp 1-23....