Harlem Sociology

Harlem is deeply associated with the vibrant life of African Americans for more than a century. When describing Harlem one must recognize its aesthetic beauty of life, culture and history. Harlem is the place where musician and bootleggers lived together, poet and pickpocket ate in the same dining room and preachers, physician all were aristocrats. Looking from a different perspective, Harlem is the paradigm of a deteriorated inner city neighborhood. From end of the civil war to World War I it has experienced a massive exodus of African Americans thus transforming the demographics to an all African Community. The quality of life began to degrade as due to racism, neglect and city’s role in shaping the housing stocks. In an effort

Harlem emerged as a slum because of high cost of living, rent increased rapidly due to housing shortage and influx of Negro migration. Blacks were forced to pay high rent because no other parts of the city were as welcoming as Harlem for them. A report in 1927 demonstrates that Negro tenants paid $ 2.75 per room, per month more compared to the white tenants. High rents and poor salaries led to unsanitary conditions. The average Negro Harlemites held low paid jobs that were not sufficient to sustain the rents and daily life needs. Certain jobs, for instance longshoremen, elevator operator, and teamster and waiter position were ranked as the “negro jobs”. African Americans were stuck in the lower class position because of institutionalized racism. The Metropolitan life Insurance Executive explains, “We have felt it inadvisable to hire colored people not because any prejudice on part of the company, but because there would be a serious objection on part of the white employees”. An urban league study found that Negro families on average spent 40 percent of their earning on rent. The Harlem apartment were not designed for low small families with low income rather for older white residents with higher income. In order to cover the rent gap the tenants began commercializing their homes to lodgers. Every space within the apartments were used for living.

She is holding a banner that reads “West Harlem is not for sale” in bolds with three exclamations marks. Each of them represent the extent of energy she is employing to advocate the stop of intruders into the community. Maybe the woman depicted in the picture has a long relationship with Harlem or she is the victim of urbanization and transformation. She seems to be firm on her position because her body is aligned with the microphone, eyes are straight on the audiences and using one hand to hold the banner other to gesture towards the audience. Many residents like this Women experienced gentrification. Connecting to the text, after Harlem going through massive deterioration in the 1970s many speculative developers invested in Harlem housing in sustain the upcoming needs of housing stocks. Although most of the Harlemites were given home after the completion of the renovation process, they could not afford to live in the same neighborhood. Because the renovation attracted so many corporate business, Harlem soon became commercialized. The rents are increasingly high for the older settlers to live in the area. According to a study in 2016, the median income for Harlem is less than 37000, which is not suffice to afford one of the renovated building in Harlem. One account explains, “It was painful to realize how even a kid could see in every new building, every