Place-based policies have been implemented as a strategy to address systemic inequalities and economic disparities that disproportionately affect black households in the United States. These policies target specific geographical areas with concentrated poverty and aim to improve the socio-economic conditions of residents. While proponents argue that place-based policies have the potential to uplift marginalized communities and promote equitable development, critics raise concerns about their effectiveness, sustainability, and potential for unintended consequences. This essay seeks to explore the virtues and limitations of place-based policies on black households in the United States. Place-based policies have long had a detrimental impact …show more content…
By focusing resources and interventions on neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and limited access to opportunities, these policies aim to mitigate the structural barriers that hinder socio-economic mobility and exacerbate disparities. Place-based initiatives often involve community engagement and participation, allowing residents, including black households, to have a voice in shaping the development strategies that affect their neighborhoods. Through grassroots organizing, residents can advocate for their needs, priorities, and aspirations, leading to more inclusive and responsive policy interventions. Place-based policies typically embrace a comprehensive strategy for community development, tackling not only economic obstacles but also social, environmental, and health-related concerns. These policies prioritize investments in affordable housing, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and job training programs. The overarching goal is to cultivate a nurturing environment that promotes upward mobility and enhances the overall well-being of black households and their communities. Through this multifaceted approach, place-based policies endeavor to address the root causes of inequality and foster sustainable progress towards equitable growth and …show more content…
Constraints related to funding, capacity, and political support may impede the scale and impact of interventions, resulting in many black households being underserved and marginalized. Additionally, persistent disparities in access to resources and opportunities exacerbate socio-economic inequalities within and across communities. Furthermore, place-based policies may inadvertently adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to community development, disregarding the diverse needs, preferences, and experiences of black households and their communities. This oversight may lead to interventions that are ineffective, inappropriate, or even harmful, widening disparities and eroding trust in the policy process. The lack of sustainability and continuity poses significant challenges to place-based interventions. These initiatives often depend on short-term funding cycles and are susceptible to shifts in political leadership or changing priorities. Without sustained investment and support, the gains made through place-based policies may prove fleeting, failing to address the underlying structural inequalities that perpetuate poverty and exclusion, particularly impacting black households. Additionally, the discontinuity in programming and services can undermine community trust and cohesion, impeding long-term efforts to promote justice and
“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 the district's character and culture.” (Grant) In layman’s terms, gentrification is when white people move to a black neighborhood for the sake of cheaper living, and in turn, raise up property values and force black neighbors to leave because of a higher price of living. Commonly, the government supports gentrification with the demolition of public housing in areas that are developing with more white neighbors. This is causing a decreasing amount of African Americans to be able to afford to live in the neighborhood as their homes are taken away from them, forcing them to relocate. Whilst gentrification normally has negative connotations, there are several people who believe gentrification brings about “an upward trend in property values in previously neglected neighborhoods.” (Jerzyk) On the other hand, this new trend in property value and business causes those...
More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (Issues of Our Time)
Morton explains that political, institutional, and structural factors lead to the segregation of poverty in minority communities because of their lack of access to educational and health service, reliable public transportation, and job (Morton 275). Morton recognizes that the achievement gap goes much deeper than the education realm and she believes
"Building Partnerships to Revitalize America's Neighborhoods." HBCU Central (Winter 2002): 1-6. Winter 2002. Web. 2 May 2012.
The United States’ government has always had a hand on our country’s housing market. From requiring land ownership to vote, to providing public housing to impoverished families, our government has become an irremovable part of the housing market. The effects of these housing policies can affect American residents in ways they might not even recognize. As several historians have concluded, many housing policies, especially those on public housing, either resulted in or reinforced the racial segregation of neighborhoods.
It is no news when we hear about recent riots in the city of Baltimore, violence in the streets of New York City, and drug wars in Los Angeles. For many citizens, urban violence does not come as a surprise since many impoverished cities in the United States lack job opportunities, police protection, and in which many citizens feel unwanted. Cities such as Baltimore is the home to 63% of African Americans who live in poor conditioned homes, and are surrounded by drugs and violence within their communities. Many of us do not acknowledge these obstacles that African Americans, Latinos, or unprivileged whites encounter in urban communities where they feel hated, hopeless, and judged. Social unrest in the United Sates has been the result of many
Housing segregation is as the taken for granted to any feature of urban life in the United States (Squires, Friedman, & Siadat, 2001). It is the application of denying minority groups, especially African Americans, equal access to housing through misinterpretation, which denies people of color finance services and opportunities to afford decent housing. Caucasians usually live in areas that are mostly white communities. However, African Americans are most likely lives in areas that are racially combines with African Americans and Hispanics. A miscommunication of property owners not giving African American groups gives an accurate description of available housing for a decent area. This book focuses on various concepts that relates to housing segregation and minority groups living apart for the majority group.
... funding and direction, including those of local government and philanthropy, are critical to tailoring programs to the specific needs of local communities, and should be leveraged through federal funding. The final ingredient is responsibility, both personal and collective. Individuals must be empowered to improve their own lives, and the community must support the effort rather than look the other way, or looking past the working poor, who can so easily blend into the background.
Since poverty affects a wide array of people, poverty has evolved into a very complex issue. And even though the government has passed legislature to try to ameliorate the situation, many of these means-tested measures like food stamps, have only been able to help the surface of poverty and fails to rip out the long roots poverty has grown throughout history. Poverty’s deep effects are seen especially in minorities as they struggle much more to leave a current situation that has been created by historical process. Even though government assistance like food stamps do help alleviate some of poverty’s burden, these measures fail to recognize the reality that many of the impoverished minority have undervalued homes or no homes at all and even if they can rent, that rent can be high enough to take up more than fifty-percent of their paychecks. Overall, poverty in America is a vastly complicated issue rooted throughout history. And even though the government has attempted to pass legislature to help provide relief from poverty, America still has yet to provide measures that target the roots of poverty and until then, the government assistance it does provide will only be superficial and fail to provide long-term solutions to a complicated
Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating such a grave societal problem and furthering social justice.
In contrast to popular assumption, discrimination in public housing is becoming more prevalent than ever before. Testing done by the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston has found that today people of color are discriminated against in nearly half of their efforts to buy, sell, finance, or rent property (“1968-Present Housing Discrimination). The statistics are even worse when considering colored people who have families as the testing found that they are discriminated against approximately two thirds of the time (“1968-Present Housing Discrimination”) In addition to facing great difficulty in property affairs, people of color are less likely to be offered residence in desirable locations. 86 percent of revitalized
...r of inequality in America, with so much poverty located within such a close proximity to the White House. That being said, gentrification efforts in DC appear to be focused on removing poor people, or at the very least, the visual image of crime, poverty, and corruption as it relates to the most powerful city in the country. Community activist groups have tried time and time again to stop gentrification from affecting their community, but often times, to no avail. What is truly sad is that while this cycle is continually perpetuated as a matter of “haves versus have nots” the way in which this system seems to always disproportionately marginalize one race of people in favor of another, does raise the question as to whether or not gentrification was orchestrated to operate in such a manner; and if so, what are the affected groups going to do about it.
Sidney, Mara S. 2003. Unfair Housing: How National Policy Shapes Community Action. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas.
The problems of race and urban poverty remain pressing challenges which the United States has yet to address. Changes in the global economy, technology, and race relations during the last 30 years have necessitated new and innovative analyses and policy responses. A common thread which weaves throughout many of the studies reviewed here is the dynamics of migration. In When Work Disappears, immigrants provide comparative data with which to highlight the problems of ghetto poverty affecting blacks. In No Shame in My Game, Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants are part of the changing demographics in Harlem. In Canarsie, the possible migration of blacks into a working/middle-class neighborhood prompts conservative backlash from a traditionally liberal community. In Streetwise, the migration of yuppies as a result of gentrification, and the movement of nearby-ghetto blacks into these urban renewal sites also invoke fear of crime and neighborhood devaluation among the gentrifying community. Not only is migration a common thread, but the persistence of poverty, despite the current economic boom, is the cornerstone of all these works. Poverty, complicated by the dynamics of race in America, call for universalistic policy strategies, some of which are articulated in Poor Support and The War Against the Poor.
Since the 1950s, jobless poverty has been on the rise. In 1950, 69 percent of all black males aged fourteen and older living in the inner-city ghetto neighborhoods of Chicago were employed (Wilson 160). In 1960, 64 percent of all black males aged fourteen and older living in the inner-city ghetto neighborhoods of Chicago were employed (Wilson 160). However, by 1990 only 37 percent of all black males aged sixteen or over living in the inner-city ghetto neighbor-hoods of Chicago were employed (Wilson 160). These increases have led to disproportionately high rates of unemployment in inner-city g...