The video “No Time for Ugliness” describes the need for more nature and greenery in cities due to the fact that industrial changes (such as parking lots, billboards, etc.) are “visually unappealing”. Along with various aspects such as signs being visually unappealing, the video discusses how slums are as well—saying that the solution is to build lower income housing that still “fits the needs” of the lower class population and those who would be displaced by the “progressive” changes while being visually appealing to others. The narrator, who paints himself as an all-knowing figure, ends the video by blaming the government and laws for the incorrect planning of cities and states that the only way to properly design urban spaces in a visually …show more content…
Although Moses started out with the idea of beautifying cities from piles of ashes and had successful projects (such as Jones Beach State Park), even then he “used physical design as a means of social screening” (p. 299) by only allowing his parkways to be experienced via cars, which at that point in time only the wealthy had. After the “greater reconstruction of the whole fabric of America after World War Two” (p. 307) when automobiles became the center of the modern world, cities were conceived as “obstructions to the flow of traffic, and as junkyards of substandard housing and decaying neighborhoods from which Americans should be given every chance to escape.” (p.307) This country-wide shift in values caused Moses (along with others) to obliterate urban neighborhoods and replace them with highways, and as a result “plunge cities into the chronic crisis and chaos that plague their inhabitants today.” (p. 308) Both the video and the essay about Moses provides more evidence about the injustices regarding city planning, and how that stems from the values of those in charge of planning (the upper
The urban setting can instantly be recognized as an antagonist to anyone who faces it. The imagery of the city reveals its formidable nature. The
We take them for granted when driving miles to the closest mall. We are unconscious of their usefulness when traveling to see a distant relative by car. We can't take a moment to stop and admire their beauty and usefulness; the architectural wonders that are highways and their interchanges; which have such a rich history embedded in the American suburbia of today. Let's go back to the early 1900's, when the automobile was starting to become a dominate part of the American life (Morton, 2014). Around this time; a shift began to occur towards private transportation over public by influencing policies in their favor (Nicolaides and Wiese, 2006). One of these polices was created by the Federal Aid Highway of 1925; the United States Highway System which basically expanded the highways across the United States connecting one another, creating new opportunities for growth in many areas (Weingroff, 1996). This had many effects on different factors of the American way of life; specifically suburbia (Morton, 2014). After the war, the private home that was a luxury a few years prior, was now becoming affordable for many thanks to low interest rates and flexible payments through the National Housing Act of 1934, created by the Federal Housing Administration (Fishman, 1987). Perfect example of a policy acting towards private over public was the Los Angles Master Plan of 1941, which pushed the direction of private automobiles and singles households: there being 1.16 million cars (2.4 people per car) and having 31 percent of the city land dedicated for single family homes, this was really solidifying the post suburbia lifestyle (Fishman, 1987). In Los Angeles alone around this time, 900 square miles were transformed to tract development homes ...
This text also persuades readers about how race is an issue of gentrification. The author’s claims on the issues show that gentrification is mainly influenced by race and income. The writer wrote the text also to show how the media can be influential to be discouraging poor colored communities, criticizing the views on gentrification in those areas. There are some persuasive appeals that are supported by the author in the text. The first is Ethos, he is a credible source in his claims retelling his own experience as a paramedic and how his patient impacted his criticism on how the media portrays the “hood” as being atrocious and worthless in the community. The author also attempts to convince his readers through his own emotions, including specific evidence and claims for his appeals. The second persuasive appeal used is pathos when he explains how these communities are dealt with moving place to place being invaded from their own residence and businesses. The third persuasive appeals he presents is logos, which he describes the situation of the the people being affected by this issue first hand to show the reader it is a mistaken
“The Deeper Problems We Miss When We Attack ‘Gentrification’”exhibit their opinion on the positives of gentrification and the potential of “revitalization” in low-income urban communities. Badger argues that gentrification brings nothing more than further opportunities for urban communities while integrating citizens of different social classes.Furthermore , she continues to question if gentrification is in fact the monster that brings the prior expressions against gentrification where she says “If poor neighborhoods have historically suffered from dire disinvestment, how can the remedy to that evil — outside money finally flowing in — be the problem, too?”(Badger) Stating that the funds generated from sources external that are brought into these communities can’t be problematic. This concept is further elaborated in the article “Does Gentrification Harm the Poor” where Vigdoor list the potential positive enhancements gentrification can have on an urban area in America ,stating that gentrification can
In discussions of Gentrification, one controversial issue has been with displacement. Gentrification is the process of renovating and repairing a house or district so that it complies to wealthier residents (Biro, 2007, p. 42). Displacement is a result of gentrification, and is a major issue for lower income families. Gentrification is causing lower-income residents to move out of their apartments because they’re being displaced by upper class residents who can afford high rent prices and more successful businesses. Throughout out the essay, I will discuss how gentrification affects lower income residents and how it results in displacement. Then I will follow on by discussing some positive and negative effects that take place because of Gentrification.
Of the many problems affecting urban communities, both locally and abroad, there is one issue in particular, that has been victimizing the impoverished within urban communities for nearly a century; that would be the problem of gentrification. Gentrification is a word used to describe the process by which urban communities are coerced into adopting improvements respective to housing, businesses, and general presentation. Usually hidden behind less abrasive, or less stigmatized terms such as; “urban renewal” or “community revitalization” what the process of gentrification attempts to do, is remove all undesirable elements from a particular community or neighborhood, in favor of commercial and residential enhancements designed to improve both the function and aesthetic appeal of that particular community. The purpose of this paper is to make the reader aware about the significance of process of gentrification and its underlying impact over the community and the community participation.
Lance Freeman tackles the issue of gentrification from the perspectives of residents in the gentrified neighborhood. He criticizes the literature for overlooking the experiences of the victims of gentrification. The author argues that people’s conceptions on the issue are somewhat misinformed in that most people consider it as completely deplorable, whereas in reality, it benefits the community by promoting businesses, different types of stores, and cleaner streets. These benefits are even acknowledged by many residents in the gentrified neighborhood. However, the author admits that gentrification indeed does harm. Although gentrification does not equate to displacement per se, it serves to benefit primarily homeowners and harm the poor. Additionally,
Beginning in the 1960s, middle and upper class populations began moving out of the suburbs and back into urban areas. At first, this revitalization of urban areas was 'treated as a 'back to the city' movement of suburbanites, but recent research has shown it to be a much more complicated phenomenon' (Schwirian 96). This phenomenon was coined 'gentrification' by researcher Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe the residential movement of middle-class people into low-income areas of London (Zukin 131). More specifically, gentrification is the renovation of previously poor urban dwellings, typically into condominiums, aimed at upper and middle class professionals. Since the 1960s, gentrification has appeared in large cities such as Washington D.C., San Francisco, and New York. This trend among typically young, white, upper-middle class working professionals back into the city has caused much controversy (Schwirian 96). The arguments for and against gentrification will be examined in this paper.
...chitecture: Brand-new cities: Frank gehry's bilbao effect looks a lot like 1960s-style urban renewal. The American Scholar 75 (1) (Winter): 113-6, http://www.jstor.org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/stable/41222543 (accessed 5/9/2014 6:29:37 PM).
...ving together as well as the greed brought about by overloading this same system as put forward in “What is a City” by Lewis Mumford. However, the current view society holds about these two different impacts a city structure causes in the individuals that reside within it is that a city can either support one or the other, either presenting the image of the City of Destruction or the Celestial City as explained by Alan Trachtenberg in his article “The Incorporation of America”. However, after the careful analysis of the way various films such as Wilder’s Double Indemnity, Chaplin’s Modern Times, and Wyler’s Dead End represent these effects, it is far more sensible to describe the effects of a city on its inhabitants in terms of their nature to be like a double-edged sword that offers the individuals the opportunity to either help or hinder their progress in society.
In Jane Jacobs’s acclaimed The Life and Death of Great American Cities, she intricately articulates urban blight and the ills of metropolitan society by addressing several binaries throughout the course of the text. One of the more culturally significant binaries that Jacobs relies on in her narrative is the effectively paradoxical relationship between diversity and homogeneity in urban environments at the time. In particular, beginning in Chapter 12 throughout Chapter 13, Jacobs is concerned greatly with debunking widely held misconceptions about urban diversity.
In the early tradition of the Chicago School, theorists engaged an urban ecological lens that viewed cities as symbiotic, naturally evolving spaces that expanded through a process of organic succession to generate the organization of city life (Burgess, 1925; Park, 1936). Since the 1960’s, the purview of contemporary urban sociology has shifted to engage a macro-lens that examines how larger social, economic and political factors shape the urban landscape more broadly. Counter to urban ecological theory, these scholars show how the spatial logics of cities and urban inequality are shaped and produced by local/state, national and global political and economic actors (Castells, 1978; Dreier et al. 2004; Gieryn, 2000; Harvey, 2012; Jargowsky, 1997; Logan and Molotch, 1987; Sampson, 2012; Sassen, 2006; Swanstrom et al., Wilson, 1996). Engaging this lens, we then see how the socio-spatial construction of urban spaces directly constructs unequal urban spaces that afford greater opportunities and benefits to some, while diminishing the opportunities of others. In this way, the macro-lens reveals the multiple levels of agency in th...
In April, 1956, Jane Jacobs spoke before a crowd of architects, academics, and urban planners at the Harvard Urban Design Conference. Five years later, she would publish The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a book that tore down contemporary city planning and lead to the profession being rebuilt in Jacobs’s image (or, rather, in the image of people claiming to be rebuilding the profession in her image – as Max Page notes, there is no “other urbanist whose ideas more people profess to understand who is less understood [4]”). But at this point, she was little known in the planning community – in fact, she originally was not even scheduled to speak; she only agreed
Wicked problems refer to socio-cultural difficulties that are impossible to solve due inadequacy of knowledge, large number of involved opinions of people, heavy effect on the economy, and the interlinked manner of the given problems to others. Wicked, in this context, represents something that opposes resolution. Various urban problems are persistent due to their wicked characteristics. This paper seeks to contextualize three wicked urban issues, namely, urban biodiversity, urban street planning, and urban smart cities, as reported in news articles. This will necessitate a better understanding of the specified wicked problems as a way of finding probable solutions.
Kevin Lynch has written an in-depth study and subsequent analysis on “the image of the city” as perceived by him in 1960. The overall purpose of his book was to study “the look of cities, and [determine if the image] is of any importance, and [if] it can be changed” (Lynch, 1960, p. V). Lynch used an on the ground approach of study where he and his team conducted systematic field reconnaissance and lengthy interviews with a small sample of residents within the study area (Boston, Jersey, and Los Angeles) (Lynch, 1960, p. 15).