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Discussion
of Case Study Themes
At
a Glance
Both inner city abandonment and suburban expansion are
shaped by the transportation infrastructure. Both farm
life and inner-city life are threatened by middle class
urban flight. Just as mobility has increased the choices
for the middle class, it has limited the choices for
many living in the inner city who are trapped in a cycle
of seemingly inescapable poverty. The subdivision of
land into small parcels renders land inadequate for
farming. This is so whether divided into the five-acre
lots of exurbia, the quarter- to half-acre lots of the
standard suburban neighborhood, or the intense development
of core business districts. Government intervention
may be necessary to protect farmlands as well as inner-city
communities. A geographic information system (GIS) is
used in both case studies to analyze the spatial impact
of land-use conversion.
Case
Study 1 -- Boston: Ethnic Mosaic
A
Historical Pattern for Inner City Abandonment
By 1870, immigrants who were pouring into industrializing
American cities sought inexpensive housing close to
their factory jobs. Tenements and row houses were
filled with as many bodies as it was possible for
them to hold. Conditions were miserable, so as soon
as families could save enough money, they would move
into an apartment in the next best neighborhood, usually
one step beyond the center of the city but still within
easy commuting distance by public transportation.
Tenements would not stay vacant long, as newly arriving
immigrants replaced those who were able to move out.
As
families became more prosperous, they sought better
housing -- from tenement, to apartment, to duplex,
to a single-family home usually in the suburbs. This
was made possible by the ability of the most affluent
families to afford longer commutes and to buy new
housing at the suburban edge. As the upwardly mobile
vacated their old homes, middle class families would
take their place, creating a chain of movement out
from the center of the city. This is a pattern that
continues to the present.
Immigration
Helps Create Boston's Ethnic Mosaic
After the United States closed its doors to immigration
in the 1920s, industrial employers in need of workers
turned to the large unemployed African American population
in the rural south. This recruitment created a new
wave of migration into the manufacturing belt cities
of the Northeast and the Midwest. One result of this
migration was that, because many whites refused to
live with these racially different newcomers, blacks
were forced to live in racially segregated neighborhoods.
Increasingly, inner cities became places of "color"
as whites fled their own inner-city neighborhoods.
Empowerment
Zones as a Vehicle of Change
Today, flight from the inner city is more an issue
of class than one of color as middle class people
of all racial and ethnic groups attempt to leave the
city for life in the suburbs. This has had a devastating
impact economically for nearly all American cities.
As inner-city populations become increasingly poor,
the need for costly social services becomes critical.
Most cities raise the money with which they operate
through local property taxes. With the flight of the
middle class, property values have decreased, as have
property tax revenues. Many cities no longer have
the ability to pay for necessary services on their
own and must look elsewhere for funding to survive.
The first case study follows an empowerment zone application
for several neighborhoods in South Boston. Such a
federal designation could restructure the tax base
with the help of a $100 million grant. The process
is complex because the area to be defined for the
application includes a number of racially and ethnically
separated neighborhoods, each with its own needs.
Newly configured boundaries are created for the empowerment
zone to describe the areas more precisely than do
traditional neighborhood boundaries.
As
seen in the video, news of the second place, $25 million
grant was positively received by the community leaders
of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city.
Eventually, Boston went on to receive the first place
grant. These empowerment zone monies were used to
build new shopping and business facilities and encourage
merchants to enter these neighborhoods, thereby creating
jobs for local residents.
Case
Study 2 -- Chicago: Farming on the Edge
Prime
Agricultural Land is Threatened Near Chicago
Cities throughout the world have historically been
located near water. They tended to be built on relatively
flat land where it is less costly to build. These
places are also very often where some of the best
soils are found, as is the case in the agricultural
heartland of the United States.
As
long as cities remained relatively small and compact,
there was little concern about the permanent loss
of farmland to real estate development. Urban areas
such as Chicago, though, have gobbled up farmland
that is sixty miles or more from the urban core. Many
people have become concerned that a shrinking base
of farmlands and sprawling congestion may outweigh
the benefits of further expansive growth.
Edge
Cities Form New Spatial Distribution
The geography of America's past is undergoing a post-industrial
transformation in McHenry County, Illinois. Along
Interstate 90 heading west from Chicago, new business
sub-centers such as Des Plaines, Schaumburg, and Marengo
are home to more and more residents. First, shopping
malls sprouted up in these once purely residential
areas and then business followed their employees to
the suburban fringe.
New
suburban developments and edge cities have prospered,
often at the expense of aging inner-city cores as
well as surrounding farmlands. The increasing exodus
of the middle class from inner cities has created
pockets of intense poverty at city centers. Furthermore,
the cycle of development of suburbia and its supporting
edge cities has allowed for an even greater penetration
of urbanization into the countryside.
Mobility Responsible for Changing Patterns of Settlement
North America has the most highly urbanized population
in the world; it is also the most mobile. Vast networks
of superhighways, commuter airplanes, and railroads
connect this region's cities from coast to coast,
distinguishing North America from Europe, which has
a greater balance between mass and personal transit
modes. But it is the mobility of the daily commuter
-- a driver who typically considers commuting in terms
of time not distance -- that has most dramatically
expanded the McHenry suburbia more than two hours
out from Chicago's core business district.
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