Unequal Cities Essay
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Unequal Cities: Systematic Oppressors and Racial Exclusion. PLAN 100 Unequal Cities November 5, 2023 Peter Darney 21084475
Isaac Dupuis 21078055
The idea of the unequal city presents a multitude of concepts and interdisciplinary thinking. When viewing the contemporary issues regarding cities and their equity and equality, perhaps the most pressing issue is that of racial exclusion and the systematic oppressors which cause said exclusion. While strides have been made in recent years, these issues still plague modern cities. The planning profession and its historic shortcomings have caused or worsened these issues. Redlining and Gentrification, both of which unfairly target minority communities and result in a picture very similar to that of segregation. Regarding redlining, this policy dates to the 1930’s and its scars are still very much seen in modern cities. The presence of “Minority Communities” in the modern city is larg
ely due to redlining policies. Gentrification takes advantage of those minority and disadvantaged communities, causing displacement due to the process resulting in higher land values and rental rates, further scrutinizing the already targeted groups. The presence of minority communities tends to be followed by an overabundance of policing. Policing is an already systematically racist institution which unfairly targets minorities. When you pair this with excessive policing in minority neighborhoods, you see unfair and disproportionate levels of incarceration within minority communities. Gentrification is the revitalization of a perceived poor area, generally initiated by wealthier people, which leads to the increase of property value and attraction of businesses. Often, this brings the displacement of current inhabitants with the overwhelming cost of living. While immediately this may seem like a net positive, The organizations or governments will make more money on tourism and foot traffic, while the residents have a nicer and updated place to live, that’s
not how it works. Typically, communities that undergo gentrification are impoverished communities, where many people live there because it is the only place they can afford, or they have lived there their whole lives. While gentrification raises property values, property taxes and generally makes it unaffordable for the previous residents (
National Geographic, 2023
). This presents the issue of whether peoples lives, and dignity is worth economic prosperity, as low-income communities are dwindling as gentrification becomes more mainstream and appealing. The communities mostly affected by gentrification tend to be previously redlined communities. This calls into question the genuine intentions of governments implementing gentrification. Is gentrification an effort to have a more prosperous community to help the citizens or is it an effort to hide the past mistakes and erase the evidence of that history. This motive begins to be more apparent when you look at how gentrification deplatforms the communities involved and silences those affected (
Alvare, 2018
). Coincidentally, or perhaps purposefully, gentrification seems to target predominantly black and other minority groups and their communities. This shows that minorities are a disproportionately large amount of the lower-class, which once again points to the racism that the world is built upon. Jackelyn Hwang, assistant professor of sociology in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences conducted a study in 2019, which found, even though many people in gentrified communities are minorities, they face many more constraints and challenges than a white person moving from these neighborhoods. (
Feder, 2020
) All of this insurmountable evidence supports the fact that, yes, gentrification, while perhaps not purposefully, is a racist practice that disproportionately effects minority groups, and takes advantage of their systematic struggles and the lack of equity within city dynamics. Policing is an integral part of a cities ability to function. Its goal is to preserve order and work to ensure the safety of the public. Unfortunately, police officers often abuse the abundant power they hold over citizens, hindering their safety in the process. Despite many decades of governmental efforts to
enact police reform, an abundance of evidence identifies that marginalized communities are still dealing with repressive actions from the social institution (
Jones-Brown & Williams, 2021). The publicising of instances of police brutality, such as the killing of George Floyd in 2020, has brought to light the extremely violent behavior being conducted by officers. Public outrage could be seen through the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests across the world, exposing the tremendous loss of Black community members as a leading or direct cause of police violence. In the United-States, where 13 percent of the population is composed of Black people, they “
accounted for 27 percent of those fatally shot and killed by police in 2021
”
(
Bunn, 2022
). Indicating that there is double the likelihood that a Black person is shot and killed than a White person. This demonstrates the inequal treatment towards Black people as the direct cause of a government institution. Proving the segregation and historic seclusion has unfairly been directed towards minority communities resulting in inequity. During the great depression, the government, to stave off the massive amounts of foreclosures, enacted a policy to give government-insured mortgages. This would be later referred to as redlining. This process evaluated homes based on numerous factors and gave them an appraisal. The government than ranked neighbourhoods from least to most risky, seeing as this was implemented in 1930s America, this was almost immediately weaponized against minority populations. The neighborhoods were rated on a scale from A to D. The federal government deemed “D” neighbourhoods as places where property values were most likely to go down, subsequently marking said neighbourhoods in red —
a sign that these neighborhoods were not worthy of inclusion in homeownership and lending programs. Not coincidentally, most of the “D” areas were neighborhoods where Black residents lived
(
Jackson, 2021
). The consequences of redlining are still being felt today, as many of the predominately minority communities that exist today are the same ones which were redlined almost a century ago. These communities have worse access to necessities of life such as healthcare and grocery stores, furthering the difficulty to break the cycle and leave these areas. These neighbourhoods are swept under the rug and forgotten about by policymakers in many cases, never having their issues addressed and keeping them in the cycle they simply cannot break due to the systematic oppressors which put them there in the first place. The notion of the unequal city invites thought and a wide range of concepts. The most urgent issue when considering today's challenges with cities, equity, and equality may be racial exclusion and the institutional oppressors that contribute to it. Even with recent improvements, these problems still exist in contemporary cities. These problems have been brought about or made worse by the planning profession and its historical flaws. Whether it be redlining, gentrification or over policing, the planning profession is a contributor to systematic oppressors which has historically and currently attributed to the faults which make a city unequal.
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References Alvare, M. (2018, Summer). Scholarly Resources for Learning and research | gale
. Gentrification and Resistance: Racial Projects in the Neoliberal Order. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=ko_k12hs_d21&id=GALE|A541102912&v=2.1&it=r&sid=book
mark-AONE&asid=93a77f8c Appel, I., & Nickerson, J. (2016, October 17). Pockets of poverty: The long-term effects of redlining
. SSRN. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2852856 Gentrification
. Education. (n.d.). https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/gentrification/ Jackson, C. (2021, August 17). What is redlining?
. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/realestate/what-is-redlining.html Jones-Brown, D., & Williams, J. (2021, October 8). Full article: Over-policing Black Bodies: The need for multidimensional ...
Over-policing Black bodies: the need for multidimensional and transformative reforms. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15377938.2021.1992326 University, S. (2021, February 5). Gentrification disproportionately affects minorities
. Stanford News. https://news.stanford.edu/2020/12/01/gentrification-disproportionately-affects-minorities/ Zukin, S. (1987). Gentrification: Culture and capital in the urban core - annual reviews
. Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.so.13.080187.001021 Bunn, C. (2022, March 3). Black people are still killed by police at a higher rate than other groups
. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/report-black-people-are-still-killed-police-higher-rate-
groups-rcna17169