Clark (1989), made references to urban ghettos being overcrowded and the housing stock in decay. Like the rest of the New York City Housing Market, residential buildings in Harlem were built before the 1900’s. The conditions of housing stock in Harlem were poor, all except the newest buildings
From riots to invasions, many urban problems arose during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Technology was improving and it was making jobs easier and more productive but American’s were tired and weren’t working. Wage cuts were becoming more popular and economically, the U.S was falling apart slowly. Despite the problems, Americans discovered a way to replace the exhausted Americans who no longer took part in labor. Immigrants from Europe were pulled to New York in hope to find what the Americans had said they’d offer.
The rate and size of growth indicated by Document 1 caused the streets to become crowded not only with people, but with new buildings, made narrow. These buildings that surrounded the streets were of a standardized quality, all made of brick in a fashion lacking any artistic grace. Pollution existed everywhere, and it can be assumed that the public health infrastructure (running water, doctors and hospitals) was equally poor. If Document 1 and 2 are to be believed, as the properly should, Manchester’s population’s rate of growth as part of the economic growth of the city produced horrid infrastructure that served only to exacerbate problems that existed within the city itself. Living conditions were poor as a result of the aforementioned goings-on of Manchester.
Sanitation was a problem in homes and public places. Many women lived in tenement houses and for this reason, women had difficulty cleaning and caring for the house. (Doc C) Basements were damp, stairways certainly weren’t fireproof, and finding untainted food was a large issue for people who lived in tenements. (Doc C) Factories were also filthy. Meat factories had meat falling onto the floor onto dirt and sawdust.
Most immigrants went straight to the Lower East Side of Manhattan and rented very small rooms or even just a bed for around fifty cents to a dollar a week. These people were called boarders or lodgers. Usually there were around five large families in a decent size in every tenement house, and there was very little sanitation or extra room. To the rest of America, this wasn’t even a known problem until in 1890; Jacob Riis published “How the Other Half Lives”, featuring pictures of tenement houses and city streets. This book brought to light the real struggle of immigrant life in the early 1900s.
People died from common sickness like the flu because they lacked medication and health care. Toilets were only able to be flushed once a day, which was bad for the health of the citizen’s and just disgusting. Since everyone was so jam-packed and crowded, crime rates increased tremendously. Tenements lacked running water, electricity, proper ventilation and indoor plumbing. These buildings had no windows.
More than sixty-five percent of New York’s population lived in those tenements. Tenements were a large source of suffering for new immigrants and their families. This is mainly due to their unsanitary and overcrowded conditions. The tenement conditions were horrendous and appalling.
The relationship between society and the law is direct, and housing in America is a conclusive example of that. As argued by both authors, once society has made up its mind about a certain group of people or place such as the ghettos, even the law can’t change those facts. It often happens that people of color and minorities get overlooked and stereotyped into something that they are not due to the hierarchical and discriminatory principles of the law. It has been engrained into society to think that minorities are poor, lazy, and overall less productive in the public
Did the benefits of the immigration boom in the late 1800s outweigh the drawbacks? During the 1800s, many people migrated to urban areas because they wanted jobs and land. Many people thought that migrating to urban areas would be like a perfect dream, however they were disappointed when they realized that the benefits of migration did not outweigh the drawbacks. During the late 1800s, millions of immigrants were coming to the United States. Most of the immigrants came from Europe.
The ghettos were often overcrowded and did not have electrical needs. The ghettos were also very unsanitary. Vashem states “During the Holocaust Jews were stripped of their homes and forced to live in terrible conditions with very little food” (1). The people that lived in the ghetto were underfed and malnourished. The people were also punished severely if they tried to smuggle food in.
These tenements were apartment complexes that had 3 or more families living in them at a time. These often-had terrible living conditions as having all these families meant that they were breeding grounds of disease and vermin. These living conditions are shown in Document D which is a photograph of a tenement at Baxter Street. Many Americans had felt as if these living conditions were the fault of immigrants. This was shown by the Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration Library of Congress in which stated that immigrants were “declining to go where they might be wanted because of they are neither physically nor mentally fitted to go to these undeveloped parts of our country and do as did the early settlers form northern Europe.”
One of the biggest incidences in the US was immigration. There was an immense growth within the urban population due to the rise of cities quickly becoming flooded with immigrants and workers from every corner of the country. However, living in a city did not meet high expectations. In the other hand, it was place with such poor qualities. The cities were overcrowded, lacked proper sanitation as well as housing.
San Francisco was once notorious for its urban renewal that lowered housing affordability for its displaced residents. Starting in the
4.2) Engineering Restrictions and Anti-engineering Campaigns To keep pace with the growing demand of houses in the U.K, at least 250,000 houses should be built annually. However, bureaucratic engineering approvals, land restrictions, and stringent rules governing the design and construction of tall buildings including the Grenfell Tower, are drawbacks to the speedy construction of housing units (Scott p.1). After the inferno, the Friends of Richmond Park, and residents of the west London suburbs, actively campaigned against the construction of tall buildings. Although the restrictions and campaigns were meant to safeguard the safety of the occupants, they gradually contributed to the housing shortage currently
1. What is the nature of community? How do you define neighborhood? What are the differences between community and neighborhood? Sociology has a very real impact on our everyday lives.
