Analysis Of Behind The Beautiful Forevers

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a book, by Katherine Boo, that describes an ordinary life of slum-dwellers in Mumbai. India is primarily known as a country currently experiencing a significant economic growth. At the same time the inhabitants of slums daily struggle for their mere survival. One of the main reasons for that is a failure of both governmental and international social programs to reach their objectives. Boo frequently highlights this issue in her book providing numerous examples.

The reading this week is by Mike Davis, and is titled Planet of Slums. Mike Davis creates an argument on how slums are a worldly issue that is spreading. Davis first begins his argument with statistics based on the monumental increase of population in all countries across the globe. He also uses examples of the increase of hypercities and megacities due to intensified urbanization in Mexico-city, Seoul-Injon, and New York. Which leads into the effects on the citizens, such as China and India, and the lack of proper housing and accommodations with such a rapidly growing population.

The book “Planet of the Slums” by Mike Davis is a huge eye opener that explains the harsh realities of slums. This books explores conditions of slums, how and suggested reasons as to why slums come about in cities, and how they are increasing due to different government or sometimes lack of government acts. Davis paints this picture and sells the ideas providing evidence and statistics form a lot of different countries and cities that have, and continue these harsh realities. Though he uses a lot of different examples of countries to where it can be confusing to keep track of where you’re reading about, it kind of proves a point itself that there are so many places in this world where these problems are being faced, it is hard to realize and wrap your head around this toughness.

Gentrification can bring many things to a city, such as renovation and shifts in an urban community lifestyle and an increasing share of wealthier residents and/or businesses and increasing property values. The bad things it brings would be leaving longtime home owners out of a home because taxes on their property have sky rocketed and can no longer afford to pay. Not only this but in the process of gentrifying a community it kicks out the poorer residents and sends them to other neighborhoods which are just as poor and now overpopulated. If having to choose a side on this topic, I would have to say I am for gentrification. Despite its negative affects, I believe renovation is a huge part of life and that is how cities show economical strength and wealth, which then brings in jobs for many people all

In the current days, the homeless phenomenon has spread around the world. Not only, have the poor countries had this kind of problem, but also the countries with advanced and extended power and wealth. According to Baxter (n.d) there are a high number of people suffer from being homeless in the city of New York, because of the employment and the cost of everything is higher specially the housing. However, some people are born poor and that’s what makes it inevitable for them to be homeless. Drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment, and lack of affordable housing are three causes of homelessness.

Despite its many positive effects, industrialization had a negative impact on Europe too. Urban areas doubled, tripled, or quadrupled in size which led to overcrowding in cities. Sometimes a large population is a good thing, but in this case the population was too big and caused many health problems. Living conditions were dirty and unhealthy. Cities were unsanitary and diseases filled the streets.

These problems were reformed and their improvements made an impact on America today. One problem that was present in the late 1800’s in America was the conditions of urban cities. As the distribution of wealth between social and economic classes became increasingly unfair, poverty among the working class grew. Document 3b states that “Not that it would hurt them: kicks and cuffs are their daily diet… All the fresh air enters these stairs is from is from the hall-door that is forever slamming…Listen! That short hacking cough, that tiny helpless wail…” This shows the usual life of impoverished people and how intolerable it is.

The “deindustrialisation and metropolisation of Paris are to a large extent responsible for this, leading to a decline in the number of manual jobs and an increase in the numbers of executives and service-sector professionals within the city’s populace” . The irony is that while state intervention attempts to regenerate these areas, they may also create unintended consequences; by improving transport, access to free cultural activities and social cohesion, they are automatically made more desirable places to live. Consequently, rent prices begin to rise and displacement of the very people who were trying to be ‘helped’ occurs. Harding and Blokland (146) refer to Clay’s work (1979) which distinguishes between four phases of gentrification; artists, bohemians, and individuals willing to take risks come in search of cheap housing and are further followed by developers and investors. However, when the media picks up that an area is transforming and becoming ‘hip’, more established middle classes take an interest in the place and subsequently, prices rise.

Reasons for trafficking include both supply and demand factors. Firstly, many researchers argue that poverty adds to the supply of humans available for trafficking. India is a developing country it is known that poverty is still widespread today. Being a poverty stricken country would mean that their living conditions remain unpleasant and undesirable, often leaving them with no power as citizens remain at the disposal of capitalist, especially in the global economy. Individuals in India who participate in criminal actvity are more often than not caught in the cycle of poverty as well, hence seeing the need to to find alternatives for survival.

Urbanization may be driven by local or global economic and social changes, and most of the time is the product of industrialization. As urban areas grow the population shifts from rural to urban areas, which is an example of how society adapts to change. The industrial revolution is the best example of this transformation to urban life, people wanted to upgrade their standard of living. This had both good and bad outcomes, the good was that it increased jobs and a bad outcome was that the life for the low class wasn’t that great. Most people were working for long hours for very little money to survive.

Columnist Scott Gilmore brings to light the operations of payday loan companies and the impact that they have on society. Although the payday loan companies seem to take advantage of the financially vulnerable members of society, perhaps the true fault lies within the education of society. A devastatingly large portion of society seeks out payday loans, and the results are appalling. As mentioned by Gilmore in the article, “[A correlation was found] between the number of payday lenders in a neighborhood and premature mortality”. This reveals a lot regarding the repercussions of seeking out loans that in turn create greater loans.

The dramatic economic expansion that American experienced during industrialization led to the creation of the extremely poor and the extremely rich. During the Progressive Era, New York faced overpopulation distribution and overcrowding of living arrangements in the city due to the migration. Inevitably, the class division in terms of the economy and social amongst the people made it impossible for Americanization of becoming together as a nation. Jacob Riis, and immigrant himself, a photojournalist and most important, a social reformer exposed the abuse and poor treatment of the tenements in New York City through his work How the Other Half Lives. He utilized the use of flash photograph, allowing him to capture and communicate in a very specific

The Progressive Era had mainly focused on improving social and economic issues such as poverty, violence, greed, class structure, monopolies and trusts, corruption and etc. I, Jane Addams, am a middle class woman and a progressive worker who has been one of the many who have faced constant unethical social conditions that occurs along the urban streets following rapid industrialization in America. I have witnessed that the influx of immigrants who’ve migrated to America have struggled in engaging in the numerous opportunities America has to offer; due to them lacking an education and knowledge in various areas. I propose that a solution to this problem would be establishing settlement houses to where I suggest it would assist and provide social and educational services to predominantly immigrant residents to who subside in crowded streets of America. One of my closest friends, Ellen Gates Starr, and I have pondered on the idea of naming one of the many settlement houses to be named the “Hull House” where it would be located in Chicago and also provide such services to those in nearby communities and neighborhoods as well.