The title of the documentary is “Suburban America: Problems & Promises”. The intended audience for this documentary is individuals that do not know the history of how suburban areas came about, and how they have changed and grown dramatically over the years. It also explains the political impact that the growing suburban areas has on our government and how expanding these areas can change the outcome of an election. Suburban areas grew after the soldiers came home after WWII. Many suburban areas in the beginning were segregated. There was little to no African Americans and Jews were not allowed in many areas. Today, Suburbs are the area where most change is occurring. People are immigrating directly to suburban areas and making them very diverse. These areas also face many problems as well, housing shortages, cost of transportation to jobs and aging areas are a few. Suburban America is very complicated and powerful in its own way. …show more content…
The main message the director is trying to express is the benefits, and down falls of suburban areas. The director explains the political power that suburban areas have. They helped shape the local, state and federal government. The history of the changes and how it all began after the soldiers returned after World War II is also explained in this documentary. These areas also faced problems. As more people demanded to live in these areas there began to be a shortage of housing, which forced older suburban areas to redo their housing neighborhoods. The cost of transportation and the lack of public transportation were also significant issues. The future of America centered around how to improve these
The idea of equality for all people, regardless of their race, is instilled in the American society of today. Unfortunately, this idea has not always been present, which ultimately has caused many issues for America’s society in the past. As discussed in the book Our Town: Race, Housing, and the Soul of Suburbia, David L. Kirp focuses on the inequality that was found between the low-income blacks and the middle class whites in a South Jersey town, Mount Laurel. At the time, the whites had a goal of running the blacks out of the town by making the costs of housing expensive enough where blacks could not afford it. This lead to unequal treatment for the blacks who lived in Mount Laurel compared to the whites when it came to housing opportunities.
He talks about how cities were seen as ‘dirty’ and infested with homeless people, drug addicts, panhandlers, and porn shops everywhere, while the suburbs were seen as a ‘clean’ and orderly place to settle down and raise a family, particularly referring to the ‘white-flight’ that occurred in the 1970s and 80s. Hayes discusses how the migration of black people out of the South turned America’s cities into places of ‘concentrated blackness.’ “Federal policy facilitated both the construction of the ‘ghetto,’ large areas of black residents and disinvestment, and white flight to the suburbs, abetted by subsidized mortgages and racially discriminatory lending guidelines.” (Hayes, 2017, p. 40) Because of institutional racism and classism, the cities became concentrated areas for the Colony, and the suburbs became a place of escape and solace for the
When given the task to watch and understand the documentary "Suburban American: Problems and Promises" I was genuinely interested. Due to my interests in property development and real estate, I wanted to know the reasoning for why certain areas and region were considered appropriate locations for building a suburban neighborhood. Therefore, I started to realized that the audience that the movie was directed towards was people who are interested in the development of the Urban and Suburban areas of our previous and present generations. Also, this documentary should spark the interest in any American history fans, construction management and even people that are interested in civil rights movement. This documentary touches on all the reasons
Most things have positive and negative aspects, this documentary goes into detail on the problems and promise that suburban areas hold for the United States of America and its citizens. The approximately 55 minute documentary is titled “Suburban America: Problems and Promises” and was produced by American Public Television. The intended audience of this documentary is likely students studying material that concerns urban planning. This is due to the documentaries focus on political, social and economic issues surrounding American suburbia. The audience is shown suburban issues such as infrastructure, the environment, transportation, housing costs, the economy, and how the suburbs political power can influence the entire United States and its suburban landscape.
The documentary that we needed to watch for this essay is titled "Suburban America: Problems & Promise. " The movie is produced and directed by Ron Rudaitis, and its intended audience are students, community leaders, educators, as well as anyone who is interested in learning about the challenges that suburbs face, their history, as well as the role that they played in shaping the American society. The primary purpose of the documentary is to inform its audience about suburbia. The film briefly focuses on informing the viewer about the history of suburbs.
The continuing population flow from cities to suburbs, and the internal migration from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt have had significant social and political effects on American life. Additionally, the advances in science following World War II have had a profound impact on American society. In this answer, we will examine these three phenomena and their effects. The post-World War II era saw a significant shift in population from cities to suburbs. This migration was driven by several factors, including the availability of cheap land, increased mobility due to the automobile, and a desire for a more suburban lifestyle.
Despite this population exodus, Cleveland’s metropolitan population has remained stagnant over the past decade, and has actually increased since the 1950s (“Cleveland”). Therefore, as residents of Cleveland move to the suburbs, Cleveland faces an issue of suburban sprawl in the twenty-first century. This suburban sprawl has posed problems for Cleveland, as population decline within the city limits has diminished Cleveland’s economic status, causing drastic economic inequalities, such as differences in income and opportunity, between Cleveland and its surrounding suburbs. Since attracting more residents into Cleveland brings greater economic activity into the city, identifying the key factors that continue to fuel this substantial migration away from the city will help attract former residents back to Cleveland and reduce the city’s economic disparities. Although some may argue Cleveland has sufficiently invested in its community, I argue that Cleveland’s lack of investment into economic attractions and public resources, including housing, schools, and businesses, has caused suburban sprawl and population decline, as residents search for greater opportunities in the suburbs; this has driven stark economic inequalities
To conclude, while Sides did focus solely on the African American community, I personally would have liked if there was more inclusion of multiple ethnicities since urban communities are not made up of only African American families. Considering that Sides is tracking the development of urban communities over time, it would make sense to add the perspectives of other ethnicities besides those of the African Americans. It just seems narrow to focus on just one group of the urban community that is multiethnic. Besides that, Sides effectively tracks the development of urban communities between the 1900’s and 1970’s while also illustrating the hardships that African Americans faced when migrating west from southern
Zac Chambers July 14th, 2016 Sociology 230 Final Project Rough Draft Federal Highway Act of 1956 and Black Poverty This paper will analyze the extent to which the unforeseen consequences of the 1956 Federal Highway act negatively affected minority groups in the United States Citizens, specifically black neighborhoods. Since the construction of the highways took 35 years, the focus of this report will begin with the passing of the Highway act and last until the highway’s completion (1991) in order to include the full effects of negligent planning. This paper will discuss the displacement of citizens from their homes inside the United States, and attempt to examine the remnants of redlining in the U.S. The Federal Highway Act of 1956 was passed
The new development in progression today shows the idea of how marketable land around the city is and how diverse neighborhoods cause for better funding and better relationships between people of different ethnicities and cultures. Even though the Chicago Race Riots was a negative event, over the years its effects became positive. As a result of all the looting and burning down businesses, it gave the developers a chance to integrate new business ideas and housing plans to help advance the community in the future. This is one of the major historical events used today as a lesson taught to students to eliminate
Since transportation was easier and faster, people could live in the suburbs on the edge of towns. For example, queens outside New York doubled in size in the 1920s. By the end of the 1920s, more than 26 million cars were sold, and lots of new towns were created. Another advancement that is important is the development of trucks. In the beginning, trucks were old fashioned and had lots of flaws.
Gentrification is the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste. Real Estate investors usually take low-income places that they feel have a chance to prosper economically, and turn them into areas that attract the middle and upper class workers. In doing so they feel like the low-income areas will be safer and more appealing, attracting more people to visit and live there. An improvement to a poor district sounds beautiful, but is gentrification as great as it’s sought out to be? Many residents have their doubts about gentrification due to the idea that the costs of their living will go up and they will be driven out of their neighborhoods.
We as a country have been dealing with many social issues since the beginning when this land was founded. We have overcome many of them, but there is still that mentality that many people have, which is we are not all equal and that not all of us deserve to live here. There are some things that society has imposed on our lives that can’t be shaken off entirely. Planners look into all of these issues when thinking of how to help cities flourish. Urban poverty is usually found in the inner city which is called the zone of transition, which is just outside of the CBD.
There has to be a realistic solution that can be put into motion to benefit everyone involved. Referring again to his article “Is Gentrification All Bad?” Davidson argues that urban renewal, if done right, is not a monstrous custom that it is painted to be; nevertheless, he reasons that gentrification depends on who does it, how they do it, and why they do it. As a resident in New York, a city where gentrification is as widespread as the common cold in winter, Davidson speculates that those who go into a neighborhood with the intention to renovate houses, or abandoned buildings ought to have a good reason for it. The author points out that “Gentrification does not have to be something that one group inflicts on another…” (Davidson 349), rather, he suggests that everyone, the gentrifiers and the locals, be on the same page when it comes to developing their
Policies from HOLC and FHA approved of ethnic segregation and created many suburbs that clearly oppose their objective to address the imbalance in the community. Jackson criticizes how these programs “hastened the decay of inner-city neighborhoods by stripping them of much of their middle-class constituency” (206). However, while Jackson helps make sense of the role of the government in the suburban movement, Jackson sees that the process of suburbanization will slow down in the future. As more minorities entered the middle class, the proportion of minorities in the suburb will increase such that the stimulus to “white flight” will drop. In addition, due to limited availability of energy, high cost of land, credit, and