Urban Inequality in the United States

Urban inequality is a multidisciplinary field that incorporates political economists, geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians, who describe the existence of unequal opportunities in urban spaces. Inequality manifests in a growing gap between the rich and poor and the dominance of unequal opportunities and access across the urban landscape. Vulnerable communities, including the poor and racial and ethnic groups, can be the most impacted by inequality. While inequality exists everywhere, American urban inequality is traditionally understood as being more concentrated in spaces in proximity to a city’s central business district. Efforts toward privatization, increasing global investment, and urban redevelopment reflect trends in replacing social welfare with private capital, increasing the vulnerability of urban inhabitants, but also providing a glaring illustration of who is most effected. Given this, what has developed in urban spaces with cumulative racial, economic, and gendered disadvantages is a mix of cultural norms, but also survival strategies, networks, and resistance. Political economists and geographers are useful at describing how economic engines of cities influence urban policy, and in turn disproportionately negatively affect neighborhoods with less social capital. Sociologists, anthropologists, and historians are useful in recounting the specific historical processes by which segregation and deindustrialization, to name a few factors, led to the stigmatization of urban spaces. What develops are specific frames and connections to unequal spaces that result in new cultural norms and new relationships in city neighborhoods as they face transitions with increasing private development.