The Spatial Reproduction of Inequality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon C.C. Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Other ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Reproduction Of Inequality

Chapter 5 turns to a more immutable element of biography that also defines the typical do-it-yourselfer: most are white, middle-class men and thus operate from a position of considerable privilege in society, including in public space and in interactions with authority. People of color and people from low-income communities, on the other hand, are heavily disincentivized from participating in activities that skirt legal boundaries due to common societal prejudices and inequality. Some informal urbanisms occur in communities worldwide (and among under-served communities in certain contexts), but members of legally vulnerable groups in American cities are less likely to break the law to make local streetscape improvements, even though their communities often need official investment. Interventions by privileged do-it-yourselfers and the cultural values they represent, while more appealing to authorities, can provoke unwelcoming receptions and unintended consequences in the communities they aim to improve.

scholarly journals A Critical Review of Bilingual Education in the United States: From Basements and Pride to Boutiques and Profit

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 14-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Flores ◽  
Ofelia García
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Immersion Programs ◽  
Middle Class Families

ABSTRACTIn this article we connect the institutionalization of bilingual education to a post–Civil Rights racial formation that located the root of educational inequalities in the psychological condition of people of color in ways that obscured the structural barriers confronting communities of color. Within this context, bilingual education was institutionalized with the goal of instilling cultural pride in Latinx students in ways that would remediate their perceived linguistic deficiencies. This left bilingual educators struggling to develop affirmative spaces for Latinx children within a context where these students continued to be devalued by the broader school and societal context. More recent years have witnessed the dismantling of these affirmative spaces and their replacement with two-way immersion programs that seek to cater to White middle-class families. While these programs have offered new spaces for the affirmation of the bilingualism of Latinx children, they do little to address the power hierarchies between the low-income Latinx communities and White middle-class communities that are being served by these programs. We end with a call to situate struggles for bilingual education within broader efforts to combat the racialization of Latinx and other minoritized communities.

Dispossession by Accumulation: The Impacts of Discretionary Arrests in New York City

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaurav Jashnani ◽  
Priscilla Bustamante ◽  
Brett G. Stoudt
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Young People ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Low Income ◽  
York City ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Structured Interviews

Low-income people of color have been shown to experience disproportionate stops, ticketing, and arrests within an order maintenance policing (OMP) approach to urban law enforcement. A small but growing number of studies have begun to explore the complex lived experience of police encounters within this approach—an important task given the significant consequences of such policing for individuals and communities. This article examines qualitative and quantitative data on incidents of discretionary arrest for low-level offenses, with a focus on young people of color. In-depth, semistructured interviews and focus groups, as well as structured interviews outside criminal courts across New York City, were conducted, offering insight into the scope and depth of impact that OMP has on communities of color. The authors’ analysis underscores how OMP can shift relationships to public space in ways that foster fear and social isolation, examines the varied responses of young people to an unwanted criminal identity, and suggests the importance of recognizing the cumulative nature of OMP’s collateral consequences.

A Conflicted Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 325-344
Author(s):  
Alison Hope Alkon ◽  
Yuki Kato ◽  
Joshua Sbicca
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Food Activism ◽  
Coffee Shops

We have used a food intersections approach to explore the ways that gentrification is enacted and contested. Food and gentrification are certainly linked in the popular imagination; media coverage of gentrification often references food businesses like coffee shops, hip takes on working-class or ethnic cuisines, and urban farms as symbolic of a neighborhood’s new up-and-coming status. And materially, these food spaces are often the first to open in a gentrifying neighborhood, making more visible the presence of whiter and wealthier residents who may have begun trickling in, and signaling to other would-be new residents that this space deserves their attention. At the same time, any strategic effort to address gentrification through food activism must begin by better anticipating the unintended consequences of alternative food systems and social entrepreneurial endeavors. This insight builds on critical food scholarship that encourages well-meaning food activists, particularly white ones, to be aware of macro-level social and economic processes of racism and economic exploitation that imbue them with privileges while constraining the lives of low-income people and people of color. We offer some tentative thoughts on strategies to address food and gentrification at micro-, meso-, and macro-scales, from individual actions to national policies.

Reproducing Tradition: Everyday Public Space in Popular Neighbourhoods in Mexico

2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-57
Author(s):  
Mauricio Hernandez Bonilla
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Great Part ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Spatial Expressions ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
American Cities

In Latin American cities a great part of the urban environment has grown through self-help processes leading to informal settlements. In the Mexican context, informal settlements are called “colonias populares” which means people’s or popular neighbourhoods. In the late 1960s Turner (1969) argued that popular neighbourhoods should be reconsidered as environments which are socially and culturally responsive to the needs of the inhabitants, as the architecture produced by low-income settlers is based on a system responsive to the changing needs and demands of the users. In these settlements the built environment is the result of the freedom available to inhabitants to take decisions and shape their own environment. This in turn gives place to a myriad of spatial expressions in which culture, identity and popular character are imprinted in both the private and public spaces. This paper explores these issues in the spaces between the dwellings in the public realm.

Ruler Visibility and Popular Belonging in the Ottoman Empire, 1808-1908

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darin Stephanov
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Group Consciousness ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Point Model ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
National Movements ◽  
Tanzimat Reforms ◽  
The One

‘What do we really speak of when we speak of the modern ethno-national mindset and where shall we search for its roots?’ This is the central question of a book arguing that the periodic ceremonial intrusion into the everyday lives of people across the Ottoman Empire, which the annual royal birthday and accession-day celebrations constituted, had multiple, far-reaching, and largely unexplored consequences. On the one hand, it brought ordinary subjects into symbolic contact with the monarch and forged lasting vertical ties of loyalty to him, irrespective of language, location, creed or class. On the other hand, the rounds of royal celebration played a key role in the creation of new types of horizontal ties and ethnic group consciousness that crystallized into national movements, and, after the empire’s demise, national monarchies. The book discusses the themes of public space/sphere, the Tanzimat reforms, millet, modernity, nationalism, governmentality, and the modern state, among others. It offers a new, thirteen-point model of modern belonging based on the concept of ruler visibility.

A descriptive study of the prevalence of psychological distress and mental disorders in the Canadian population: comparison between low-income and non-low-income populations

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Caron ◽  
A. Liu
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Canadian Community Health Survey ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
High Psychological Distress

Objective This descriptive study compares rates of high psychological distress and mental disorders between low-income and non-low-income populations in Canada. Methods Data were collected through the Canadian Community Health Survey – Mental Health and Well-being (CCHS 1.2), which surveyed 36 984 Canadians aged 15 or over; 17.9% (n = 6620) was classified within the low-income population using the Low Income Measure. The K-10 was used to measure psychological distress and the CIDI for assessing mental disorders. Results One out of 5 Canadians reported high psychological distress, and 1 out of 10 reported at least one of the five mental disorders surveyed or substance abuse. Women, single, separated or divorced respondents, non-immigrants and Aboriginal Canadians were more likely to report suffering from psychological distress or from mental disorders and substance abuse. Rates of reported psychological distress and of mental disorders and substance abuse were much higher in low-income populations, and these differences were statistically consistent in most of the sociodemographic strata. Conclusion This study helps determine the vulnerable groups in mental health for which prevention and promotion programs could be designed.

URBAN DISPLACEMENT AND LOW-INCOME COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN CITY FROM THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 06 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Knight ◽  
Mohammad Gharipour
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

How can urban redevelopment benefit existing low-income communities? The history of urban redevelopment is one of disruption of poor communities. Renewal historically offered benefits to the place while pushing out the people. In some cases, displacement is intentional, in others it is unintentional. Often, it is the byproduct of the quest for profits. Regardless of motives, traditional communities, defined by cultural connections, are often disrupted. Disadvantaged neighborhoods include vacant units, which diminish the community and hold back investment. In the postwar period, American cities entered into a program of urban renewal. While this program cleared blight, it also drove displacement among the cities’ poorest and was particularly hard on minority populations clustered in downtown slums. The consequences of these decisions continue to play out today. Concentration of poverty is increasing and American cities are becoming more segregated. As neighborhoods improve, poorer residents are uprooted and forced into even more distressed conditions, elsewhere. This paper examines the history of events impacting urban communities. It further reviews the successes and failures of efforts to benefit low-income communities.

The Help-Yourself City

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon C.C. Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Community Needs ◽  
Urban Political Economy ◽  
Important Trend ◽  
Do It Yourself

When cash-strapped local governments don’t provide adequate services, and planning policies prioritize economic development over community needs, what is a concerned citizen to do? In the help-yourself city, you do it yourself. The Help-Yourself City presents the results of nearly five years of in-depth research on people who take urban planning into their own hands with unauthorized yet functional and civic-minded “do-it-yourself urban design” projects. Examples include homemade traffic signs and public benches, guerrilla gardens and bike lanes, even citizen development “proposals,” all created in public space without permission but in forms analogous to official streetscape design elements. With research across 17 cities and more than 100 interviews with do-it-yourselfers, professional planners, and community members, the book explores who is creating these unauthorized improvements, where, and why. In doing so, it demonstrates the way uneven development processes are experienced and responded to in everyday life. Yet the democratic potential of this increasingly celebrated trend is brought into question by the privileged characteristics of typical do-it-yourself urban designers, the aesthetics and cultural values of the projects they create, and the relationship between DIY efforts and mainstream planning and economic development. Despite its many positive impacts, DIY urban design is a worryingly undemocratic practice, revealing the stubborn persistence of inequality in participatory citizenship and the design of public space. The book thus presents a needed critical analysis of an important trend, connecting it to research on informality, legitimacy, privilege, and urban political economy.

scholarly journals Racial, Gender, and Age Dynamics in Michigan’s Urban and Rural Farmers Markets: Reducing Food Insecurity, and the Impacts of a Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110133
Author(s):  
Dorceta E. Taylor ◽  
Alliyah Lusuegro ◽  
Victoria Loong ◽  
Alexis Cambridge ◽  
Claire Nichols ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Food Assistance ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Farmers Market ◽  
Assistance Programs ◽  
Nutrition Assistance ◽  
Nutrition Assistance Programs ◽  
Number Of Customers

In recent decades, the number of farmer’s markets has increased dramatically across the country. Though farmers markets have been described as White spaces, they can play important roles in reducing food insecurity. This is particularly true in Michigan where farmer’s markets were crucial collaborators in pioneering programs such as Double-Up Food Bucks that help low-income residents and people of color gain access to fresh, healthy, locally grown food. This article examines the questions: (1) What are the demographic characteristics of the farmers market managers, vendors, and customers and how do these influence market activities? (2) To what extent do farmers markets participate in programs aimed at reducing food insecurity? (3) To what extent do farmers markets serve low-income residents and people of color? and (4) How has the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) affected the operations of farmers markets. This article discusses the findings of a 2020 study that examined the extent to which Michigan’s farmer’s markets served low-income customers and people of color and participated in food assistance programs. The study examined 79 farmers markets and found that 87.3% of the farmer’s market managers are White. On average, roughly 79% of the vendors of the markets are White and almost 18% are people of color. Most of the vendors in the markets participate in nutrition assistance programs. Market managers estimate that about 76% of their customers are White and about 23% are people of color. Farmers markets operated by people of color attract higher numbers of customers and vendors of color than those operated White market managers. Almost half of the farmer’s markets started operations later than usual in 2020 because of the pandemic. More than a third of the markets reported that their funding declined during the pandemic. Moreover, the number of vendors declined at two thirds of the markets and the number of customers dipped at more than 40% of the markets. On the other hand, the number of people requesting food assistance during the pandemic increased in more than half of the markets.

scholarly journals Socio-economic constraints on camel production in Pakistan’s extensive pastoral farming

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asim Faraz ◽  
Muhammad Younas ◽  
Carlos Iglesias Pastrana ◽  
Abdul Waheed ◽  
Nasir Ali Tauqir ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Community Education ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Health Production ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Husbandry Practices

AbstractThe present research is aimed to evaluate the diverse husbandry practices, ethno-veterinary practices, socio-economic status and distressing constraints of camel pastoralists inhabiting desert (Thal) areas of Pakistan, where they maintain herds of Marecha and Barela dromedaries in extensive production regimes. For this purpose, 200 pastoralists were selected at random to fill out an on-site questionnaire. According to the farmers’ responses, it was perceived that their living status had improved in the last decades due to the progressive optimization of camel productivity and herdsmen responsiveness. In contrast, calf mortality rates, some traditional husbandry practices and the lack of market investments continued to be the major constraints affecting camel overall production. Ethno-veterinary medicines are widely applied as primary health care, thus influencing the general health, production potentials and relief of camels in the study region. With this scenario, concerned stakeholders and authorized institutions must re-evaluate the urgent needs of indigenous communities; their education and husbandry skills to promote economic/ financial support in low-income remote areas. In turn, traditional communities will be adapted to the changing socio-economic and cultural values with regard to camel husbandry and welfare. Current societal perceptions and demands within this livestock production industry, where camels are conceived as a sustainable food security animal, if accomplished to the highest possible extent, will increase effectiveness of the camel value chain and breeders’ quality of life will be noticeably enhanced. However, this success could be multiplied if government may devise community education, veterinary cover, marketing facilitates and interest-free small loans for pastoralists.

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