scholarly journals From gentrification to re-urbanization : the expanding terrain of socio-spatial inequality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey J. Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Sustainability ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
World Cities ◽  
Revenue Growth ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Urban Neighbourhoods ◽  
Post Industrial

This paper examines a confluence of factors and consequence linked to changing socio-economic and spatial arrangements in the post-industrial globalized city. Neo-liberal urban governance and the influence of evolved capitalist economic and cultural structures have altered the demographic landscape of many cities. Urban neighbourhoods are increasingly exclusive to the middle and upper classes, as state support for low-income populations wanes in favour of revenue growth and a fixation on image. Gentrification has expanded geographically, and is often promoted by policy with little regard for gradual but substantial displacement of the poor. These patterns are epitomized in large 'world cities' such as New York, London, and Toronto that are the financial and cultural centresof their region; the conditions are mergent in a growing number of cities worldwide. If government are to prevent standardization of these processes and commit to measures for social sustainability, they must first demonstrate greater capacity for intervention in market-based inequalities.

scholarly journals From gentrification to re-urbanization : the expanding terrain of socio-spatial inequality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey J. Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Sustainability ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
World Cities ◽  
Revenue Growth ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Urban Neighbourhoods ◽  
Post Industrial

This paper examines a confluence of factors and consequence linked to changing socio-economic and spatial arrangements in the post-industrial globalized city. Neo-liberal urban governance and the influence of evolved capitalist economic and cultural structures have altered the demographic landscape of many cities. Urban neighbourhoods are increasingly exclusive to the middle and upper classes, as state support for low-income populations wanes in favour of revenue growth and a fixation on image. Gentrification has expanded geographically, and is often promoted by policy with little regard for gradual but substantial displacement of the poor. These patterns are epitomized in large 'world cities' such as New York, London, and Toronto that are the financial and cultural centresof their region; the conditions are mergent in a growing number of cities worldwide. If government are to prevent standardization of these processes and commit to measures for social sustainability, they must first demonstrate greater capacity for intervention in market-based inequalities.

scholarly journals The smart grid as a security device: Electricity infrastructure and urban governance in Kingston and Rio de Janeiro

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802098571
Author(s):  
Francesca Pilo’
Keyword(s):  
Smart Grid ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Smart Grids ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
Technical Failure ◽  
Spatial Inequalities ◽  
Urban Security ◽  
Security Device

This article aims to contribute to recent debates on the politics of smart grids by exploring their installation in low-income areas in Kingston (Jamaica) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). To date, much of this debate has focused on forms of smart city experiments, mostly in the Global North, while less attention has been given to the implementation of smart grids in cities characterised by high levels of urban insecurity and socio-spatial inequality. This article illustrates how, in both contexts, the installation of smart metering is used as a security device that embeds the promise of protecting infrastructure and revenue and navigating complex relations framed along lines of socio-economic inequalities and urban sovereignty – here linked to configurations of state and non-state (criminal) territorial control and power. By unpacking the political workings of the smart grid within changing urban security contexts, including not only the rationalities that support its use but also the forms of resistance, contestation and socio-technical failure that emerge, the article argues for the importance of examining the conjunction between urban and infrastructural governance, including the reshaping of local power relations and spatial inequalities, through globally circulating devices.

scholarly journals The Price of Poverty: Policy Implications of the Unequal Effects of Monetary Sanctions on the Poor

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Ilya Slavinski ◽  
Kimberly Spencer-Suarez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Federal State ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Time Requirements ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Set Up

Over the last several decades, with the rise of mass incarceration in the United States and its steep costs, governments at the federal, state, and local levels have dramatically ramped up monetary punishment. Monetary sanctions are now the most common type of criminal penalty in the United States. The growth of fines, fees, and other legal financial obligations (LFOs), and the ensuing legal debt, reflect a shifting of the system’s costs onto its primarily low-income and indigent subjects. This study provides an exploration of previously underexamined ways in which monetary sanctions impose distinct burdens on the poor. Interviews with 121 defendants in Texas and New York, along with courtroom observations, demonstrate that criminal legal debt is particularly challenging for people with low incomes in three meaningful ways. First, systems set up to handle indigency claims do not adequately address the needs or complex individual circumstances of those who simply do not have the ability to pay. Oftentimes, alternatives are unavailable or statutorily prohibited. Second, the lack of alternatives to payment lead to compromising situations, which then compel indigent defendants to make difficult choices about how to allocate scant resources. Finally, being encumbered with fines and fees and participating in alternatives like community service comes with taxing time requirements that can prove uniquely challenging for those who are poor. These three findings lead us to propose a series of policy recommendations revolving around three key themes: (a) enhancement of indigency procedures, (b) equity in monetary sanctions, and (c) alleviating burdens by improving accessibility.

The Almost Homeless

1989 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Delmos Jones
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Low Income ◽  
York City ◽  
Teenage Pregnancy ◽  
School Dropout ◽  
Housing Project ◽  
Daily News ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poor Children

A recent report by the U. S. Conference of Mayors noted that "Homelessness is the greatest single problem facing poor children in New York City" (Daily News, Oct. 28, 1988). As more about the report was made public, it became evident that the poor face problems other than homelessness. These involve problems with child care, drugs, school dropout, jobs, and teenage pregnancy. But these same problems are experienced by many people with shelter, and this makes homelessness only one part of a much larger social problem. This essay will focus on the "almost homeless," low-income and working class neighborhoods of New York City. People living in such neighborhoods are related to the homeless in several ways. Some of the residents of such areas stand the risk of becoming homeless themselves, and the residents of these areas often object strongly to any proposed housing project that would benefit the homeless. Any solution to the problem of homelessness must confront and improve the living conditions in these marginal communities.

PAR Method

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Billies
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Context Analysis ◽  
Gender Nonconforming ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender

The work of the Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative (WWRC), a participatory action research (PAR) project that looks at how low income lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming (LG-BTGNC) people survive and resist violence and discrimination in New York City, raises the question of what it means to make conscientization, or critical consciousness, a core feature of PAR. Guishard's (2009) reconceptualization of conscientization as “moments of consciousness” provides a new way of looking at what seemed to be missing from WWRC's process and analysis. According to Guishard, rather than a singular awakening, critical consciousness emerges continually through interactions with others and the social context. Analysis of the WWRC's process demonstrates that PAR researchers doing “PAR deep” (Fine, 2008)—research in which community members share in all aspects of design, method, analysis and product development—should have an agenda for developing critical consciousness, just as they would have agendas for participation, for action, and for research.

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