Essay: how someone’s location and economic status directly affect many aspects of their life

This chapter was heavy in material and information regarding how someone’s location and economic status directly affect many aspects of their life. The author starts by connecting how urban poverty is an issue that is cause for many of society’s problems. For starters, many of what individuals consider “good jobs” are located outside of city centers because of the stigma of crime and drugs that stereotype many cities in the united states. This has caused a shift in where people live. The affluent move to suburbs for better jobs while leaving many unemployed in the urban areas. The affluent people who relocate often use the cover of “a better school” or “a neighborhood with less crime” as a cloak for the discrimination of minorities and a way to move to the suburbs. This often causes companies to use a practice called redlining. Whether intentional or not, redlining has led to the urban poor and minorities not being able to access the same type of loans or mortgages as other groups. The author draws conclusion to this as a system that makes the poor and minorities pay more. With the company and profit moving out of urban areas, many adverse effects happen. From schools to hospitals to housing, a disproportionate system has been established to favor a certain group. A main point that I took from the reading is how many are set up to fail from the beginning.
The author continues the chapter with discussing the burst of the housing bubble and the domino effect that the government has played in the decline of quality of life for many in urban cities. From under funding infrastructure to defunding schools in cities, it seems the government has had a bigger hand in affecting people’s lives than I had originally thought. The author goes on to explain how the war on drugs is disproportionately made to criminalize minorities. This is backed up by statistical date used in the reading that illustrates just how backwards our system really is.
Our cities currently have huge holes in them caused by companies and government unfairly (intentional or not) favoring certain groups or social classes. They don’t seem to be investing in ways to grow communities in cities and truly tackling the main problems outlined in the reading. That being said, there is a move back toward city’s recently. This is caused by the general appeal of suburbs shrinking., With more people not being able to pay mortgages, why pay more for housing further away from where one works? This has caused investors to build communities focused around living, eating, and working near the same area. This shift has caused gentrification of many areas around cities that were previously perceived as a place just for the very poor. With this change, a sense of community can also be lost while the gap between have and have nots grows larger.
The author closes out the chapter with focusing on rural America. From environmental factors to hospital and drugs, rural America is faced with similar problems that cities and suburbs face. After digesting the chapter, I believe that the main idea of the pages is that where someone lives and grows up affects all aspects of their life; maybe without them even realizing it. One question I still have after reading this chapter is how does one escape the grips of the seemingly preplanned course for their lives? Through education or another source of intellectual freedom? I hope to further ponder these questions in this course and am excited to continue expanding my thinking of our society and the world.