Unequal City

Chicago has long struggled with racial residential segregation, high rates of poverty, and deepening class stratification, and it can be a challenging place for adolescents to grow up. Unequal City examines the ways in which Chicago’s most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the law. In this pioneering analysis of the intersection of race, place, and opportunity, sociologist and criminal justice expert Carla Shedd illuminates how schools either reinforce or ameliorate the social inequalities that shape the worlds of these adolescents. Shedd draws from an array of data and in-depth interviews with Chicago youth to offer new insight into this understudied group. Focusing on four public high schools with differing student bodies, Shedd reveals how the predominantly low-income African American students at one school encounter obstacles their more affluent, white counterparts on the other side of the city do not face. Teens often travel long distances to attend school which, due to Chicago’s segregated and highly unequal neighborhoods, can involve crossing class, race, and gang lines. As Shedd explains, the disadvantaged teens who traverse these boundaries daily develop a keen “perception of injustice,” or the recognition that their economic and educational opportunities are restricted by their place in the social hierarchy. Adolescents’ worldviews are also influenced by encounters with law enforcement while traveling to school and during school hours. Shedd tracks the rise of metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and pat-downs at certain Chicago schools. Along with police procedures like stop-and-frisk, these prison-like practices lead to distrust of authority and feelings of powerlessness among the adolescents who experience mistreatment either firsthand or vicariously. Shedd finds that the racial composition of the student body profoundly shapes students’ perceptions of injustice. The more diverse a school is, the more likely its students of color will recognize whether they are subject to discriminatory treatment. By contrast, African American and Hispanic youth whose schools and neighborhoods are both highly segregated and highly policed are less likely to understand their individual and group disadvantage due to their lack of exposure to youth of differing backgrounds.

Cities around the world have seen: an increase in population and capital investments in land and building; a shift in central city populations as the poor are forced out; and a radical restructuring of urban space. The Unequal City tells the story of urban change and acts as a comprehensive guide to the Urban Now. A number of trends are examined, including: the role of liquid capital; the resurgence of population; the construction of megaprojects and hosting of global megaevents; the role of the new rich; and the emergence of a new middle class. This book explores the reasons behind the displacement of the poor to the suburbs and beyond. Drawing upon case studies from around the world, readers are exposed to an examination of the urban projects that involve the reuse of older industrial spaces, the greening of the cities, and the securitization of the public spaces. This book draws on political economy, cultural and political analysis, and urban geography approaches in order to consider the multifaceted nature of the process and its global unfolding. It will be essential reading to those interested in urban studies, economic geography, urban economics, urban sociology, urban planning and globalization.

Unequal City examines some of the dramatic economic and social changes that have taken place in London over the last forty years. It describes how London's changing industrial structure, particularly the shift from an industrial to a services-based city, and the associated changes in occupational class structure and in the structure of earnings and incomes, have worked through to the housing market and the gentrification of large parts of inner London. This has had major consequences for both the social structure and the built environment of London. It asserts that this transformation in London's industrial structure, from a city with a large manufacturing base to one based primarily on business, financial, creative and other services, is linked to a major change in its occupational structure. But, unlike much of the literature, which argues that cities like London have become increasingly socially polarised, it argues that London has become more professionalised and has a shrinking manual workforce. The changes in the industrial and occupational structure of London have been linked to changes in its earnings and income structures.; The dominant feature of London has been an expansion of its high earning groups and a marked increase in both earnings and income inequality. The growth of this expanded new middle class has had major impacts on the nature of the London housing market, particularly in the growth of home ownership, rising prices and the expansion of middle class gentrification across much of inner London. This has been paralleled by the growing marginalisation of the less skilled, the unemployed and various minority groups in the council sector. These changes have reshaped the social structure and social geography of London. They have made it a more unequal city. Unequal City relates to the literature on global cities. The book has a wide sweep and summarises a wide range of literature on occupational and industrial change, earnings and incomes and the housing market and gentrification. It provides a wealth of original data, figures, maps and tables and will be a valuable reference for anyone interested in the changes that have reshaped the social structure of London in recent decades.

Across the United States, Black people have shorter life expectancies than white people—reflecting structural racism and deep-rooted drivers of population health. But are some cities more equal than others? The elimination of racial and ethnic inequities—differences that are avoidable, unnecessary, and unfair—has been one of the overarching health-related goals of the United States for decades. Yet dramatic differences in health outcomes between Black people and white people persist, rooted in structural and social determinants of health. Nationally, a Black baby can expect to live four years less than a white baby. But mortality outcomes and inequities vary widely across cities. In Washington, DC, for example, the average life expectancy for Blacks is twelve years less than that of whites. But in other cities, mortality differences between races are less striking or nonexistent. If health equity can be achieved in some cities, why not all? This is arguably the most important health equity issue of our time. In Unequal Cities, Maureen R. Benjamins and Fernando G. De Maio gather a team of experts to explore these racial inequities, as well as the ten-year gap in life expectancy between our healthiest and unhealthiest big cities. Rigorous analyses give readers access to previously unavailable data on life expectancy, mortality from leading causes of death, and related Black-white inequities for the country's 30 biggest cities. The theoretically grounded essays also explore how characteristics of cities, including their levels of income inequality and racial segregation, impact overall health and Black-white inequities. The first book to specifically examine racial health inequities within and across US cities, Unequal Cities offers a social justice framework for addressing the newly identified inequities, as well as specific case studies to help public health advocates, civic leaders, and other stakeholders envision the steps needed to improve their cities' current health outcomes and achieve racial equity. A powerful call to action for health equity advocates and city leaders alike, this book is essential reading. Contributors: David Ansell, Darlene Oliver Hightower, Jana Hirschtick, Sharon Homan, Ayesha Jaco, Emily LaFlamme, Brittney S. Lange-Maia, Kristin Monnard, Nikhil G. Prachand, Pamela T. Roesch, Michael Rozier, Nazia Saiyed, Eve Shapiro, Abigail Silva, Veenu Verma, the West Side United Metrics Working Group, Ruqaiijah Yearby

Cities can be seen as geographical imaginaries: places have meanings attributed so that they are perceived, represented and interpreted in a particular way. We may therefore speak of cityness rather than 'the city': the city is always in the making. It cannot be grasped as a fixed structure in which people find their lives, and is never stable, through agents designing courses of interactions with geographical imaginations. This theoretical perspective on cities is currently reshaping the field of urban studies, requiring new forms of theory, comparisons and methods. Meanwhile, mainstream urban studies approaches neighbourhoods as fixed social-spatial units, producing effects on groups of residents. Yet they have not convincingly shown empirically that the neighbourhood is an entity generating effects, rather than being the statistical aggregate where effects can be measured. This book challenges this common understanding, and argues for an approach that sees neighbourhood effects as the outcome of processes of marginalisation and exclusion that find spatial expressions in the city elsewhere. It does so through a comparative study of an unusual kind: Sub-Saharan Africans, second generation Turkish and Lebanese girls, and alcohol and drug consumers, some of them homeless, arguably some of the most disadvantaged categories in the German capital, Berlin, in inner city neighbourhoods, and middle class families in owner-occupied housing. This book analyses urban inequalities through the lens of the city in the making, where neighbourhood comes to play a role, at some times, in some practices, and at some moments, but is not the point of departure.

A critical look at the political economy of urban bicycle infrastructure in the United States Not long ago, bicycling in the city was considered a radical statement or a last resort, and few cyclists braved the inhospitable streets of most American cities. Today, however, the urban cyclist represents progress and the urban “renaissance.” City leaders now undertake ambitious new bicycle infrastructure plans and bike share schemes to promote the environmental, social, and economic health of the city and its residents. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City contextualizes and critically examines this new wave of bicycling in American cities, exploring how bicycle infrastructure planning has become a key symbol of—and site of conflict over—uneven urban development. John G. Stehlin traces bicycling’s rise in popularity as a key policy solution for American cities facing the environmental, economic, and social contradictions of the previous century of sprawl. Using in-depth case studies from San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Detroit, he argues that the mission of bicycle advocacy has converged with, and reshaped, the urban growth machine around a model of livable, environmentally friendly, and innovation-based urban capitalism. While advocates envision a more sustainable city for all, the deployment of bicycle infrastructure within the framework of the neoliberal city in many ways intensifies divisions along lines of race, class, and space. Cyclescapes of the Unequal City speaks to a growing interest in bicycling as an urban economic and environmental strategy, its role in the politics of gentrification, and efforts to build more diverse coalitions of bicycle advocates. Grounding its analysis in both regional political economy and neighborhood-based ethnography, this book ultimately uses the bicycle as a lens to view major shifts in today’s American city.

This seminal edited collection examines the impact of austerity and economic crisis on European cities. Whilst on the one hand the struggle for competitiveness has induced many European cities to invest in economic performance and attractiveness, on the other, national expenditure cuts and dominant neo-liberal paradigms have led many to retrench public intervention aimed at preserving social protection and inclusion. The impact of these transformations on social and spatial inequalities – whether occupational structures, housing solutions or working conditions – as well as on urban policy addressing these issues is traced in this exemplary piece of comparative analysis grounded in original research. Unequal Cities links existing theories and debates with newer discussions on the crisis to develop a typology of possible orientations of local government towards economic development and social cohesion. In the process, it describes the challenges and tensions facing six large European cities, representative of a variety of welfare regimes in Western Europe: Barcelona, Copenhagen, Lyon, Manchester, Milan, and Munich. It seeks to answer such key questions as: What social groups are most affected by recent urban transformations and what are the social and spatial impacts? What are the main institutional factors influencing how cities have dealt with the challenges facing them? How have local political agendas articulated the issues and what influence is still exerted by national policy? Grounded in an original urban policy analysis of the post-industrial city in Europe, the book will appeal to a wide range of social science researchers, Ph.D. and graduate students in urban studies, social policy, sociology, human geography, European studies and business studies, both in Europe and internationally.

Cities are central to prosperity: they are hubs of innovation and growth. However, the economic vitality of wealthy cities is marred by persistent and pervasive inequality—and deeply entrenched anti-urban policies and politics limit the options to address it. Structural racism, suburban subsidies, regional government fragmentation, the hostility of state legislatures, and federal policy all contribute to an unequal status quo that underfunds cities while preventing them from pursuing fairer outcomes. Economist Richard McGahey explores how cities can foster equitable economic growth despite the obstacles in their way. Drawing on economic and historical analysis as well as his extensive experience in government and philanthropy, he examines the failures of public policy and conventional economic wisdom that have led to the neglect of American cities and highlights opportunities for reform. Unequal Cities features detailed case studies of New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles, tracing how their attempts to achieve greater equity foundered because of the fiscal and political constraints imposed on them. McGahey identifies key lessons about the political coalitions that can overcome anti-urban biases, arguing that alliances among unions, environmentalists, and communities of color can help cities thrive. But he warns that cities cannot solve inequality on their own: political action at state and federal levels is necessary to achieve systemic change. Shedding light on the forces that produced today’s dysfunction and disparities, Unequal Cities provides timely policy prescriptions to promote both growth and equity.