Urban Sociology

Urban Sociology.  I did not know what to expect when i signed up for this class.  However, looking back over all the lessons and theories we discussed in class i have learned a lot.  I learned everything that separates the cities and the suburbs.  I also really liked this blogging idea.  It was very easy for me to learn while blogging about what we talked about in class and applying it to what i see in society.  This is what i did with all my blogging.  I learned everything there is to know about cities and why we have them.  I never knew the importance of cities and that they have always been the center around Urbanization.  It was interesting to see how Urban and Suburbs changed through out the time periods.  Starting with the first settlement found in the stone age through agricultural revolution, urban revolution, and industrial revolution which really change society.  This was the Rise of cooperation and how CEO companies began as i blogged previously before.  The development of technology helped society with new adaptations. The Highway systems were built which allowed easier transportation in and out of cities.  I learned that this is what created a suburb and allowed people to commute to the cities instead of living in them.  Highways were also built to keep the "poor" in the city.  We learned about what slums are and how they have a poor standards of living.  And we also learned that the world is in global proverty and how our society is based of a fake money system.  This class was a great class and i would recommend it to anyone.  And where are we today?  Today we are in transition and we do not know what will happen.  

The World going Corporate.

Companies get bought and turned over each year.  They can start out as a tiny little company and book into one of the largest distributers in the United States.  This is what happened in my fathers line of work.  He started working for a small electronic distributing company back in the late 1990's.  He build the Company up over the years to one of the largest distrubuters of electronics in the United States.  He helped build the company so large that the main boss sold it out to the pirates of a CEO company for millions of dollars making DBL now Income Micro. The truth is that big companies and little companies fundamentally do not get along. Big companies are worried about covering their back sides, while little companies are aggressive taking risks at every opportunity because they have relatively little to lose. Big companies are riddled with compliance paperwork and quality assurance matters that bog them down. Little companies fly by the seat of their pants " making executive decisions at every turn. 

The Urban Outlook on the Drug Policy

With Obama as our new President, the drug laws are beginning to change in the United States.  There new approach to the drug war epidemic is to not punish the abusers but tax them for their money.  But what would happen if they made some drugs legal, like marijuana.  The United States would be a lot similar to Europe and the rest of the worlds drug policies.  Society would then be fined if they where caught with the marijuana instead of being arrested.  This is an example of Global Finance.  With the Government taxing everybody it would become decriminalized.  Also it would regulate trade with-in society.  Trade regulation are laws made by congress to ensure a free and competitive economy.  With marijuana being regulated it would then be taxed which would make society not want it as much.  

Mr. Money Bags.

It seems that for many people in today's society, money has become the thing they most cherish. It is apparent in the endless hours many people devote to their job. For some, their identity is wrapped into how much money they have.  Money may be the only thing they even want to talk about, or the measure by which they judge themselves and others. With the constant talk of how to make money, or save money,Money is the driving force behind everything in modern society today.  A paper bill can have a value of up to five hundred dollars or even a thousand (if there are such things if thousand dollar bills).  But to be completely honest, money does make the world go round.  With-out money, the world could not function as a whole.  

How does this work if we are sending money to another country?  We all know "snail mail" is very slow, so how can we "wire" somebody money? Often we send money around the globe, but there is no 'real' money.  This Global Financial Service allows society to spend with out actually having the money.  Examples are even credit cards, debit cards, and systems like Pay Pal.  Pay Pal is a way individuals can send and receive money online.  Systems like these can be good and bad.  

They are bad in such that the banks allow over drafting.  This allows banks to make more money off of interest and fees making society pay when they run out of so called real money.  It is good because it will not take days and weeks to send money from place to place.  Money can just magically appear on a card but just saying a few words (to the bank).  The world is really like monopoly when you think about it.  Its all the buying and selling with paper, fake money that society just functions off of.  

In the Ghetto

Slums and Ghetto's are very similar.  However, there big difference is that Ghettos are enforced.  But what exactly is a Ghetto? A Ghetto is a negative, enforced living place in a expanded area.  They started in the middle ages when all ethnic groups were segregated due to their jobs, religion and status.  The United States got their Ghetto idea from Poland who had the first known Ghetto area.  While in the United States, Jews were the first considered "Ghetto.  The Jew Ghetto started not because of Hitler, it was to control the Jews.  This was because "authority was opposing single segregation" during WWII.  Now besides cities like Camden and newark, the only old school ghetto's still existing are China Town in NYC and little Italy.  

After learning about the original Ghetto i became rather confused.  I always though that a Ghetto was where, not to be politically incorrect, where blacks and Hispanics lived.  I always knew a Ghetto was a hard life, but it seemed to be a place for gangsters and violence.  Many music rappers today rap about coming from the ghetto.  Is this what Ghettos have turned into?  It seems to me that Ghetto's are unsafe and have drugs and violence happening all around.  Also a lot of the new Ghetto population refer to themselves as living in the "hood."  

Its funny, did you know Oprah Winfrey grew up in the Ghetto?  However, she quoted that “I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.”  Also Ghetto is now a way to describe a person.  Somebody could be "so Ghetto" or "thats Ghetto."  Also you are not considered a "thug" unless your from the Ghetto.  Sorry kids.

Slums

When people here the words slum they think of the cities in India that have poor standards of living.  A slum is defined when a city has massive amounts of pollution, insecure tenure, inadequate infrastructures, over crowding, and poor housings.  Many of theses areas are so poor that they become shanti towns.  Over 78 percent of the worlds urban population is living in the slums.  That is eight of every ten people!  


In many slums, especially in poor countries, many live in very narrow alleys that do not allow vehicles (like ambulances and fire trucks) to pass. The lack of services such as routine garbage collection allows rubbish to accumulate in huge quantities. The lack of infrastructure is caused by the informal nature of settlement and no planning for the poor by government officials. Additionally, informal settlements often face the brunt of natural and man-made disasters, such as landslides, as well as earthquakes and tropical storms. Fires are often a serious problem.[16]
Many slum dwellers employ themselves in the informal economy. This can include street vending, drug dealing, domestic work, and prostitution. In some slums people even recycle trash of different kinds (from household garbage to electronics) for a living - selling either the odd usable goods or stripping broken goods for parts or raw materials.
Slums are often associated with Victorian Britain, particularly in industrial, northern towns. These were generally still inhabited until the 1940s, when the government started slum clearance and built new council houses. There are still many examples left of former slum housing in the UK, however they have generally been restored into more modern housing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum

The true side of life in the slums where showed by an indie movie "Slumdog Millionaire." It was about a young boy who goes on the famous show 'Who wants to be a millionaire.'  He ends up answer all the questions on the show right.  Most of the India society is suprised by this notion because this is a young man who grew up in the slums.  The show thinks he is cheating and he becomes questioned.  The movie shows how he received all the answers through growing up in the slums of India.  The movie was originate from the same as the book.  The movie portrayed the poor lifstyle that is partaking in India and other countries today.  

City Crime Reduction

Cities are considered dangerous places to live for one main reason, their crime rate.  The crime rate in cities are predicted to be twice the rate of suburbia life.  In the 1990's New York City wanted to do something to change this.  So they went to work to device a plan to clean up the streets of New York.

In 1994, the New York City Police Department introduced its “Comstat” system—a crime analysis, strategy development, and management accountability process that relies heavily on crime mapping data. Departments across the country have attempted to replicate its purported successes.  (http://www.macrimeanalysts.com/articles/historyofcrimeanalysis.pdf).

This is what started the huge change in the city.  Crime rate has dropped tremendously in the last few years by cleaning up the streets and lowering the crime rate.  Today i actually happened to see the Newark Police Commissioner, Gary McCarthy, speak at Fairleigh Dickinson University.  He originally started as an officer in New York City and was head of three different precincts,20th on the Upper East Side, 33 rd in Washington Heights, and 70th in Flatbush.  He even was a part in the huge Washington Heights drug bust and closed one of the biggest drug trafficking houses in this half of the country.  He then became the principal crime strategist for the department.  The Police Department saw a progressive decline in murders in this time. Starting in 2005, the 540 recorded murders were the lowest in New York City's history has seen since 1963. In September of 2006, Garry F. McCarthy was sent to lead the Newark Police Department and clean up the Newark Streets.  Newark has seen a significant reduction in crime also in the past few years. Murders are now down 14%, shootings are down 29% and overall crime is down 24%.  He has put away ten out of eleven people on Newark's most wanted list and has help convey plans to start making the streets safe.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cscity.pdf

At that website we can how the crime in New York City has decreased over the past decade.  It shows crime from murder, to rape, even to shootings and compares them from date to date.