ECONOMIC AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC
The link between economic development and urbanization can be observed through various concepts like economic base, growth pole theory and industrial development. Economic base studies associate growth with the sale of goods outside the community, typically manufactured products. Whereas, growth pole theory ties socioeconomic expansion to the expertise of large urban areas in providing self-generating expansion (Hartshorn 1996). The concept of industrial development explains the growth which is the result of the exports of goods that is the product of mass production.
The readings in module of Socio-Economic mainly addresses the issues which shapes the social conditions in the communities due to the economic segregation and racial discrimination. The economic factor drives the social condition in the community, for instance earlier the central cities were the areas where all the economic activities used to take place. But due to decentralization manufacturing and service based jobs towards suburbs led to displacement of the middle class and the upper class to the suburbs in search of job opportunities and better standard of living condition. In this process, the poor people who couldn’t afford to move to suburbs were left behind in the central city without jobs which is also referred as concentrated poverty.
The urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance were the results of socio-economic forces. The major actors in the suburbanization of American cities where the Federal funds and grants which were provided for the making the interstate highways and the mass production of private vehicle like cars by the automobile industry. These two things coupled with the loan money provided by the Federal Housing Administration to buy new houses facilitated people to spread and settle wherever they wanted away from the crowded cities. This was possible only for the affluent whites which led to the socio-economic segregation among the people. The housing loans were also provided to a specify class of people resulting the socio-economic discrimination. The gap between the rich and poor started widening and there were no signs of addressing or resolving this issues. The unemployed condition of poor people left in the central cities gave rise to social issues like increasing crime, drug trafficking, closing of schools and increased number of vacant houses making the neighborhood less safe for living or even to visit.
John M. Quigley, a distinguished professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley explains Urban Economics by emphasizing on the spatial arrangements of households, firms, and capital in metropolitan areas; the externalities which arise from the proximity of households and land uses; and the public policy issues which arise from the interplay of these economic forces (Quigley 2008). These conditions are evident in the today’s cities where the driving factor of economic for North-east and mid-west of the United States has changed from the manufacturing industries to the service based.
The readings in module of Socio-Economic mainly addresses the issues which shapes the social conditions in the communities due to the economic segregation and racial discrimination. The economic factor drives the social condition in the community, for instance earlier the central cities were the areas where all the economic activities used to take place. But due to decentralization manufacturing and service based jobs towards suburbs led to displacement of the middle class and the upper class to the suburbs in search of job opportunities and better standard of living condition. In this process, the poor people who couldn’t afford to move to suburbs were left behind in the central city without jobs which is also referred as concentrated poverty.
The urban issues such as crime, education, public transit, housing, and local government finance were the results of socio-economic forces. The major actors in the suburbanization of American cities where the Federal funds and grants which were provided for the making the interstate highways and the mass production of private vehicle like cars by the automobile industry. These two things coupled with the loan money provided by the Federal Housing Administration to buy new houses facilitated people to spread and settle wherever they wanted away from the crowded cities. This was possible only for the affluent whites which led to the socio-economic segregation among the people. The housing loans were also provided to a specify class of people resulting the socio-economic discrimination. The gap between the rich and poor started widening and there were no signs of addressing or resolving this issues. The unemployed condition of poor people left in the central cities gave rise to social issues like increasing crime, drug trafficking, closing of schools and increased number of vacant houses making the neighborhood less safe for living or even to visit.
John M. Quigley, a distinguished professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley explains Urban Economics by emphasizing on the spatial arrangements of households, firms, and capital in metropolitan areas; the externalities which arise from the proximity of households and land uses; and the public policy issues which arise from the interplay of these economic forces (Quigley 2008). These conditions are evident in the today’s cities where the driving factor of economic for North-east and mid-west of the United States has changed from the manufacturing industries to the service based.