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CHAPTER 12: HOUSING, EDUCATION, CRIME: CONFRONTING URBAN PROBLEMS

Summary

This chapter investigates the role of housing, education, and crime in shaping the quality of urban life. Such problems are often exacerbated in the city along with other social ills like ethnic and racial tension and poverty.

Housing: A Place to Live

12.1	: Indicate that choice of housing is a matter of economics and personal tastes

Millions of people, mostly poor and minorities, live in substandard housing characterized by structural defects, such as inadequate plumbing, heating, or sanitation. Obviously, people do not choose to live in poor-quality housing, but rather are faced with limited options. The reduction in the number of low-rent housing units, due primarily to cuts in government funding as well as landlords’ search for greater profits, has further expanded overcrowding and homelessness.

Housing problems are not new in the United States, but it was only during the Great Depression of the 1930s that the government took a first step to address them. Under the New Deal, the federal government (1) provided funds to promote the construction of new housing, (2) offered assistance to homeowners unable to pay their mortgage debts, (3) guaranteed construction loans to increase the supply of housing, and (4) hired unemployed workers to build low-rent public housing through the Public Works Administration. After World War II, the Federal Housing Administration expanded mortgage guarantees to veterans and moderate-income families.

The 1949 Housing Act also gave the government the ability to seize decaying properties and sell them to private developers for redevelopment. Boston’s West End neighborhood illustrates how such urban renewal projects can fail to provide affordable housing for those who need it most. Public housing has always been problematic in the United States. People see it as less efficient than private ownership and deplore the fact that it creates a concentration of poor, welfare- dependent minorities. In 1968, a new Housing Act provided an alternative to public housing by promoting home ownership among low- and middle-income families through loan guarantees and subsidies. However, corruption between government officials and real estate developers led to the failure of the program in the early 1970s. In 1974, the Section 8 program began to provide rent subsidies to low-income tenants in private housing. However, the program is severely underfunded, and many eligible people cannot benefit from it. The history of housing policies in the United States reveals that the economic interests of developers often dominated the needs of the poor, who have little to say in the decision-making process.

Besides a lack of affordable housing, some parts of the city suffer from serious deterioration and even abandonment of buildings. The relocation of economic activities and the outmigration of wealthier individuals toward the suburbs contributed to this phenomenon, as illustrated by New York’s South Bronx in the 1980s. The people who remain in the inner city often have low

incomes and are unable to pay high rents, cutting into landlords’ revenues for repairs and maintenance.

Although public programs to revive the city have been rather unsuccessful, two private movements have achieved some results. First, in the early 1970s through “homesteading,” local governments began to give buildings it had acquired to people who were willing to rehabilitate them and stay for a minimum of three years. Community groups and national organizations such as Habitat for Humanity began to organize to help people reclaim their neighborhoods or build homes. Second, through “gentrification,” wealthier individuals have renovated decaying areas of the city to be near administrative and professional jobs, benefit from some of the city’s amenities, or avoid the suburbs. However, gentrification often raises property values in the neighborhood and displaces the poor, while providing great bargains to real estate owners.

Today, city planners have become more aware of sociological principles and have promoted a “New Urbanism,” which places more emphasis on social spaces. Boston’s Columbia Point/Harbor Point neighborhood illustrates the importance of public spaces where people can socialize and create a sense of community. New Urbanism also emphasizes the importance of aesthetic elements such as water views, parks, and the need to integrate the poor in a community rather than isolate them in “project high-rises.” However, although more successful than traditional housing projects, New Urbanism tends to decrease the number of housing units available, requires large-scale investment, and does not address the socioeconomic roots of the public housing problem.

Education: The Urban Challenge

12.2	: Recall some of the obstacles that educators face

Schools in urban settings face a variety of challenges, often more daunting than those school districts face elsewhere. Immigration remains primarily an urban phenomenon, and whether immigrant or native-born, many students come from home environments where poverty, family instability, or poor health may limit educational success. The landmark No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 dramatically increased the role of the federal government in guaranteeing the quality of public education for all children. Prior to this legislation, most urban schools had a policy of social promotions. Cities actually have limited control over their affairs, including problems in funding schools. Magnet schools began as an alternative to mandatory busing, but their success in raising students’ scholastic achievements gained them even more popularity.

About 20 percent of U.S. students living in or around cities attend one of the nation’s more than 3,000 magnet schools. Another choice option in some school districts is to give parents a voucher equal to the state’s share of the cost of educating a child (usually about 90 percent of the average private school’s tuition); parents can then use this voucher to place their child in a public or private school of their choice. Charter schools are a recent alternative to traditional public schools, and in cities where a voucher plan exists, a major beneficiary of such payments. Charters are private schools that operate with less state regulation so that teachers and

administrators can try out new teaching strategies. In fact, some charter schools aren’t better than their public school counterparts. Critics note that many charter schools have weak curricula and teaching, substandard buildings, and financial abuses. Additionally, many are segregated along ethnic, racial, and religious lines.

Crime: Perception and Reality

12.3	: Report some of the factors that cause differences in perception of crime

Despite the recent drop in U.S. and Canadian crime rates, people perceive cities as highly violent and dangerous places. The media certainly contributes to this perception by emphasizing the rise in stranger-on-stranger homicide and juvenile violence. Despite a decline in the murder rate, an increasing share of killings is stranger-on-stranger homicides. Attitudes toward crime are a mix of facts and fears. Most violent crimes take place in cities, often growing out of street, school, or social club altercations. Crime statistics are notoriously imperfect. Discussions of crime always raise the issue of race. Contrary to popular belief, two-thirds of the arrests police make for serious crimes involve white people. Crime is largely intra-racial. The crime problem is worst in black urban ghettos.

Criminal offenses often take place in poor neighborhoods and black ghettos and are consequently more likely to affect low-income and black individuals. Social scientists have developed four explanations. First, Banfield (1990) argues that inner cities are characterized by a lower-class culture where crime thrives. However, critics argue that this type of culture is a consequence of poverty. Second, Herrnstein and Murray (1996) assert that the lower IQ of inner-city residents explains their irresponsible behaviors, including crime. Critics reject the validity of IQ tests. Others argue that racial and economic inequalities create alienation, resentment, and crime. Unlike the previous approaches, this third perspective sees the cause of crime not in the offenders themselves but in society.

A high incidence of crime in a neighborhood lowers property values and generates a climate of fear detrimental to the community. To solve these problems, urban planners such as Newman (1996) have argued for improved buildings designs in order to create “defensible space” which residents can easily monitor. Other strategies include street patrols by local citizens to complement police work and a tougher attitude toward crime. However, these proposed solutions are unlikely to eliminate crime in the long run unless economic opportunities in poor communities are improved.

Conclusion

While there is some reason for pessimism and concern, recent decades have witnessed positive signs of improvement in urban life. Many cities have also reduced crime, but whether this trend will persist remains to be seen. Similarly, time will tell whether the recent innovations in housing and education improve the quality of life and the life chances for all segments of a city’s population.

Suggestions

Readings and Websites

Jacobs, Jane. 1993. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House; originally published in 1961.
This book includes several chapters on urban problems.

Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
This book deals with racial residential segregation, its measurement, and its impact on urban life.

Timmer, Doug A., D. Stanley Eitzen, and Kathryn D. Talley. 1994. Paths to Homelessness: Extreme Poverty and the Housing Crisis. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
This book discusses the housing crisis and related phenomenon of poverty.

Tita, George E., Tricia L. Petras, and Robert T. Greenbaum. 2006. “Crime and Residential Choice: A Neighborhood Level Analysis of the Impact of
Crime on Housing Prices.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 22(4) (December): 299–317. A study of the impact of crime rates on housing prices in U.S. neighborhoods.

Zhou, Min. 2003. “Urban Education: Challenges in Educating Culturally Diverse Children.”
Teachers College Record 105 (May): 208–25.
A discussion of the challenges associated with providing educational services in culturally diverse areas.

Films

Streetwise. 1984, 92 minutes, directed by Martin Bell.
This dramatized documentary shows the life of children in the streets of Seattle and the dangers of cities.

City of Hope. 1991, 132 minutes, directed by John Sayles.
This movie exemplifies the despair and malaise associated with contemporary U.S. central cities.

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