American Hometown Renewal: Policy Tools and Techniques for Small Town Officials by Gary Mattson

Author:Gary Mattson [Mattson, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, City Planning & Urban Development, General, Public Affairs & Administration, Social Science, Political Science, Urban, American Government, Sociology, Local
ISBN: 9780765639325
Google: M-VRDQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 29388470
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

Price Hill—An Urban Neighborhood Enclave

Within a Metropolitan setting, housing sub-markets are barriers to social mobility and housing choice through constraints imposed by price, location and subtle discriminatory restrictions. Traditionally, urban ethnic enclaves are viewed as being fostered by these discriminatory practices. In this context, urban enclaves are seen as spatial concentrations of people who share a significant sense of commonality. Urban enclaves are often densely populated with substantially older housing. These neighborhoods do offer economic opportunities that may not exist in the wider community. As Kleniewski (2002, p. 185) explains, “Newly-arrived immigrants without either language skills or capital” would find social support and entry-level employment “among their co-ethnic” countrymen, gaining an initial foothold into the U.S. economy. This is a classic explanation for Burgess and Park’s invasion and succession model of housing filtering. But not all urban enclaves fall within this category. Many contemporary urban enclaves are populated by well-established, multi-generational ethnic residents who share similar characteristics and circumstances. These urban residential neighborhoods are locations of familiar social institutions and selective private goods and services that appear to be provided exclusively to the indigenous residential, working-class population. The neighborhood’s boundary lines for these urban enclaves are often maintained by the network patterns of social institutions such as church parishes. Unlike traditional ghettos, modern urban enclaves are settlements by choice that represent residential self-segregation, which is not necessarily based on a foundation of overt discriminatory practices. Instead, these modern, urban, often working-class enclaves are tied to a commonality of social lifestyle manifested by similar income levels, lifestyles and religious concerns (Varady, 1986, 2005; Abrahamson, 1996, Ch.1; Cummings, 1998; Kefalas, 2003; Wilson and Taub, 2006). In this context, a commonality of the desire for close spatial proximity is manifested by the desire to certain ethnic residents to cluster together among friends and kinship ties for mutual support. In many respects, Cincinnati’s German Catholic Price Hill neighborhood was such an urban enclave for nearly a century.

Urban neighborhoods of a core city can be characterized as a collection of small towns, where cross streets of mom-and-pop businesses serve the local area. The streetcar community of Price Hill is such a neighborhood on the edge of western Cincinnati. It was once a thriving lower-middle-class area consisting of well-built two- and three-bedroom homes. For 70 years, this former German Catholic neighborhood was a highly sought-after neighborhood because of its five Catholic parishes. Like many other Midwest cities, Price Hill saw ethnic groups (Irish, Poles and Italians) filter into the neighborhood during the 1950s from more crowded inner-city areas. In the 2000 Census, Price Hill’s social network of churches, parochial schools, public facilities and mom-and-pop stores was still strong. Indeed, Price Hill was a typical white, ethnic enclave where parents lived until they died, and their children inherited their homes. It was a neighborhood where families sat on their porches on warm evenings to watch children playing in the streets. Few families anticipated leaving the neighborhood. For decades, Price Hill families forged a sense of place around the nearby factory jobs, the public institutions and the social networks.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.