Seminar in Urban Problems: Student Thoughts on Solutions

Post #6: Inman p. 269-327

“In summary, improving urban education is both more important now than in the past and more difficult. It is more important because the economic consequences of leaving school without strong skills are greater than in the past. The work is more difficult because urban schools lack the human resources provided by middle-class students and their parents, and because they must compete for teaching and leadership talent to a much greater extent than they did in the past.” (p. 277)

We have saved the best (and most important) for last: education. Well, and crime, but I will explain later in the blog how I think the two are connected. As the quote says above, providing a quality education is not only more important now, but more difficult. Over the past year I have been working with charter schools in Tennessee to address this problem. At a policy level, improving education can be a daunting task. Even more daunting, teachers have to face even more issues of poverty, crime, hunger and cultural differences in the classroom. In this year in education reform I have walked away with one clear statement: one size does not fit all. Students, schools, teachers, families, school boards, cities and states are all different when it comes to education, and unfortunately, you have to think of ALL of these factors when making education decisions. The most frustrating piece of it all is that truly, our only priority should be the students.

In my work with charter schools I have had a glimpse into how broken our education system can be. The book mentions the issue of facilities and funding with charter schools. Charter schools were created to provide another public school option for families. They receive public dollars, but receive the autonomy to work differently in the school system. They may receive more freedom on teacher salaries, school curriculum and student schedules, but in exchange they promise to exceed the public school academic standards. Overtime we have seen that some charter school students do not outperform their public school peers. Most cases, they do. Charter schools are public schools who serve public school students, but unfortunately, over the years districts have become hostile to charters.

Here in Memphis specifically, MCS (now Shelby Co.) has been relatively welcoming to charters, but not exactly hospitable. For example, we have about 30 charter schools here in Memphis. Although they are a public school, they are not given a public school building to use. Some schools spend months searching for a suitable building for their school at a decent price. Charter schools receive their BEP (basic education program) funding from each student enrolled in their school, just as every other public school. Unfortunately, instead of spending 100% of this money on teachers, school supplies and daily operations of educating students, they have to spend a large percentage to pay for their school building. This is not the case for traditional public schools. Additionally, in Memphis, this BEP funding has been shortchanged for charter schools. Erroneous fees, unexplained with holdings, and even extortion have come into play to explain a missing percentage of BEP funding from charters. Our school district is taking away money from charter schools (STUDENTS) due to political prejudices. How is this helpful for our nation’s education problem? See the below video to explain this issue further:

Now the connection of education and crime. Did you know that there are people who base the size of prisons on schools? Whether it is third grade reading scores or high school drop out rates, there is someone out there who is analyzing this data to predict how many prisons our nation needs to build. Disgusting.

With our students focused on school, eager to attend college, and involved in a school culture that promotes citizenship and responsibility, they do not commit crimes. I firmly believe that a school is the first step to reaching into the neighborhood. I understand that it is not as easy as it sounds, but no one can argue that a great school encourages crime. Our students can change their futures, their families and their friends. By allowing them the opportunity to succeed they will encourage and influence others around them. Check out the link below to hear from a third grader who thinks the same thing:

http://www.prx.org/pieces/76849-building-prison-beds-based-on-third-graders-test

Post #5: Inman p. 201-268

“Widespread differences between groups who live in different settings might tell us something about the impact of settings, but it might also tell us something about the kinds of people who choose to live in such settings.” (p. 215)

As mentioned in our previous text, Crabgrass Frontier, we can learn a lot about people due to their choices in housing. Housing and neighborhood preferences can be a great reflection into the priorities of people. The chapter on race discusses the correlation of racial segregation and racial inequality. Some people believe that increased segregation leads to negative effects on minority groups, particularly African Americans. The majority of studies show that there isn’t a correlation between the two. Fortunately, racial segregation has decreased over the past few decades, but unfortunately, racial inequality has increased.

In the second chapter we learn about poverty programs. I find it interesting that these two chapters are back to back, because poverty doesn’t discriminate against race. All races and ethnicity are susceptible to the effects of poverty. I’ve mentioned Ruby Payne’s book about understanding poverty in a past blog, but I think it relates to this discussion as well. She talks in detail about the differences in generational and situational poverty. More often generational poverty can show trends in various races; however, situational poverty can truly be in any race due to it’s unexpected nature: a lost job, loss of a family member, life changing accident, etc. Poverty effects all races whether directly or indirectly.

When combining the thoughts of racial segregation, racial inequality, situational poverty and generational poverty, how can we find the roots of all of these problems?

 “Making Cities Work” has mentioned multiple times that we cities should focus on people and not places. This is the same for these two chapters. Race seems to still matter so much in our society due to the mindset of people, not necessarily the places they are living. People already have preconceived notions of their ideal balance of diversity within the neighborhood they would like live. As for poverty, we have seen that the most effective poverty programs are people focused. Early intervention programs show to be the most effective way to improve the outcomes of children, not public housing programs. When we focus on the people and not their place it seems that we accomplish more overall as a society.

Relating this to Memphis: Last fall I saw the “As I Am” short film from Alan Spearman. This is a heartbreaking and riveting short film about Memphis poverty, “what Obama didn’t see.” I watched this video over and over again, because I wanted to take in every screen shot and character. I want to know every person’s story. Are they experiencing poverty due to job loss? How many generations of their family have been accustomed to poverty? What programs are they using to alleviate the negative effects of poverty? I know that the video does not provide all the answer, but it does do one very important thing: it relates the problem to people. We may not know the root of all of their problems, but we know that if we try solutions that focus on people, rather than places, then we can hopefully see improvements.

Post #4: Inman 123-200

I have spent many hours pouring over apartment websites, driving in between leasing offices and touring show units. I feel as if I have mastered the apartment hunt throughout my 6 different moves in the past 2 years. I have come to discover that my living standards differ from some of my friends and even my parents. Some friends of mine refuse to live anywhere that doesn’t have a balcony in their apartment. Another requirement comes from my mother who believes stainless steel appliances are life and death decisions. Everyone has their own preferences in where they want to live, but more importantly, everyone has certain things that will deter them from an area. I have come to discover that it is easier to base housing decisions on your list of deterrents as opposed to your list of likes or bonuses. Although appliances and balconies are rather superficial ways to decide on a house, but price, location, age and maintenance costs are all very important to consider. When reading Chapter 5, I began to understand how important all of these factors are for a city.

When doing apartment searches I would automatically disregard certain places with a really cheap monthly rent. Why? Lower cost of housing is usually correlated with lower quality housing and unsafe neighborhoods. Although this is truly generalizing areas, after this reading I can see that cities need to understand this stereotype or generalization as well. Lower income housing can attract poverty and unskilled laborers. More importantly, lower income housing can deter skilled laborers. A city can obviously have both unskilled and skilled labor in their population, but when a city begins to provide lots of low cost housing the balance can become skewed. I would find it interesting to see the effects of a nation wide voucher to avoid this problem. Personally, I don’t believe it would work that well due to the high costs of transportation and the other factors of relocation. As we have seen in previous chapters, cities need to be reacting to people, not places. I believe that people who have established homes, communities, families and a sense of security in their homes would be reluctant to relocate, even if qualifying for a voucher. I think that people would need more incentive to put place on a higher priority than people.

The chapter on immigration didn’t necessarily provide new conclusions about the effects of immigration on cities, but it helped to provide facts to the arguments we hear almost daily. I have immediate family members who have immigrated from Mexico. My family would not be here in the United States had it not been for immigration. Throughout this chapter I found it interesting to learn more about the specific numbers associated with population growth/decline and wages. Aside from the numbers and graphs, I find the psychological effects of immigration to be the most interesting and plaguing to our society. The “peer effect” of immigration ties back to our previous topics of red lining practices and even our characteristics of suburbia. Our society puts an extremely high priority on the characteristics of our neighbors.

My solution to the peer effect of immigration is to provide more programs and services for immigrants regarding life skills, language classes and even culture immersion. If we provide more opportunities for immigrants to learn about our culture, then maybe there won’t be such a resistance to their presence. Additionally we need to provide more culture appreciation and diversity knowledge within our communities. If both parties can learn that diversity and new cultures can be a positive thing, then maybe we can change the perception that immigrants result in negative consequences. There are many schools and communities that pride themselves on their diverse populations. I believe that this is a new phenomenon, but I hope that it catches on quickly in many other areas. Diverse populations should be celebrated and not avoided.

Post #3: Inman 1-62/Wilson Article

When digging into this reading all I could think about is that no matter what, life is truly a balancing act. The authors discuss how policy makers need to balance racial issues and economic development. Well, how should we balance consumer cities versus skilled cities? What is the best way to balance initiatives that benefit rich people or poor people? In my life this balancing act is becoming even more apparent through education issues such as: qualitative vs. quantitative data, school culture vs. school performance, student opinions vs. parent opinions and many others. As I spend more time in the public sector I have learned to not only be aware of this necessary balancing act, but I have been spending more time understanding how others come to create, adjust and validate certain formulas for such balance. In short, I’m still learning.

“The best current evidence suggests that living in such a poor neighborhood does not by itself greatly damage an individual’s life prospects. Being poor and having access to poor public services do significantly impact one’s economic future, but living next to other poor neighbors does not. It is family and city resources that matter most”

I’m going to start off with one of the first quotes that struck me in this reading, because I believe it is one of the most important topics that anyone in public administration can discuss. A popular phrase in the education reform movement is “zip code does not determine destiny.” You can hear some more about what this means for education in the video below. I love that this can apply to all other aspects of government. The fact that someone lives in a poor neighborhood should not affect their economic outcome in life. Our cities, communities and leaders should have appropriate services in places to ensure that all citizens have equal opportunities.

This is where we get into the balance. I don’t think a city should focus solely on helping the poor at expense of the rich. I also don’t believe that a city (or any human being) should turn a blind eye to people in need. The Wilson article talks about how we have two types of discrimination: denying a certain group their rights and privileges and the milder version of not helping groups overcome their disadvantages. Unfortunately I this milder view of discrimination is widely practiced throughout our country. I have met plenty of people who don’t consider themselves racists, but they wouldn’t dare lend a hand to someone of color. I’m glad that Wilson has defined this act of racism for us, although it is disappointing to see so prevalently in our society. I believe that this idea of racism has to be dealt with before our country can move forward. My grandmother’s generation accepted the extreme form of racism, my generation accepts the milder form of racism, so maybe this means that my grandchildren will live in a country where everyone is truly equal.

Back to the balancing act…

The reading shows us that a successful city has many qualities:

• Must be self aware
• Attracts skilled workers
• Retains talent
• Responsive to market demand
• Policy based on people not places

My proposal for this great balance lies of course, in education. However, I don’t believe the answer is necessarily in a great public school system or quality school choices, but I think the way to achieve balance in the necessary city areas is to educate the public about what it takes to make their cities successful. Maybe the rich folks truly don’t understand how helping the poor could help them? Maybe the poor don’t understand how their dependence on welfare could be harmful to their children? What if an entire city knew how their city actually worked?

Yes, I am being too optimistic, but I believe it is a start in the right direction. In general, I hope to see our public more educated on the matters that affect them. Town hall meetings. Community discussions. Public education videos. Online discussion boards. The possibilities are endless on how to communicate with your community, but the trick is to find what works best in each one. Many people are dissatisfied with public services or policies due to their misunderstanding of them. Yes, sometimes people are truly unhappy with our leaders’ decisions; however, I feel it is worth a shot to take more time to clearly explain how these programs will benefit them. Actions of a community can be drastically changed with knowledge.

Side note: I found the Wilson article so interesting! It reminded me a lot of one of my most recent reads featured below. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the culture of poverty.

http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Understanding-Poverty-4th-Edition/dp/1929229488

Post #2: Crabgrass Frontier 157-305

I’m going to continue my blogging with more revelations, experiences and thoughts from the book and my travels. This post is dedicated to my new home, Memphis. In the past two years I have moved 6 separate times: 3 different apartments in Knoxville, 2 different apartments in Nashville and now my itty bitty house in Midtown Memphis. As the reading states, cars are important, but trucks are truly entirely more efficient vehicles. If it hadn’t been for my friends with trucks and patience, I may have my belongings scattered about Tennessee right now. In my many apartments I have experienced downtown living, campus living, urban living and of course, suburban living. See below for some observations:

Howdy neighbor!

It is true. Sometimes painfully true that a characteristic of city verses suburban living is all about how close you are to your neighbor, how similar all the houses are and how similar all the people are. Easiest to understand and experience in my many apartments was the fact that the further away I was from the city, the further away I was from my neighbors. This is even apparent in my downtown Knoxville apartments and my suburban apartments in Nashville. The Nashville apartment complex had bigger parking spaces, wider roads, larger hallways and more space between each apartment building. In Midtown I can’t leave my house without exchanging greetings with one or two neighbors, petting the dog my neighbor never puts on a leash and hearing the little kids play across the street. Even after just 6 months of living here I know my neighbors. In my 4 months of living in Brentwood (suburb of Nashville) I didn’t meet anyone in my neighborhood.

My second thought about neighbors is the amount of personality you get to see from your neighbors based on your location. I have always said that Memphis has tons of character and soul. I should correct that by saying: the central part of Memphis has tons of character and soul, but the suburbs look all of the same. As a new Memphis resident I could tell you all the differences between Central Gardens, Cooper Young and all the other little nooks of Midtown, but I couldn’t even begin to tell you how to distinguish between the suburbs. Why? Because the center part of Memphis is bursting with different colors, different housing layouts, gorgeous flowers, crazy graffiti and the houses are so close together that you can easily see the personality from each neighbor next to the other. The suburbs have brick, green grass and maybe an occasional wreath to distinguish a house wife’s taste in decorating.

Last, but importantly not least: city living provides different (sometimes crazy) neighbors. Living in the ‘burbs guarantees 99.9% of your neighbors are all the same (and sometimes still crazy). Maybe that is why suburbs are so spread out: if the neighbors are all the same why should you have to be so close to them? I’m not really concerned with the craziness level of my neighbors, but I do find that the issue of diversity is taken for granted in some places. When living in the suburbs of Nashville I think I went a few days without seeing an African American. In Memphis, the only way to not see a person of color is to close your eyes. How can people live in different cities and neighborhoods, but not interact with other races, languages and cultures? Why would you want to seclude yourself (and your family) from diversity? I know that some people don’t do this intentionally in their housing choices, but I find it painful to think that some people do. When asking my current landlord about the neighborhood before I moved in he made it a point to tell me where every black person lived on the street. What?!? That is NOT what I meant! After a few more experiences like this, I realized that most people of Memphis use color to define their city. This is something I’m still trying to wrap my head around, but after our reading this week I’ve started to understand why. Property values and mortgage rates have historically depended on race. The idea of defining a neighborhood, a school, a house or any public space depending on the race of the folks who are in it is something that isn’t even 100 years old. We still have generations of people who think this way.

Tidbits from a Tourist

I just spent the past week driving across the country from Memphis to Roswell, New Mexico. We traveled through big cities, little towns, and I think even a few ghost towns. Thanks to I-40, each town (even ones with 1 street light) had a gas station and a hotel. I never realized that these amenities (this word is a stretch for some towns) wouldn’t have began without the success of our interstate system.

Route 66’s Cadillac Ranch

I understand that Drive-In Culture helped to make America what it is today, but once again I have to point out why European culture is much more healthy. The epitome of Drive-In culture shock occurred when a friend of mine had her boyfriend from the Netherlands accompany her to the bank on his visit to the states. Like normal, she stayed in her car, drove up to the drive through lane, and put her check and necessary forms into the little carrier that travels all the way inside the bank. Her boyfriend was in shock at what just happened. Americans didn’t even have to get out of their car to go the bank! I didn’t realize how ridiculous this was until an outsider was so in shock about it. Why have we taken Drive-In Culture to the extreme?

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona. Maybe if our streets were as pretty as this we would walk around more often?

Post #1: Crabgrass Frontier 1-156

My first real experience and realization with the contrast of suburb and city was three years ago when I studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain. In hopes of improving upon my Spanish, learning about the Catalan culture and having a “home away from home” during my semester abroad, I chose to stay with a Spanish family during my time there. The usual expectation of different food, customs, and language had been on my radar for culture shock, but I never expected to encounter such a difference and true shock in actual living. Maybe I was naive or maybe at 20 years of age I thought I knew everything, but I never thought this culture shock would come from transportation, the arrangement of the city or my living quarters.

The first few realizations were the following:

• Our host parents live in the center of the city! We are close to all the bars, restaurants, plazas and even the beach!
• The apartment I will spend the next semester in is tiny. 4 girls, 2 host parents, a fat cat and a ridiculous amount of suit cases were already suffocating.
• City life means you walk places. Everything is nearby.
• City life also means you take the metro to anywhere not nearby. The red line was right outside our apartment, the Urgell stop to be exact.
• I know nothing about city living: my shoes aren’t made for walking a lot, I don’t know how to buy a metro card, and I don’t know how people live without a Walmart.

After a few days adjusting here were my additional thoughts:

• Our host parents were loaded compared to other host families. We had friends that lived 20 minutes outside of town. The size of your apartment didn’t matter, the proximity you were to the city did.
• To survive in the city you need supportive shoes.
• To survive on the metro you need to be fast, be aware and be open to cuddling up next to strangers, because EVERYONE rides the metro.
• Walmart doesn’t have anything on the little market down the street. I’ll skip big lines and coupons for that mercado any day.

So the initial culture shock (or should I say city shock) wore off with time, and I began to truly appreciate this new type of place to live. I soaked up all I could about the culture, the language and easily put on a pound a week with all the food I made time to appreciate. I had the typical study abroad experience full of fun memories, new friends, lots of traveling and an ungodly amount of money spent in just a few months.

In relation to this class and the past week’s reading, I should probably start discussing some major themes that I experienced as a Knoxville ‘burbs loving girl understanding why life is so different in Barcelona, and I’m assuming other urban cities. Here we go:

City folks are skinnier. Country folks are… well… not.

The fact that country people are bigger isn’t 100% correlated to the love of biscuits and gravy, but I believe, to the lack of getting lost on city streets. To survive in the suburbs you need a car. To survive in the city you need supportive shoes, a great ability to layer clothing (I went from freezing on the street to sweating in the metro in a matter of minutes), ability to walk a mile and not complain, because sometimes there just isn’t a metro stop close by and most importantly, the understanding that sometimes two feet can get you somewhere faster (and with less stress) than fighting a metro crowd. Due to our spoiled ways of the suburbs, many of my new study abroad friends and I would spend lots of time and money on the metro to avoid walking in the cold or even just walking in general. We were sad to realize that our first few days and weeks in Barcelona were spent mostly underground. We came to a new city to explore and see the sights, but didn’t want to put in the normal city effort to walk around. Sad realization that we quickly tried to change.

People value different things. Homes truly reflect that.

In Barcelona, apartments were small and families were close. The apartment was a place for families to spend time together. The city (your literal backyard and front yard) was your place for friends. Very rarely did anyone enter the apartment that wasn’t a family member. Anytime our host parents went to visit with friends they did it at a vacation home or a restaurant. I found this interesting, because back home we host dinner parties, invite friends over daily, and at least in my family, our family gatherings took place at vacation homes or restaurants. The time spent at our apartment in Barcelona was cherished, because our host parents made it such a sacred place. Yes, I do cherish my time in Knoxville with  my family, but I wouldn’t say it is a sacred place. People run in and out. I can be at home with my dad for an entire day and never see or hear him due to the size and layout of our house. I found it ironic that in the suburbs family is important, but you must always have the big house and big yard to allow an escape for those family members. In Barcelona, family is important and the house you live in makes sure that you are always a stone’s throw away to the nearest sibling or parent. I don’t know if it is fair to say that in Barcelona family was more important, but it was a more respected concept in my opinion.

Transportation is everything.

I chose Barcelona as my study abroad location, because I love the Spanish language, but more importantly, I thought I would have perfect weather. The year that I study abroad is the the same year that Barcelona has a snow storm in over a decade. Convenient right? Well, this snow storm affected all of the city’s transportation. I remember there being talk about the metro closing, buses would be delayed and best part, school would be canceled! Like a typical snow day in the ‘burbs, the city basically shuts down if transportation can’t operate efficiently. Unlike the ‘burbs, transportation delayed or inhibited wasn’t something celebrated for a day off, but it really was a debilitating event. In a culture where you buy your day’s groceries on your way home from work, this meant you really might not have a stock pile of food at home. In a community where the littlest children ride the metro and bus on their own, this was a huge cause for concern. In a city where everyone walks, icy sidewalks made it a struggle for everyone to get home safely (I remember falling twice on the way home from school!). I never understood the importance of transportation (buses, trains and the metro) to a city until you witnessed an entire city in fear of being without it.

Pictures above: 1. Cobblestone roads do terrible things to your feet. 2. Small apartment means that you can high-five your roommate from anywhere in the bedroom. 3. Small apartments also mean that you can talk to your host mom from your bedroom window to the kitchen window as she hangs your laundry out to dry. 4. You can’t hide the fact that you are American when you consistently fall on the metro when it starts and stops. First metro ride (pictured here) I stepped on an old lady’s toe.