Amazing Grace
Jonathan Kozol
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This reading, it first talks about people living in South Bronx and how everyone is pretty much poor. Whether they go there with some money and leave with nothing. Many families don't have heat in the winter and it can get dangerously cold so they have systems in place to give families heaters or sleeping bags. This is where there is the largest amount of poor people but where the most segregation is. Five out of seven children get reduced lunch because they are classified as poor. But as the reading goes on Kozol writes about the different diseases that people get and what drugs they do. And even how unsafe it is to live there. He writes about the number of people that are killed every day. People even know what streets they can't go down at night because there's no escaping death. In this video below it shows the city and what bad shape it is in.
In this second part of my blog, I want to take a little turn and write about how South Bronx has changed and what the mayor has done to change it. In the 1970s the nation became a symbol of urban degradation and the city's neediest people. But then-mayor Koch put in a housing renovation program, fixing thousands of apartments and building new houses. There is always the concern for first-time homeowners not being able to pay their mortgage. Matthew Lee was a building superintendent and assisted with this by using the Federal Community Reinvestment Act to force banks into spending millions on fixing up the Bronx. Below is a link that talks more about what is being changed in the Brox nowadays.
NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT; Looking Back, Looking Ahead, Bronx - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
It is great that a place can start off so bad and make it hard for people to live in, but I am glad that people are trying to fix it up so it becomes a better place for people to live in and hopefully attract more people. What are some ways that people in the community could help with these projects? And what are some ways that people can find better paying jobs and get out of being one of the "poorest" in the Bronx?
Hi Sam! Wow - such an eye opening and thoughtful post! It is very challenging to wrap my mind around the circumstances that people in the South Bronx have lived and still live in, given that I come from very privileged circumstances. In my post, I wrote about the negative mental health effects in addition to the other physical, social and financial stresses that these unsafe conditions cause. I appreciate how you focused not only on the history but also how there have been efforts toward change that can hopefully continue to make progress - great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Sam! I really liked how you included serval images within your blog post. They stand out to me because the make me reflect on my own privilege.
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