Question

Using Concentric zone model, describe Jacksonville city in Florida.

Thank you.

Answer 1

The history of the black population of the United States in the tw·entieth century has been one of revolutionary change in terms of residence.. A predominantly rural, southern population has become an overwhelmingly urban, national population in the space of half a century. During World War I European immigration was cut off and southern blacks migrated to the nation's industrial cities in great numbers to fill the waiting jobs. This was the first of several major waves of black migration from the South that have helped bring about the great change. The mere listing of the dimensions of this transformation suggests that it is one of the most significant events of a very dramatic era in the life of the United States. Nearly 90 per cent of all blacks lived in the South in 1.900; the figure was not much above 50 pc~r cent in 1970. The black population was overwhelmingly rural in 1900. Now it is overwhelmingly urban, almost totally urban in the North. and over one-half urban in the South. The growth of the metropolitan, and especially of the central city, black population has been even more rapid than the general trend toward an urban, national black population. As late as 1910, no city had even 100,000 blacks; there were 25 such cities in 1970. Two of them, New York and Chicago, had more than 1,000,000 blacks in 1970. Scores of other cities had substantial, if smaller, black communities. Nearly 400 American cities had 5, 000 or more black residents in 19.70. Dozens of cities, including Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, had black majorities.

The incredible shifts in the distribution of the black population during this century have not been limited to the change in regional distribution and the movement to the cities. The distribution of black residents within the cities had changed significantly since 1900 as 'Ovell. Osofsky (1963), Spear (_196 7) and Katzman (1973) have described the relatively loose patterns of segregation that existed in New York, Chicago and Detroit, respectively, around the turn of the century. Small black population clusters were interspersed among working-class whites. Although black residence was restricted to limited areas of each city, there were no extensive homogeneous black neighborhoods. Taeuber and Taeuber (l966:19) note that in some southern cities the pattern of "alley dtvellings" was evident--blacks lived in small houses along the alleys behind the larger homes of their white employers. In the places where there were totally black neighborhoods, these were usually not very large. Th.e great black urban movement during the past six decades has completely changed these early housing patterns. Most urban blacks now live in large, overwhelmingly black neighborhoods that expand, block-by-block, into adjacent white areas. These huge, monolithic ghettos may contain hundreds of thousands of residents and cover dozens of s.quare miles.This pattern of large black communities expanding by a process of residential succession is now a truly national phenomenon with some southern cities exhibiting it as clearly as Chicago and Milwaukee. The above discussions of population redistribution and changing housing patterns would be merely interesting, if they were not associated directly or indirectly with a number of major social problems. The concentration of large numbers of members of a poor and highly visible minority in central cities, the expansion of their over-crowded ghettos into adjacent white areas, and the efforts of whites to keep their neighborhoods racially exclusive have led to crime, occasional severe interracial clashes and a number of large riots within the black areas. Spear (1967) documented the white intimidation and bombings in Chicago that were meant to keep the expanding black population out of white South Side neighborhoods, but actually culminated in the bloody 1919 race riot. Osofsky (l963) chronicled the degradation and problems that beset the "ideal" neighborhood of Harlem, when serious crow·ding set in during the 1920's. Frustrations born of those conditions we;re underlying causes of the 1935 and 19.43 Harlem riots. Interracial riots occurred during World War II as they had during the previous war. The worst of these left 34 dead in Detroit in 1943. The ghettos continued to grow during the 1940's, 19.50's and 19.60's. During this period Morton Grodzins (1958) observed that ma.ny of th.e larger central cities. were rapidly becoming heavily black and increas,- ingly poc:>r. Thi.s early storm warning and Grodzins.' pres.cdptions for halting racial polarization were not given the attention they deserved. The nati.on was ~inally made aware of the gravity of the situati.on in 1964. The lla,rlem riot of that year was the first of 1!\any major outbreaks during the next half-dozen years. These ghetto riots took well over 200 lives and caused tens of millions of dollars worth of dC1lll.age. The one feature that was conspicuously absent was large scale interracial fighting. The ghetto riots of the 1960's focused nati.onal attention on the problems of the black urban poor. However, an awareness of such conditions and the taking of adequate steps to rectify them a.re two separate matters. \fuile a few black families ha,ve been able to enter white areas away :!;rom the ghettos since 1960 and while there has been some overall improvement in the quality of black American life, the black poor population continues to grow in the central cities. While the frequency of disorders declined greatly after 1970, there have been some disquieting exceptions. In July 1975 there was a brief but extremely violent outbreak on the Northwest Side of Detroit. Stores were looted, and one white motorist was dragged from his car and beaten to death. Only quick action by the black mayor and counnunity leaders prevented a repeat of the massive 1967 disorder. In July 1977 there was a prolonged general electrical power failure in New York City. Thi.s. led to nearly 24 hours of massive looting in the black and Latin areas. of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Although there were only five.deaths, thousands were. arrested, damage may have exceeded that of the 1967 Detroi.t -riot, and New York may have experienced the mos.t intense single day of disorder in urban American history. During th.e fall of 1977, there was intensified racial tension on the South Side o:l; Chicago in the white neighborhoods near the racial f-rontier of Western Avenue. No large scale riot occurred, but the inauguration of a voluntary racial busing plan for Southwest Si.de schools and the demonstrations by whi.te parents kept the police busy.The 1975 Detroit riot and the New York blackout upheaval are significant for two reasons.. First, they serve as reminders. that the decline in ghetto violence after 1970 is not necessarily permanent, qecqnd, and just as unsettling, is the fact that many of the hardhit areas of Detroit, Flatbush and the Bronx's Gra,nd Concourse were definitely not lower class. areas only a few yea,rs before the riots. It is the expansion of poor minority areas that is the mos.t important is.sue facing our great cities, both. with. respect to the well-being of the low-income residents and in terms of maintaining public order.

One further recent indication that all is not well in major American cities is the aftermath of the surprise two-foot snowfall in Baltimore in February 1979. Large-scale looting erupted in the major ghettos to the east and west of downtown Baltimore, when it became apparent that the police had been immobilized along with the rest of the motorized traffic in the city. While the damage and injuries were not of the same magnitude as the toll of the 1977 New York blackout riot, this was clearly a major disturbance. It also reaffirmed the warning implicit in the earlier upheaval of the potential for violence among the growing central city impoverished populations. Most neighborhoods in metropolitan areas take freak blizzards and power failures in their stride; the sudden removal of social restraints from low income ghettos for even a few hours can result in widespread rioting and looting. 1he Chicago case underlines the fact that the expansion of major black areas by m.eans of complete racial turnover in adjacent \~Thite neighborhoods may be detrimental to all parties involved~ wi.th the exception of dew~gogues and panic-peddling real estate agents. The continuing threat of violence on the South Side of Chicago is only the most visible aspect of such. transitions. The disruptions in the lives of individual black and white families in racially changing neighborhoods. ca.n never be fully measured. The exodus of many community institutions from a changing neighborhood leaves a vacuum which. contributes to the already heavy burdens with which the area, has to cope. In the larger analysis, the central cities. and the nati.on as a whole are faced with the fulfillment of Grodzins' prediction: many large cities will be predominantly black~ impoverished centers of: mostly white, affluent metropolitan areas in the near future.Knowledge of the regularities found in the growth of major black communities is important in regard to many of the policy questions related to housing segregation and racial transition.