Blog Response # 12

I have to admit that I am glad that we are done with Sampson's book and that this is our last blog response, with the exception of posting our final presentations. Sampson's book is definitely not easy to read, as I came to realize, however, from what I was able to get out of it, I found it to be quite informative and interesting. It definitely gives you a lot to think about. Now to tackle the questions for this blog response:

1. What is a 21 century neighborhood? 

Well that is a hard question to answer, because it greatly depends on where you are. Even in big cities like Chicago and Las Vegas, or even Salt Lake City, it greatly depends on what part of the city you are visiting. I could discribe what my neighborhood I grew up in Las Vegas looked like then and what my neighborhood in Toquerville looks like now, but to try to describe just in general what a 21st century neighborhood looks like, I am not sure how I can.

2. how tied is it to the past? Why?

Well once again the answer to this quest depends on where you are and what neighborhood you are referring too. For example, here in Utah, many neighborhoods are very tied to the past because of the very old pioneer homes, many of which are still lived in today or are museums, house other businesses, or are listed as historic landarks. Therefore, this question is very difficult to answer just in general terms as well.

3. What will a 22nd-century neighborhood look like? 

Since I don't live in the 22nd century, I have absolutely no clue what a  22nd Century neighborhood would look like. I would like to think that it would look very different and hopefully nicer tthen the neighborhoods today, but I just really don't know. In so many ways the answer to this question also greatly depends on where you are as well.

4. Is community dying, thriving, or just bumbling along, about the same now as always?

This is an interesting question because communities are so contrastingly different everwhere. I think some communities are thriving more then others, but I don't know whether and communities would be classified as dying per say. I think that generally speaking, for the most part, most communities are fumbling along the same as always.

Research Update:

As far as my research is concerned, I am still trying to decide for sure exactly how I want to form my presentation, but I have researching how art programs can positively effect developing communities.I think I could create a very insightful presentation on this topic.

Blog Response #11

I have found Sampson's Chapter 16 to be quite interesting. The economic crisis in 2008, gave me a lot to think about, as I am sure that it did for most people. I was so amazed especially in the drop in the housing market and the high number of home foreclosures. I have personally known many people who were hit hard by the economic crisis and were forced into home forclosure. I know many people who lost jobs and were hit with major hard times because of that. It was not a good situation for anyone, whether they lived in Las Vegas, Nevada or Chicago., Illinous.

I found another article entitled "Chicago and the Financial Crisis" A report by the Finance 200 class at Roosevelt University. It is a report of a research project down by the class, to study Chicao and the effects of the financial crisis. In a nut shell, Sampson's chapter sixteen and this report both studied the effects that the financial had on Chicago and they both look closely at the high rate of home forclosure and the higher rate if unemployment.

In the article, the students interviewed many professionals from various professionnals in the community, many being from the real estate and housing industry. They indicated that the beginning of the financial crisis was the real estate price bubble "popped", or as many referred to it as "the 'bottom fell out" of the housing market, in the middle of 2006. The housing market was one of the biggest hit areas of the recession. The second was unemployment.

As a result one of the biggest ways that cities and neighborhoods like Chicago were effected was by the high number of home forclosures and the number of jobs that were lost. Sampson said that when walked back through Chicago during the after math of the recession, in 2010,  the largest difference that he could see was the number of vacant and boarded up homes and housing projects. It is incredible just how many many people were effected by the lose of employment and home forclosures. This obviously adversley effects the cohesiveness of a a neighborhood or community. 

For the second question: "Why does violence unhinge some communities and draw others closer together?" Well I think that the reason this happens is because some communities are stronger and more fiancially stable then others. Communities that are stronger and more financially stable will be able to with stand difficult time and would be alot more inclined to go out and see if they could help others that are struggling, Where as communities that are weaker and not financially stable would be more inclined to fight and commit crimes in order to get what they need to service. It is a very interesting thing to think about and is why we should all strive to be as financially stable as possible.

As far as my presentation research is comming, I am still working on it, but at the moment I don't have much more to report at this time.