Micro and Macro Aspects of Life in Brooklyn

The basic argument of Susser's book is that the micro aspects of life in this neighborhood are profoundly affected by the macro forces of New York City, the state and the nation. As Susser writes,

In the face of the deterioration of city services, budgetary cutbacks, and the 1975 fiscal crisis in New York City, this book documents the implications of broad political and economic changes for the lives of working-class people. . . . The combined disasters of industrial decline and fiscal policies leading to service reductions have assaulted this beleaguered population (vii).

Just as New York City was pinched financially by federal and state cutbacks, so is the neighborhood under study hit by all those cutbacks. The examination of the specific topics in this study will elaborate on those effects.

Susser is not saying, however, that the economic pinch at all these macro and micro levels produces nothing but negative results. One positive impact is the increase in political involvement on the part of people who in less economically stringent times wo

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existing between welfare-giver and welfare-receiver also exists between landlord and tenant. In both cases, we see on a micro level the destabilizing impact of economic upheaval at the macro level. Relationships between people become adversarial because resources have become increasingly scarce, which intensifies the adversarial relationship between those who have "more" and those who have "less". Those who control the resources (the landlord controls the housing, the welfare prosecutor controls the welfare funds) don't trust those who seek the resources (welfare recipients and tenants). As the nation, state (New York) and great urban center (New York City) falters economically, the neighborhood falters as well, and the people are put into a state of stress which affects everything they do and every relationship they experience. The stress increases in relationships between those who have more power, resources, etc. The economic crunch on the macro level affects not only landlord-tenant relations but also the quality of housing on the micro level: The combination of the discrimination against low-income tenants by homeowners and the absentee landlord's realization of the tenant's poor bargaining position contributed to the de
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York City, Friendship Support, Norman Street, Norman Streeters, Puerto Ricans, Urban Neighborhood, , block association, welfare system, macro level, Brooklyn York, york city, micro level, kinship friendship, norman street, Block Association, economic changes, welfare prosecutor, adversarial relationship, University Press, trying cheat system, kinship friendship patterns, welfare system regulations, welfare prosecutor supervisor, changes macro level,
Approximate Word count = 1861
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)