The inner city is a far more unpleasant and more dangerous place to live than it was just 20 years ago. Unfortunately, however, except for the occasional attention given to such areas after a particularly vehement foray of rioting or violence, less and less attention has been given to those areas since about 1970. Public apathy, nevertheless, has never been much of an indicator of the seriousness of such problems, nor has it served as a satisfactory thermometer of the need for changes and improvements within the social stratum itself.
One severe and frequently occurring problem within the inner city environment is that of voluntary and involuntary uprooting of individuals and groups, primarily minorities, from one place of residence to another. When these individuals are uprooted, they often feel helpless in that they have little or no opportunity to express themselves and feel themselves to be somewhat victimized. Within this process of victimization, a sense of a ripping away of any semblance of social identity frequently occurs.
Although it is true that federal and state funds are allocated to help in the relocation process, urban renewal often destroys more home than it builds. It also removes the type of affordable homes that the local community was living in, and places higher priced, and thus unaffordable, homes in its place. This paper will address such questions in a basic three part study of the problem: the problem of urban renewal, the problem of freeway/highway construction, and the problem of minorities within the constraints and framework of such a social problem.
"The social problems of urban life in advanced industrial America are, in large measure, viewed as problems of race."1 Within the urban environment, the problems of minorities take on a more acute and bitter life of their own. Since the 1950s, America has become both increasingly urbanized and suburbanized. As cities grew larger and larger, an...