The History of Urban Poverty

What used to attract blacks to the Urban city lifestyle? Jobs and affordable housing. During the Great Migration that "occurred between 1910 and 1970, 6 millions black moved out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West." When this migration occurred, it was inevitable that urban poverty was bound to happened.

Great Migration

Living in a world where there are billions and billions of people, everyone needs a job to provide for their family. Money is the key motivation on why people are willing to work extreme hours just to get a source of income. Therefore, once the blacks were driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, of course the blacks want to travel to urban areas to take advantage of economic opportunities.

More economic opportunities became available since World War 1 has occurred at 1919. It consisted of the Allied powers, which were those countries allied in opposition to the Central Powers. Central powers consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. Then, the allied powers were Great Britain, France, and the Russian Empire. Because of this war, the need for industrial workers were needed in urban areas. That is why more blacks were actually welcomed in the North to take advantage of these jobs opportunities. However, we all know that when it comes to jobs, that is already limited.

Stock Market Crash

The stock market crash of 1921 occurred making the Great Depression inevitable. Because of this, jobs were limited and people were desperately trying to find a source of income. So, by having 6 million blacks move to a competitive environment for jobs, it was very obvious urban poverty was bound to occur.

Now that we understand a little bit more on how urban poverty has originated in some sort of manner, now we can talk about 2016. 2016 is the year Barrack Obama is now leaving office and a new president is going to become elected. When people vote, the people need to chose the right person to represent their interests and values. Specifically, blacks that live in urban poverty need to vote on a president that will help ensure them job opportunities, welfare checks, and any more options to help them escape this type of poverty. However, it is hard to make this feasible due to the fact that SOME blacks are not educated about the voting process.

People Actually Voting

Schools did not teach or stress the important about voting. Mathematics, writing, science, and more common core courses were taught by these teachers, but not classes about taxes, voting, and more key issues that occurs as an adult. There can't be change in the way how these people are living if the blacks are not that active in politics. I am not saying you got to know every single republican or Democrat in office, but understanding the polices that the candidate is trying to implement or enforce is crucial for change in the community. For example, the old Democrat: Bernie Sanders. I am not trying to make anyone become a Democrat or change anyone way of thinking but this is just an example on how knowing what polices he is trying to implement makes a difference. For example, he is trying to make college affordable later on in life by making college free. So, of course those that are in urban poverty or lower class loves this idea since its free education. However, the rich will hate it since they are getting taxed heavily. So, just knowing a little bit more about politics and stressing how significant or important is to vote will help people escape urban poverty.

Bernie Sanders

Also, besides lack of education that some of the people in urban poverty expresses, they also "lack the skillset to take on many jobs" causing jobs that were available to disappear. Everything relates back to education for urban poverty because if the people gain some type of insight or education on how to become skilled at the task that they are performing, then more income will be generated. However, since this is not the case, this leaves the residents "without a steady income, which creates a series of new problems in the city."

"Among those living on no more than $1 a day, the proportion found in urban areas rose from 19 percent to 24 percent between 1993 and 2002." Urban poverty is significantly increasing. This data was conducted in early 2000s so only imagine what that number is like now! It is unreal how those in the middle class and upper class are literally in an environment where there are more like us. We live in an environment where there are people living in similar houses to ours, drive similar cars to ours, and even have the same income as us. Because of this, we don't typically see people struggle since we are not in the same atmosphere. It is surreal on how there are people out there that is only living on $1 right now. Something must be done to change this, and as of right now, education is the only pathway towards making urban poverty come to dissolution. Learning about politics, school, courses, and so much information in the world will only help us even more if we apply it correctly.

The Power of Education