The New Urban Crisis Analysis

We have kinds of cities and we have our own views of them. But as civilians, we only see the what is attractive to us such as, building, parks, and the attractions of the city, but we never think deeply enough to see the reality. Richard Florida, the author of the book The New Urban Crisis, is a researcher and expert in cities. He identifies inequality, segregation, and high costs of living as challenges confronting today’s cities. Florida applies the sociological imagination to break down these factors. His purpose is to explain the key dimension of this crisis, to identify the main causes that are forming this crisis, and his solution to these problems while still proving great jobs for everybody and an outstanding economy that makes it …show more content…
One of his most important findings of this crisis is that “the larger, denser, and more knowledge-intensive and tech-based a city or metro is, the more unequal it tends to be” (p.82). Cities like New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Hong Kong, Boston, and Washington DC are the cities known as the superstar cities, because they have the most talented people, the best technology, the best industries, and the best economies in the world. The problem is that these cities are taking the best thing they see, attracting half of the worlds high tech investments. Making a giant gap between the superstar cities and the other regular cities. Another finding was that the middle class is decreasing as gentrification in cities has increased. Gentrification happens when a neighborhood builds new establishments or is remodeled to attract more rich people, making the cost of housing and living less affordable for the middle class. Little by little the middle class is being pushed to the suburbs and considered poor, which is causing the gap between the rich and poor increase. Richard Florida also found the problems that people are facing in the suburbs. One of the problems is poverty, increasing dramatically faster than in cities. It’s hard to combat poverty because suburbs isolate their residents from job opportunities and also is way harder for them to get social services because it’s hard for them to find them or reach to them. Also, the crime rate is increasing in suburbs when its actually decreasing in the cities and it’s because of economic reasons and new population coming into their neighborhoods. Another main finding by Florida, segregation in our super-cities has become one of the problems. The data he analyzed shows that people are more likely to segregate by 3 categories income, education, and class. Which in reality is true, we tend to live in areas that fit our income and class. We