Why public transportation matters to the poor people: Analysis of the why do the poor live in cities argument
In modern society public transportation gets its consideration day after day. In his essay “Why do the poor live in cities? The role of public transportation” published 19 January 2007, Edward suggests that “more than 19 percent of people in American central cities are poor. In suburbs, just 7.5 percent of people live in poverty”. Unbelievably, the majority of the poor people decide to live in cities rather than rural or suburban areas where the land is cheap. Edward, unlike the traditional economists, attributes this urbanization of poverty comes mainly to better accessibility to public transportation in central cities. He argues …show more content…
Edward describes that “in the 1830s uptown areas, such as Washington Square and Fifth Avenue in New York, were developed as centers for the wealthy when the expensive private horse-drawn omnibuses were introduced first to the city”. He wants to seek to evoke emotion in order to gain approval by bringing up the point that private transport will “eliminate the need for the rich to live within walking distance of their work” thus making the poor had few choices and they had to walk to work or live closer to their working places. One can easily express sympathy to people suffering from inequalities. So Edward tries to show the poor just how much their conditions have changed because they now have more choices of living than they had before due to the improvements of public transportation. Now distance to working places is no longer a top priority to people who don’t have cars or any means of private transport and people feel less important because public communications are “mainly designed for the majority”. Triggering the reader’s emotions is a smart strategy for Edward if he really wants a change to occur. It makes the audience feel more attached to the issue and more involved and also makes the audiences care what the outcome of the situation will …show more content…
Throughout his essay, Edward uses many economical formulas and charts to give a clear explanation of his theory. Some theoretically elegant examples like that “richer consumers buy more land and therefore choose to live where land is cheap” is explained by the AMM model. The AMM model refers to a way of data collection--- “We assume two classes of people: rich people with income YRich and poor people with income YPoor and The rich have an opportunity cost of time equal to WRich; the poor have an opportunity cost of time equal to WPoor For simplicity, we assume that the land consumption of the rich is fixed at Apoor, the relation between these is A* ∂Price/ ∂Distance= -W*Time”. All the formulas and scientific researches provide strong evidences to the argument that the poor people have a greater demand than rich people. In addition to his logical appeals, Edward also responds to others researchers who think more about school and crime than driving that explains the centralization of poverty. He refutes these arguments by pointing out that “We do not mean to minimize these forces (school and crime), but rather suggest that these are, in many cases, accessibility to transportation that reflects an initial tendency of the poor to locate in central
In modern society public transportation gets its consideration day after day. In his essay “Why do the poor live in cities? The role of public transportation” published 19 January 2007, Edward suggests that “more than 19 percent of people in American central cities are poor. In suburbs, just 7.5 percent of people live in poverty”. Unbelievably, the majority of the poor people decide to live in cities rather than rural or suburban areas where the land is cheap. Edward, unlike the traditional economists, attributes this urbanization of poverty comes mainly to better accessibility to public transportation in central cities. He argues …show more content…
Edward describes that “in the 1830s uptown areas, such as Washington Square and Fifth Avenue in New York, were developed as centers for the wealthy when the expensive private horse-drawn omnibuses were introduced first to the city”. He wants to seek to evoke emotion in order to gain approval by bringing up the point that private transport will “eliminate the need for the rich to live within walking distance of their work” thus making the poor had few choices and they had to walk to work or live closer to their working places. One can easily express sympathy to people suffering from inequalities. So Edward tries to show the poor just how much their conditions have changed because they now have more choices of living than they had before due to the improvements of public transportation. Now distance to working places is no longer a top priority to people who don’t have cars or any means of private transport and people feel less important because public communications are “mainly designed for the majority”. Triggering the reader’s emotions is a smart strategy for Edward if he really wants a change to occur. It makes the audience feel more attached to the issue and more involved and also makes the audiences care what the outcome of the situation will …show more content…
Throughout his essay, Edward uses many economical formulas and charts to give a clear explanation of his theory. Some theoretically elegant examples like that “richer consumers buy more land and therefore choose to live where land is cheap” is explained by the AMM model. The AMM model refers to a way of data collection--- “We assume two classes of people: rich people with income YRich and poor people with income YPoor and The rich have an opportunity cost of time equal to WRich; the poor have an opportunity cost of time equal to WPoor For simplicity, we assume that the land consumption of the rich is fixed at Apoor, the relation between these is A* ∂Price/ ∂Distance= -W*Time”. All the formulas and scientific researches provide strong evidences to the argument that the poor people have a greater demand than rich people. In addition to his logical appeals, Edward also responds to others researchers who think more about school and crime than driving that explains the centralization of poverty. He refutes these arguments by pointing out that “We do not mean to minimize these forces (school and crime), but rather suggest that these are, in many cases, accessibility to transportation that reflects an initial tendency of the poor to locate in central