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Los Angeles
- Economic inequality- there are higher level of inequality in LA caused by the increase in the number of edge cities. LA has over 20 edge cities increase in the number of edge cities. Therefore, the growth of these edge cities saw retail firms relocate their businesses to these growing markets. As a result, created a doughnut effect, where in the city centre, the retail jobs had dried up, hence the low skilled jobs as well. The only jobs that were left behind was the high skilled work in the finance sector.
- Cultural diversity- high levels of migration of people was led to a range of cultures appearing away. For instance, there is Chinatown, Korea town, little Bangladesh and Little Italy. This allows the locals to experience outside cultures and makes new immigrants feel like they belong there.
- Social segregation- there have been high levels of segregation between the black people in the Caucasian people in LA. This is because of restrictive covenants and redlining. Redlining is a discriminatory practise where mortgages weren’t offered to people who were considered to be from areas that are hazardous to investment. This disproportionately affected people not of Caucasian descent. Restrictive covenants is an agreement which meant only houses to be purchased by those of Caucasian descent. Death or, this meant that black people were forced to rent. As a result, when the period of deindustrialization occured when low skilled jobs were becoming scarce, which meant lots of black people were became unemployed. Therefore, we’re forced to steal to pay rent, so when courts were sent to prison. Approximately 50% of the prison population were black, so exacerbated inequality. As a result, where they came out of prison, they were unable to find jobs because of their criminal record hence became homeless and moved to Skid Row.
Strategies to resolve
- Economic inequality- the Crenshaw metro project was a $2 billion project which created 7800 jobs of which 40% of the employees were from low income areas. The metro would increase travel and Connexions between places like the University of Southern California and exposition park. this would aim to create a positive multiplier effects in which the low income areas would see a boost in standards of living.
- Social segregation- the introduction of preposition HHH was a 3% sales tax where the tax revenue was used to invest in Skid Row . This allowed the government to spend approximately $20,000 per person and had used some of the money to build 10,000 homes. Another strategy which was implemented was the government introducing vouchers for subsidised rents which allowed low income people to access housing in the LA market . However, this was only for a year and did not solve the root of the problem which was the unemployment.
- Cultural diversity- The introduction of destination credential was a large public art project which commissioned 100 pieces of arts from black artists to be placed in the public park. It created many construction jobs of which there was a local hiring rate of 70% hence creating a positive multiplier effect.