The Character of Cities

In this course we have learned that a citys character is a legacy for seeing, interpreting, exploiting, and trans gradationing its social, cultural and political opportunities as a somatic community. How is it possible for a city like capital of Massachusetts to have character? Well, the institutional and cultural pertinacity on with the resistance and reconstruction of culture has allowed the character of capital of Massachusetts to be defined simply by the underlying idea of conflict.Through J Anthony Lukas normal Ground and Richard Broadmans commissioning pitcher and the Miracle of capital of Massachusetts, we hindquarters see that the catalyst for this common smell out of conflict has been social dissentions betwixt partes and races. These dissentions are enlightenly detail by both the Urban Re impertinental intentions of military mission cumulus in the 1960s and 1970s and the school busing character reference of 1974. When looking at the character of capital of Massachusetts angiotensin-converting enzyme must understand the amount of controversy our city has encountered as well as the way they have identified and resolved these crisiss.Through this deduction along with my own personal experience of subsisting in capital of Massachusetts a step towards reclaiming a distinct character of capital of Massachusetts may be possible. When analyzing conflict as the character of capital of Massachusetts, you will find that conflict is triadic not dyadic. This means that there are three classies involved instead of just ii parties. This is important when looking at the two issues of urban renewal and busing. The c at oncept of conflict includes established insiders with m either another(prenominal) options, struggling insiders with nigh options and asc block offant outsiders with few or no options.When comparing this information to both urban renewal sequels and the busing you will see that capital of Massachusetts does in fact have thre e parties for each of its conflicts. The politicians capriole the utilization of the established insiders the bloodless race plays the role as the struggling insiders and the minorities especially the Afri cornerstone-Ameri evicts play the role of the ascendant outsiders. An alliance between the established insiders and the ascendant outsiders caused the isolation of the struggling insiders and this provides us with the busing case of 1974.When these groups form alliances or make certain deals the health of the city especially Boston may be disturbed. Boston has always been an ambivalent city when it comes to looking at new issues. This ambivalence has caused precise much friction and has brought much confusion and anger to the citizens of the city of Boston. For example, In Richard Broadmans care Hill Miracle of Boston, you see a detailed look at the urban renewal plans for Mission Hill in the 1970s.Could it be possible that Mission Hill would end up like the West End? There was no chance that Mission Hill would end up like the West End because of the interaction and care the citizens of the Hill had for its neighborhood. umteen of the community of Boston especially the Irish-Catholics had been oppressed for so long, for example the slogan, Irish need not utilize However when James Michael Curley came to office as mayor of Boston he gave the citizens of Boston a new hope. The conflict during his reign followed between the Yankees and the Irish.The Yankees owned the city while the Irish ran the city politically. The variance of the Yankee world of Harvard University, the Back Bay and Beacon Hill from the lives of a typical Irish Mission Hill citizen was pretty substantial. With the reign of Curley a sense of confidence in the Irish-Catholic community existed long after his circumstance in office. Even though Curley was not reelected the atmosphere that he created in Boston lingered on and trickled wipe out throughout the next two decades.From Miss ion Hill once being an industrial neighborhood part of thriving industrial city, is now to daylight an nation torn by racial conflict with many an(prenominal) burned and abandoned houses and factories with large open spaces where homes once stood. From this 1974 quote you can get a sense of the aftermath of the urban renewal and flight of the African-American population into the projects. When the Urban Renewal Act was send-off looked, the citizens of the Hill were adamant about their disdain for the Act.There is no way are they gonna mint any property on Mission Hill because if they take one path then it was the beginning of the end Mission Hill would no longer be. The sense of community in Mission Hill was fantastic. The sense of togetherness and fight was combined and created into a massive force of angered citizens. The Urban Renewal Act was halted when the families of Mission Hill marched on the State House coming in droves of large number. But the conflict between the citizens and the politicians would take a new turn when Harvard University and the hospitals would enter into the battle.New conflict, new problems. The idea of who cares about the people further the land is important was very(prenominal) evident. Before in 1941 when the first small projects were make, an affordable, easy cost of nutriment was accessible. The difference between these projects and the ones built later in the 1950s was that you had voters and political pull actually living in these projects. So the projects were kept safe, new and beautiful. However, when the political pull was lost and the projects lost its importance calamitouss were strained to live there.Whites felt that Blacks were forced on them because of the Urban Renewal plan. Before this the Blacks and the Whites never really get over paths and never had much conflict. And Harvards involvement had been trying to buy out the Mission Hill area since 1960. They have tried to buy it out piece by piece li ke a puzzle. The citizens of the Hill feel that they are letting the neighborhood go to the dogs. This conflict has been such a problem that near people believed in the 1970s that Mission Hill might one day not exist because of the growth of the hospitals.Boston according to J Anthony Lukas is the cradle of liberty, no city in the nation can boast so many revolutionary events. (Lukas, 315) When talking about conflict and the city of Boston the roughly recent case would be the school busing case of 1974. There is no bigger case concerning the consolidation of schools in the city of Boston. The reaction from the citizens of the city especially the citizens of South Boston and Charlestown have made Boston famous for its volatile reaction. In June of 1974 Judge Arthur Garrity found the city of Boston guilty of de facto segregation of the overt school system.In that, he tried to get the school committee to adopt a plan for integration nevertheless they refused. He was forced along with the state Department of Education to devise a plan that would integrate the Boston public schools. This plan entailed busing black students to nearby white schools in effectuate for the black students to receive an equal opportunity of education. When these black students arrived to class on September 12, 1974 they were greeted with stoned buses, people shouting racial profanities at them, and people hurling eggs and rotten tomatoes.A typical day according to Phyllis Ellison, a black student who attended South Boston High School, included between 10 to 15 fights Teachers were almost afraid to say the wrong thing, because they knew that it would excite the whole class. On celestial latitude 11, 1974 tension ran high and escalated further. A black student at South Boston High stabbed a white classmate. This created such problems that black students had to hide in the principles office in tell to stay free from any violent behavior towards them. Parents were forced to come pi ck their children up some even carried their children out.The scene in the schools was out of control. J Anthony Lukas explains how school would be canceled at least once or twice a week because tension was too high. Lisa McGoff Collins explains, I missed so many days of my junior year from walkouts and sit-ins and boycotts, Im surprised I got promoted. In roughhewn Ground, we are introduced to three very different families. Through Lukas extensive interviews with the black family, the Twymons, the white middle class family, the Divers and the working Irish class family, the McGoffs we are invited into the world of the desegregation case of 1974.Lukas is able to present the ideas of the city of Boston (the school committee and the politicians) as well as the ideas of the three families from three very different lenses. Lukas book provides us with a valuable insight into the American urban experience, as it makes clear that urban communities stem from the perceptions and fears of e very type of urban resident. It is evident that the residents of South Boston fall into this category. numerous students as well as their parents spent that first day of school out on the street pelting the buses with whatever objects they could find.A boycott of the schools led to a 20 percent attendance temperament throughout that fall. South Boston residents were angered by the way this was being forced onto them. South Boston was a safe, industrious neighborhood that was being used to bear the brunt of the busing problems. Why should a kid from across town be forced to wear another schools colors on the storage-battery grid? This sense of competition and loyalty to your hometown was ever present and strong. People felt that Garrity being a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant was getting his eventual(prenominal) revenge on the Irish of Boston, busing would fix them. To understand what busing did to South Boston one must look at the numbers.In the decade before busing only 3 black students had been enrolled in South Boston High School. By 1986, South Boston High still had the highest percentage of white students but it was down to about 30 percent. This is a great variance from the early 1970s. South Boston was changing and the city of Boston was changing. What has busing done to the city of Boston? It has given the city a cave in understanding of how to live with various ethnic races.Also, it has woken the city up and gotten rid of the fright that many people lived with in Boston. The fright of the other races and the possibilities of what these races could do to us. As the population grew and the sense of loyalty to your hometown outgrew busing became more accepted. In a way the people of Boston have learned from this social experiment. I believe that in trying to desegregate the schools and using busing as a tool, that we have brought education in Boston to an ultimate low. However, the diversity and experiences kids are introduced to may someday help in their own personal lives.Personally, coming from a prestigious school which is now addressing its own racial quota problems I am glad I was introduced to many ethnic people. It was not only the minorities that enriched my life but it was the other white kids from Southie and Charlestown that I became intrigued by. I was interest in how a kid like me (that looked like me and had the same interests) acted even though he or she was from a different part of Boston. In some instances I had more in common with the black kid from Mattapan than the white kid from South Boston.The issue of what type of education you want your child to be exposed to the central theme here. Do you want the prestigious scholastic education of a Boston Latin or do you want the diversity of a Snowden or South Boston High. Boston has done a pretty good job at identifying important issues for the city to deal with but the decisions they have made concerning the urban renewal and bussing have left many people wonde ring what is loss on with the city. Maybe these instances where city officials and politicians mess up help build the character of the city. What type of a city is Boston?That is a question that has many answers. Is it the Athens of America or the home of Yankee conservatives who want to stamp out diversity? In an overview one can see that Boston has built its reputation through the conflict that it has encountered. Whether the city has addressed these issues with the right answers or not it has made Boston a better place to be because it has already experienced so many things. From early revolutionary leaders to the fairly recent quota case at Boston Latin, Boston had seen its share of social dissention. Boston has resolved conflicts between different groups very professionally and orderly.In the past thirty years since the busing case not many cases of racial problems have surfaced. I think Boston provides the country with a very detailed and specific look at its issues. It seems that all sides of the issue are looked at very carefully before a decision is made. Through the urban renewal case and the busing case of 1974 one can see that when finding a distinct characteristic one would find conflict to be it. This sense of conflict surrounds every issue and blankets the ideas expressed in the movie, Mission Hill Miracle of Boston and the book Common Ground.