One interesting pattern in large American cities is that the south sides of cities that are located below a city's central core are almost always blue collar, working class areas.
South Boston. South Philly. South Baltimore. Southeast DC. The South Side of Chicago. Southwest Atlanta. South side of Houston. Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. South Central Los Angeles.
Not that is not to say there are no nice southern sections of cities are that sections of cities north of their downtowns may not be as working class as southern sections. But in many cases the south sides of cities are not only infamous in their own right but they can also define the working class character of the entire city. South Boston and Southies have been prominently shown in recent big budget films like The Town and The Departed. Philadelphia is inextricably linked to South Philly because of cheesesteaks and Rocky. The South Side of Chicago, Lower Ninth and South Central dominate the working class images of their respective cities on a national scale.
For port cities, it's easier to connect the dots on why the southern sections of cities became large working class communities. These cities were often located on rivers and waterways that forced cheap working class labor to live on the cheapest land (as well as unwanted ethnic groups as well. You might have heard America was a little racisty back then), which was often swamps and marshy land that were located just below major ports and factories. South Boston, South Philadelphia, Southeast DC and the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans were literally built on swamp land. The cramped conditions of these cities original working class helped foster the image of their city's working class to this day. Chicago's famous south side which is bordered by lake Michigan was also built on swamp land but did not develop around port factories. Chicago's South Side was developed around the Union Stockyards, the city's meat-packing district and the Pullman railroad company.
But for the other major cities in the South and West the connection to why the south side of their major cities are working class are not as clear. Did cities in the South and West which developed into major cities only within the 20th century just repeat the development of older cities because of precedent? I don't know but I find it very peculiar.
No matter the case, here's my shout out to the American city South Side:
Common ft Kanye West - Southside
Showing posts with label Hip Hop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hip Hop. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Urban Revival is for the Chil'ren!
John Legend & The Roots - Shine
Talib Kweli - Eat to live
Nas - I know I can
R.I.P Old DIrty Bastard
Talib Kweli - Eat to live
Nas - I know I can
R.I.P Old DIrty Bastard
Friday, March 12, 2010
Seattle's Central District
This is a video made for a research project about the Central District of Seattle based on the music video and lyrics for "Home" by Jake One featuri...
This video was made solely for educational purposes with all sources properly cited and given credit.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, May 15, 2009
20/20 Report Hip-Hop Special (1981) - Part 2
Hip Hop is a product of the city. Similarly to the Blues, Hip Hop begun from the spirit of the havenots and the burdened. The economic conditions of people from both genres helped inspire the melodies, songs and messages of their plight, glory and spirit. However, Hip Hop as a genre itself was created from it's own economic conditions. The lack of money for instruments, music training or even music programs in city schools inspired city youth to come up with their own music and their own sound without instruments.
20/20 Report Hip-Hop Special (1981) - Part 1
Like no other music before or after it, Hip Hop intrinsically belongs to the city. Hip Hop was birthed in the city, lives in the city and could not have been started anywhere else but the city.
Other musical genres have their meccas of their musical art, be it Jazz from New Orleans, Country in Nashville, the Blues of Memphis or the Rhythm of Motown...but while these cities that drew in artists from all over the map to help spread their genre's music, HIP HOP was started purely by city residents, for city residents with out any outside influences.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Travellin' man
Those familiar with this blog know that I am a big proponent of travelling and experiencing different cultures. So I am pleased to post this gem from one of favorite rappers, Mos Def called "Travellin' Man"
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Breathing City
A great video showing the functions of one city block. This video shows the different processes of city buildings and how they interact together to almost form a living entity once shown together in a time lapse series.
This video shows why a I love cities for their variety and their randomness. This video shows that when in a city we all work may live together but we all move at different speeds. As opposed to the suburbs which can force us to live on the same speed.
Monday, December 22, 2008
The Frozen City
Im posting this classic song from Blackstar and Common not just because it personifies the city as being alive but because it filmed in the freezing cold...just like the weather here today in Sunny Baltimore.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
We Almost Lost Detroit
The Associated Press reports:
DETROIT (AP) — Some statistics conveying the breadth of challenges facing the city of Detroit:
916,952: Detroit's latest official population, down from peak of about 1.8 million in 1950s. In a city of 139 square miles, that gives Detroit a population density about half of Chicago's.
201,000: Residential taxpayers in Wayne County, which is dominated by Detroit, who were tax delinquent in October, out of a total of 857,000.
19,708: Violent crimes recorded by FBI for Detroit in 2007, giving it highest violent crime rate of any major U.S. city. San Diego and San Antonio, each with 50 percent more people than Detroit, had less than half as many violent crimes.
$18,513: Average sale price of a Detroit home so far in 2008, down from $40,011 in 2007, according to Detroit Board of Realtors. Average sale price in neighboring Oakland County is $153,695.
47.8: Percent of Detroit children in 2007 who lived below poverty line of $21,000 for a family of four. For children nationally, the rate was 18 percent. Detroit's overall poverty rate of 33.8 percent was highest of any major city.
21.6: Detroit's unemployment rate, according to latest Census Bureau figures for 2005-07. Of all U.S. cities with more than 20,000 residents, only Muskegon, Mich., had a higher rate, at 22.1 percent.
15: Candidates competing in a special mayoral election called after Kwame Kilpatrick was jailed for trying to cover up a text-messaging sex scandal.
14: Losses so far for Detroit Lions en route to what could be National Football League's first 0-16 season.
3: Days each week that Detroit's two newspapers will offer home delivery, as part of new cost-cutting plan.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
FAMOUS - 4th Biggest City Music Video
Excuse the cursing but check out the signts of Toronto and the lyrics Famous kicks about the city
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Graffiti Photo Kings
This group documented the last few years of the graffiti movement on New York subways
Monday, March 31, 2008
ArtCrimes: Graffiti's Life in Baltimore
An excellent documentary about graffiti and urban culture in Baltimore
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Teaching Urban culture through Hip Hop
From the Temple Times:
"If we, as students, are educated about American culture in general, why not also be educated about hip- hop culture? Hip-hop is often more accessible.
Here at Temple, the urban education department is paying attention to using music as a teaching tool. Marc Lamont Hill has taught several classes on hip-hop and urban culture. As a senior, I regret not being able to take one of his classes, where students often listen to lyrics and debate their meaning.
“That’s a common misconception about the class,” Hill said. “Hip-hop studies are rigorous and academically rich. One-third is music and the rest is reading.”
To read more, click here
"If we, as students, are educated about American culture in general, why not also be educated about hip- hop culture? Hip-hop is often more accessible.
Here at Temple, the urban education department is paying attention to using music as a teaching tool. Marc Lamont Hill has taught several classes on hip-hop and urban culture. As a senior, I regret not being able to take one of his classes, where students often listen to lyrics and debate their meaning.
“That’s a common misconception about the class,” Hill said. “Hip-hop studies are rigorous and academically rich. One-third is music and the rest is reading.”
To read more, click here
Monday, March 24, 2008
Hip Hop & CIty Planning Series
Reaganomics and Hip Hop
Through the 1950’s into the 1970’s the Federal Government had given out hundreds of millions of dollars to cities though Urban Renewal acts to revitalize downtowns and remove blight. By the end of the 1970’s Federal funding began to dry up leaving many social services agencies and programs, which were vital to the redevelopment of inner-city neighborhoods, scrambling to find new funding or substantially cutting back services.
By 1980, a new change in America’s presidential administration ushered in a new philosophy of government spending and monetary distribution. Ronald Reagan, who had ran a campaign to reduce government spending and therefore the tax burden on the average American citizen, brought forth a new economic policy of Supply Side Economics, which was eventually dubbed “Reaganomics.”
Reaganomics which was also known as the “Trickle Down Theory” sought to deregulate federal policy that hampered businesses to create a more free wide open economic market that would allow American businesses and corporations to generate more profit and larger investments which would in turn be funneled back down to the average worker. Unfortunately for the average worker and the poor, they only saw a trickle of the large amounts of wealth that American corporations generated and largely kept to themselves.
In this post I will show how Reaganomics shaped Hip Hop by exploring the impacts of the reduction of social service agencies and the effects of Hip Hop’s imitation of the lifestyles of the rich.
Though social service agencies had began to see reduced funding in the 1970’s, many government programs saw almost their entire budget taken away under the Reagan Administration forcing many agencies to shut down. Programs providing services such as job training for unemployed city youth, college loans for struggling working class families, day care assistance for single parent homes were cut off from funding leaving many inner-city residents without a prop to help them out of blighted neighborhoods which often times provided inferior education, inferior housing and a lack of available jobs.
The impacts of the lack of services that many had previously benefited from had a particularly hard hit to inner city youth. With out jobs or access to jobs, many cities faced record levels of crimes as gangs began to flourish and taken over neighborhoods garnering national attention from Boston to Los Angeles. In New York City, many boroughs were plagues with youth gangs including the South Bronx, the birthplace of Hip Hop. One of the fore fathers of Hip Hop, Africa Bambaataa, who was a gang leader of the Black Spades gang in the Bronx River Projects decided to use his leadership for something positive after making a trip to Africa. Instead of having rival gangs battle each other through violence he organized parties that had rival gangs battle each other through b-boying (break-dancing), dj’ing and emceeing (rapping). These battles through the use of Hip Hop music helped provide a deterrent to gang violence and these battles though Hip Hop are still prevalent in the culture today.
While Hip Hop started on the loftiest of goals of providing an outlet to inner-city kids to end gang violence, the rampant materialism of the overall larger culture would soon penetrate though to Hip Hop culture and pervert its original intentions as those who rose up through Hip Hop tried to justify their value and importance through material possessions. Reaganomics had a huge fundamental shift in economic distribution as supply side economics soon began to be viewed as a zero sum gain for the poor. While the poverty rate for minorities grew every single year in the 1980’s, many corporate employees and upper management white collar workers saw unprecedented wealth and their lifestyles were documented on such shows as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
While undoubtedly many of those in Hip Hop who boasted about material wealth took their cues from an increasing number of rich inner-city drug dealers, all of them were imitating the lives they saw on shows like the just mentioned Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. While no one imagined the trickle down theory would lead to inner-city kids to obtain expensive cars, clothes and jewelry of the rich, what did trickle down to the inner-city was drugs and guns. Jobs, better schooling and economic opportunity did not trickle down to these neighborhoods. In fact, the impending drug epidemic of the mid 1980’s would soon almost sever any connection the inner-city had with investment coming from the mainstream. By the early 1990’s the illegal drug market had become almost the only market that survived and thrived in the inner-city. This would soon have an effect on Hip Hop which no longer just boasted about materialism but soon began speaking on taking others material possessions by any means necessary to survive.
The next installment of this series will focus on Hip Hop and the Crack Cocaine Era.
Through the 1950’s into the 1970’s the Federal Government had given out hundreds of millions of dollars to cities though Urban Renewal acts to revitalize downtowns and remove blight. By the end of the 1970’s Federal funding began to dry up leaving many social services agencies and programs, which were vital to the redevelopment of inner-city neighborhoods, scrambling to find new funding or substantially cutting back services.
By 1980, a new change in America’s presidential administration ushered in a new philosophy of government spending and monetary distribution. Ronald Reagan, who had ran a campaign to reduce government spending and therefore the tax burden on the average American citizen, brought forth a new economic policy of Supply Side Economics, which was eventually dubbed “Reaganomics.”
Reaganomics which was also known as the “Trickle Down Theory” sought to deregulate federal policy that hampered businesses to create a more free wide open economic market that would allow American businesses and corporations to generate more profit and larger investments which would in turn be funneled back down to the average worker. Unfortunately for the average worker and the poor, they only saw a trickle of the large amounts of wealth that American corporations generated and largely kept to themselves.
In this post I will show how Reaganomics shaped Hip Hop by exploring the impacts of the reduction of social service agencies and the effects of Hip Hop’s imitation of the lifestyles of the rich.
Though social service agencies had began to see reduced funding in the 1970’s, many government programs saw almost their entire budget taken away under the Reagan Administration forcing many agencies to shut down. Programs providing services such as job training for unemployed city youth, college loans for struggling working class families, day care assistance for single parent homes were cut off from funding leaving many inner-city residents without a prop to help them out of blighted neighborhoods which often times provided inferior education, inferior housing and a lack of available jobs.
The impacts of the lack of services that many had previously benefited from had a particularly hard hit to inner city youth. With out jobs or access to jobs, many cities faced record levels of crimes as gangs began to flourish and taken over neighborhoods garnering national attention from Boston to Los Angeles. In New York City, many boroughs were plagues with youth gangs including the South Bronx, the birthplace of Hip Hop. One of the fore fathers of Hip Hop, Africa Bambaataa, who was a gang leader of the Black Spades gang in the Bronx River Projects decided to use his leadership for something positive after making a trip to Africa. Instead of having rival gangs battle each other through violence he organized parties that had rival gangs battle each other through b-boying (break-dancing), dj’ing and emceeing (rapping). These battles through the use of Hip Hop music helped provide a deterrent to gang violence and these battles though Hip Hop are still prevalent in the culture today.
While Hip Hop started on the loftiest of goals of providing an outlet to inner-city kids to end gang violence, the rampant materialism of the overall larger culture would soon penetrate though to Hip Hop culture and pervert its original intentions as those who rose up through Hip Hop tried to justify their value and importance through material possessions. Reaganomics had a huge fundamental shift in economic distribution as supply side economics soon began to be viewed as a zero sum gain for the poor. While the poverty rate for minorities grew every single year in the 1980’s, many corporate employees and upper management white collar workers saw unprecedented wealth and their lifestyles were documented on such shows as Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
While undoubtedly many of those in Hip Hop who boasted about material wealth took their cues from an increasing number of rich inner-city drug dealers, all of them were imitating the lives they saw on shows like the just mentioned Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. While no one imagined the trickle down theory would lead to inner-city kids to obtain expensive cars, clothes and jewelry of the rich, what did trickle down to the inner-city was drugs and guns. Jobs, better schooling and economic opportunity did not trickle down to these neighborhoods. In fact, the impending drug epidemic of the mid 1980’s would soon almost sever any connection the inner-city had with investment coming from the mainstream. By the early 1990’s the illegal drug market had become almost the only market that survived and thrived in the inner-city. This would soon have an effect on Hip Hop which no longer just boasted about materialism but soon began speaking on taking others material possessions by any means necessary to survive.
The next installment of this series will focus on Hip Hop and the Crack Cocaine Era.
Urban Revival's First Book Review
Book Review: Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence by Keli Goff
As seen with the current Presidential campaign of Barack Obama there is a generational difference among African Americans when it comes to politics. As Party Crashing points out, today’s younger black voter has different values and beliefs then their older generation. Race is no longer the only issue for younger black voters, while it is still a major issue there are other factors which younger black voters feel are just as important such as the economy, the war in Iraq and the environment.
The book points out repeatedly that the same issues and struggles of say Harry Belafonte in 1960 would be the same as any other black person who may have been a maid or a bus driver. No matter one stature back then, everyone faced the same amount of discrimination. Today, someone like Lebron James would not have the same issues and struggles in common with a bus driver. The black experience today is more varied than ever and everyone today does not share the same experience.
The book also points out the rise of the young black independent voter and how the Democratic Party is beginning to lose control of this demographic that for decades had been part of their base. While no one foresees large numbers of black voters heading back to the Republican Party where the black vote started before the Civil Rights Era, many young black voters feel that they have been taken advantage of by the Democratic Party and the book cites several examples of this.
Another interesting facet that the books points out is the declining influence of older Civil Rights Era stalwarts have on younger black voters. As pointed out in the book many Civil Rights leaders are having a tough time connecting with younger voters and many outright resent the new crop of younger black politicians who did not go through their experience. As time moves on it will be interesting to see who will become the new political face for Black America…will it be Barack Obama, the great uniter? For some older members of the black community who feel uniters will assimilate black struggle, that is a scary thought.
---
For those interested in the future of young black voters or the future of a large segment of voters who will most likely shape urban policy, agendas and laws I encourage them to read this insightful book by Keli Goff.
As seen with the current Presidential campaign of Barack Obama there is a generational difference among African Americans when it comes to politics. As Party Crashing points out, today’s younger black voter has different values and beliefs then their older generation. Race is no longer the only issue for younger black voters, while it is still a major issue there are other factors which younger black voters feel are just as important such as the economy, the war in Iraq and the environment.
The book points out repeatedly that the same issues and struggles of say Harry Belafonte in 1960 would be the same as any other black person who may have been a maid or a bus driver. No matter one stature back then, everyone faced the same amount of discrimination. Today, someone like Lebron James would not have the same issues and struggles in common with a bus driver. The black experience today is more varied than ever and everyone today does not share the same experience.
The book also points out the rise of the young black independent voter and how the Democratic Party is beginning to lose control of this demographic that for decades had been part of their base. While no one foresees large numbers of black voters heading back to the Republican Party where the black vote started before the Civil Rights Era, many young black voters feel that they have been taken advantage of by the Democratic Party and the book cites several examples of this.
Another interesting facet that the books points out is the declining influence of older Civil Rights Era stalwarts have on younger black voters. As pointed out in the book many Civil Rights leaders are having a tough time connecting with younger voters and many outright resent the new crop of younger black politicians who did not go through their experience. As time moves on it will be interesting to see who will become the new political face for Black America…will it be Barack Obama, the great uniter? For some older members of the black community who feel uniters will assimilate black struggle, that is a scary thought.
---
For those interested in the future of young black voters or the future of a large segment of voters who will most likely shape urban policy, agendas and laws I encourage them to read this insightful book by Keli Goff.
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