I have been studying the development of a slave plantation in comparison to today’s urban development of communities. I ask questions like, "Do all aspects of a community matter? Are the demographics, environment, lifestyle, and people important? What are the differences? What will make for a better society?". The idea set before us from long ago is the result of today's run around to form an ideal utopia for everyone and not just certain groups. As a young person living in a society where race and social standards do matter, I graduated with a degree in Architectural Engineering. Being a black woman, this makes me believe that I can achieve the career goal of being successful as a minority while helping other minorities and by giving back in general. The goal is to rebuild communities giving them a sense of pride through urban planning.
This will be accomplished by studying social practices and social economics of race, poverty, social demographics and the trends of migration into DC. Homelessness can be minimized by providing jobs and affordable housing. Local parks can then be revitalized to once again become a place of refuge for DC and its residents. We can take hands-on approaches to the problems within the communities in researching and finding soluble solutions that can have a positive end goal. We can also reform the thoughts on urban sociology by seeking solutions for the structures, changes, processes and problems of an urban area by providing inputs for planning and policies. There are various distinctions of neighborhoods, from picket fences to boarded windows to retail centers to waterfronts. A strong outlook on the saving of historical buildings, monuments, and zones in a community allows it to cherish the essence of the foundation it was built on.
Is America a profitable structural pyramid of dreams, ideas or a plan of control?
Let’s take the word "plant" and add “—ation”. Now we have the word plantation. What is a plantation? It is considered a colony. But what is a colony? By definition, a colony is a group of people of one nationality or ethnic group living in a foreign city or country. In a more transparent summary, I think neighborhoods were colonialized with a distinctive motive of segregation. A slave plantation was home to the planter, his wife, his children, his overseers and the main workstation for the master’s slaves. The plantation was the slave owner’s society. Society is defined by Oxford as the "aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community". The urban settings, suburban settings, neighborhoods and demographics make up the community and what it holds within. This is also a cultural divide. The 300 square foot cottage was built by the slave, ordered by the master, and placed in a different slot on the land. This was the first in a systematic approach for the beginning of the term ghettos.
Do all aspects of a community matter? Are the demographics, environment, lifestyle and people important?
Why are black people shunned out to the “ghettos,” left in abandoned neighborhoods and then blamed for their situation? It is a known fact that the people who have the control to redline neighborhoods and execute gentrification do not look like the population they generally effect. I commute from Westchester to The Bronx daily, traveling down the Taconic, a state parkway that runs through Westchester. I pass through towns like Ossining, Mount Kisco, Pleasantville and White Plains. These towns house a few blacks but are primarily white and other races. I decided to take a different route through Yonkers on a particular day. As I analyzed the environment around me, I looked at the different buildings, people and city plan. The outlook was far different driving up Broadway into Riverdale. The streets go from corner and liquor stores to abandoned houses to renovated clean streets.
Crossing the threshold of a minority neighborhood into a white neighborhood, you see drastic differences. Fairwood in Prince George's County once housed successful wealthy blacks, yet a decrease in the housing market and mortgage failure for black homeowners caused a decline in its wealthy pot. Homes once ranging from $800,000 are now worth $300,000, a great price. A five bedroom, three bathroom house for that price on the East coast is simply amazing. The catch is the change in demographical availability. Black people are either being pushed out or left in neighborhoods with nothing akin to animals left in a pen with filth and no care.
Urban planners are basically saying, "Why add a Starbucks or a have a gated park in a minority filled neighborhood? They don’t deserve it." Money guzzling developers and mayors seem to only care about getting their cut. Masters get the fancy colonial house, and the slaves get the wooden shed, the ghetto. The privileged get what they “deserve” to have and the underprivileged get the trash. Slaves had no means to live in better conditions so they made use with what they had. Scrap wood was provided to build their shelter. Cypress logs were given to slaves to build the master’s grand plantation house. This planning style was carried out from the abolishment of slavery into present day. I would argue that segregation isn’t over. Yes, there are very diverse neighborhoods that serve all groups of people, which is how it should be. However, there are still driving forces behind segregation in different communities. Picket fences, nodes and gated garbage cans do not only belong only to a community filled with Caucasians. What about Atlanta, Augusta, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Cleveland, Detroit, Flint, Memphis, Miami, Montgomery, New Orleans, Newark, Portsmouth, Richmond, Savannah, Shreveport, St. Louis and many more?
The killing of Freddie Gray made a way for unified power among Baltimoreans. The riots, war-like standoffs, decline in economic stability, division between police and citizens have all been an eye opener for the city. The evidence that it takes tragedy or death of human beings to stir up change, shows that we are waiting far too late. How can we make a neighborhood not just become a standard measure region of race, but a community that is blended by behaviors, cultures and by people who want to live in urban development that feels less like a plantation but more like home?
