Introduction

Unequal development in New York has been on an ongoing issue. When it comes to urban living and unbalanced development, a lot of roles come into play when one thinks of underdeveloped areas such as income and race. Urban inequality reflects the choices of more and less skilled people to live together in certain regions. Throughout this paper, we will discuss the different communities affected by gentrification and unequal pay, care and development in New York City. According to the Journal of Regional Science, 20.4 percent of households in New York earned more than $150,000 in 2006, and 9.3 percent of households earned less than $25,000. Local inequality is referred to as the “inverse” of area-level income—segregation, being that the abundant life with the rich and the poor live with the poor. Unequal development has led to lack of employment opportunities, lack of resources and overpopulated areas, yet the purpose of urban development is that cities can create job opportunities for a better life, increase economic growth and improve social inclusion. The study will use case studies to show how unequal development has affected communities in New York City. The importance of this paper will be to create awareness on the issues that have been neglected over the years, such as unequal pay, and unequal development. Concepts of environmental justice and ecological modernization will be used to show the useful application of unequal development and social inequalities in Network city. Therefore, the conclusion consists of findings from the entire paper and broader implications of sociology in the topic.

Case studies

Case study on unequal payment

It is vital to note that house households as well the relative salaries of the people living in the Network city were greatly affected after the financial crisis and recession which took place. For instance, in 2009, a single filer in the town had a regular income of about 47000. While a single filer in the entire country was approximately about $29000 in the same year, another study conducted shows that 20% of the household earns about 2.6% of the aggregate income in New York. There is also a growing gap between the highest income earners and the lowest income earners after the recession. Most people affected by this income inequality are the people living in New York City.

Research also shows that there have been several unequal income distributions in the city as compared to before the country went into the most significant recession. Therefore, income inequality raises questions about social and economic equity. Moreover, the economists have also argued that income inequality rate significantly affects’ the economic growth of the country, thus leading to the financial crisis. The growing rates of income inequity have led to the destabilization of tax, intensification of the racial and class segregation, thus undermining social cohesion. Social cohesion is vital as it makes urban livelihood compelling and comfortable to live and work. Examining the income inequality in this paper is critical to address the issue of urban living and unequal development in New York City.

Poverty and homelessness

It is approximated that one out of five people in New York are poor and live in development housing. Most people in this city are homeless and lack basic needs such as food and clothing. The issue of homelessness is treated as an individual social problem in the policies made about urban living. Studies have shown that homeless is as a result of substance abuse, lack of affordable housing and sustainable employment in the city of about 8 million people, one out of hundred people is homeless that accounts to about 60,000 people who are rendered homeless. Every night, approximately 3000 people slap on the street or in the subway and other public spaces.

Majority of New Yorkers spend most of their time in the shelter systems where they remain unseen by the public. Poverty issue has rendered most people homeless as the lacking money to cater for their needs. For instance, 61% of the New Yorkers sates that they do not have enough money to provide for food, rennet and clothing for about three months. It is also researched that 20% of the people living in New York city are below the poverty line. For this reason, poverty is more concentrated in neighbourhoods which have low performing schools and a higher level of crime rates. In this area, the issue of drugs abuse, teenage pregnancy and unemployment becomes an issue. Therefore, since poverty is associated with homelessness, the detrimental effects of poverty affect the economic development of the city. If people are not provided with employment, then it could lead to a financial crisis. Poverty and the homeless leads to unequal growth in any given city.

Application of concepts

Environmental justice

Environment justice seeks to show that environmental protection should be planned and take accounts of the social, political and economic realities. It also aims to achieve the redistribution of environmental justice to the minority groups in society. Therefore, ecological justice is known to bring a new dimension in the American culture as it shifts its primary focus to the lower class with low incomes and living in poor conditions. Protecting such people in society has led to balancing the costs and benefits of environmental protection across humanity. Taking care of the needs of the poor in society has led to industrialization and economic growth of a country. It also contributes to aesthetics values and environmental improvements to socials concerns between various communities. Its primary concern is to address the adverse side effects of urban development and industrialization to combat problems caused by the current development process. This is because it does not question the path of development and the effects that comes as a result of underdevelopment.

Therefore, for the movement of environmental justice to achieve gains, the root cause of problems such as unequal development is tackled in widely. One of the significant advantages of the environmental justice movement is that it puts its primary focus on communities. For this reason, it goes beyond the international policies concerning sustainable development with an emphasis on the role of each individual in society. For instance, it tackles the root cause of injustices among the minority, such as income inequality. It also addresses the issues which cause imbalances thus occur as a result of racial concerns in the United States. Its main aim is to connect the economically disadvantaged groups with the environmental policies whose primary concern is sustainable development in every community.

Ecological modernization

This study examines how ecological modernization is effective in unequal development in communities. Environmental modernization is a school of thoughts which argues that economic growth in a country is a result of environmentalism. For this reason, ecological modernization has gained lots of attention from researchers and policies in the last ten years. It tends to restore the quality of resource-efficient innovation and green growth in every society. For this reason, many communities have adopted this approach as it establishes a strategy of the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution is vital in every city as it creates employment opportunities, fills the gap between the rich and the poor, and leads to industrialization, thus solving the environmental crisis in a particular country. The ecological modernization approach has received lots of embracement from developed countries such as the USA, Denmark and Sweden as having the global dimension of encouraging technological change. The strategy has been successful as it creates employment, reduces production costs, thus giving the various countries a political process of high feasibility.

The central concept of this approach is to promote innovation in areas affected by poverty to create job opportunities for such people. The approach has a significant policy-driven process that aims at transforming societies from high polluting structure to a sustainable green environment. The first country to adopt this approach so Germany that opened a new field of innovation and employment opportunities in its country. The country aimed at creating a coefficient technology, thus leading to an increase in its productivity, thus saving costs of add on techniques and the resources. Instead of adding pollution control to an existing one, the country encouraged the people to be more innovative and come up with solutions. Another goal of ecological modernization is to use innovation in competitive market economics, thus transforming resources into industrialism. This led to the development of lead markets whose strategies aimed at coming up with clean technologies in various industries. The broader perspective of ecological modernization is that it includes every type of innovative solution which are natural and sustainable to the environment.

Consequently, ecological modernization leads to structural change which reduces sharing f resource. Creating sustainable development in the city eliminated the current issue of unequal development and inequalities in society. Through sustainability, EM aims at achieving at transforming a nation into a state through a decentralised state and a regulated government. The approach used the top-down approach to offer opportunities to less fortunate in society. The main aim of this approach so that social transformation is the main focus of ecological modernization.

Conclusion

The study revealed that inequality development is negatively correlated with the future income of a country. The problems faced by the marginalized group, such as the poor, are terrible from the growth of a nation. The reduction of poverty in New York is the only logical solution toward unequal development and inequalities. Therefore, policies must ensure that the population above the poverty lines and that the vulnerable groups such as the children and disabled should be taken care of. The society is said to reach a threshold of basic needs if the inequalities are taken care of. The level to which reduction of social inequality is a complex issue which takes into consideration the following aspects. This includes the impacts of income inequality and poverty towards the economy of a country. Inequality development in a city is also an issue in wealth, and creating states is even beyond the control of an individual. The connection between inequalities and unequal development at a macro level depends on how the growth of a nation. For instance, if there is a gap between the rich and the poor, then aspects of inequalities are likely to be dominant.

The study considered the conservative notion by using the ecological modernization and environmental justice aspects to show how growth can be developed even where issues of inequalities still exist. For instance, an increase in wage earners can rose the aggregate demands and growth in a city leading to equality. An initial rise of the total market will also analyse the supply constraints, thus balancing payments between the highest-paid and the lowest paid, thus creating an equilibrium. There are vital implications of the findings which are based on assumptions on the concept of ecological modernization that underdevelopment establishes favourable conditions for development in a city. Therefore, to solve this issue of inequality, the government should develop a system which concentrates on building schemes which reach to each corner of the society. Moreover, integrating, urban living through social dimensions approaches such as education and reducing the gap between the rich and poor leads to sustainable development and equality in every society.

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Urban Living and Unequal Development in New York City: The Role of Urban Development and its Inequalities