OBE #5 SLUM
This piece was a bit statistically heavy and it made it hard for me to carry my eyes over to the next word, but Davis was able to give concrete information and had better illustrated the inequalities using statistics that exist throughout the world within urban cores that Engels wasn’t able to do for Manchester. Both do give light to the social ills and health implications to high density urban cores and Engels just does a better job with the ethnography when he discusses the conditions of Manchester. Davis has a macro level view on the issue of urbanization-population increase and Engels has a micro level view when he discusses the issues and implications of urbanization-density.
Davis doesn’t give an account to struggles between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or give mention to capitalism having any role in the issue of urban expansion and economic decline but Engels puts a lot of emphasis on capitalism affecting the segregation of the poor and their housing conditions in Manchester. Davis implies that there is yet another system or key factors that attribute to the social ills in urban areas across the globe in ‘underdeveloped countries’ in comparison to the United States. (I put underdeveloped in parentheses because I think we’re assuming that these countries are deemed to be better off economically, socially, and politically if they were democratic and capitalistic societies). I would like to see Davis compare ‘underdeveloped’ countries with other countries other than the US. Reading this gave me the impression that the United States acts as the normative.
The struggle between all men in ‘underdeveloped’ countries may be one of power than of capital, and this implies that the political makeup of these countries may not be democratic and capitalistic like America which therefore produces social ills that differ in magnitude and character (sexual trafficking, political heads participating in drug trafficking, violence and war with the young – guns and militias in Africa, despair and injustice – caste systems set in place that imply that it is a birthright to be poor!). Both also need to give mind to cultural differences when contrasting urbanization in ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ countries.
The unemployment insecurity of Manchester made each man for himself or all were against all in Manchester, but the lack of employment in ‘underdeveloped countries’ doesn’t manifest feelings of insecurity, only despair! When social issues between ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ countries are compared, they are similar in some aspects, but greatly different in the extent and character of the hate, violence, and immoral injustices of the people. Inequalities in income, access to housing, and racial and ethnic conflicts are prevalent in the US, but the inequalities in power and freedom are at an extreme in ‘underdeveloped’ countries. US citizens still are able to collectively voice their concerns and exercise some notion of freedom and power, but in some other countries, the right to exercise a democratic voice is shunned or exercised in extreme measures, and can produce dire consequences such as death.
Engels hints at an economic hierarchy of men within Manchester. There is the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but there also are the middle classmen. Reading Davis’ piece, I would assume that there was a greater divide between the rich and the poor and that there was a fewer amount of rich elitists in ‘underdeveloped’ countries than in developed ones. The impoverished in ‘underdeveloped’ countries are also clearly and blatantly segregated from the rich and how the rich and poor cover the space of the urban land was interesting in comparison to US urban cities. The ‘underdeveloped’ poor are placed in the outskirts of the city, clearly implying that the core is solely reserved for those who can rake in the cash, but in Manchester, the segregation is subtle and done so architecturally and spatially. There were enclaves of poor and rich in Manchester, but the poor were ‘masterfully’ out of sight from the rich when rich streets didn’t intersect with poor enclaves or never physically in some way intersected the bourgeois with the social ills of the city.
Davis also touches base on the rural-urban migration of the US and ‘underdeveloped’ countries which was interesting to note. Most would have assumed that with the increase in population in urban areas of ‘underdeveloped’ countries, that it would bring along an increase in the economy, but that wasn’t the case.
~Kat