Alexandria campus for an evening class and of course was met with an onslaught of crazy traffic. I know living around the city you expect to get a certain amount of traffic no matter what road or time of day, however this was bad...So many people work in the city and travel to work each day, it was interesting to read this week about the trends and statistics regarding urbanization the decline of rural America and the population movement away from cities known as suburbanization. When I think about my life and the places I have lived, I was interested to read about the history of suburbs (the place I mostly resided). My mom was a teacher and able to live and work in many different areas so the choice of our residence was placed mainly on my dad. He initially worked in a suburb of Los Angeles then got a job working on Capitol Hill and we moved to a home in Northern Virginia.
According to our sociology book urbanization increased during the 1950's in a post WWII era and many people were seeking out the American dream of owning land and a home. Thanks to government programs that assisted families in receiving mortgage loans areas outside of major cities developed and drew large populations in. In my life I have not seen this specifically but I have lived in these areas. I have seen what the social scientists today describe as the movement to newer outer-ring suburbs. I lived in Reston, VA which was the first post-WWII planned community which I believe makes it a "first suburb." In high school I played sports against and new many kids from the new outer-ring suburbs like Centreville, Chantilly and Sterling.
I also went to high school where as a white male I was in the minority. This is example of another important change in the makeup of the suburbs today because it has a growing number of racial and ethnic minorities. This was not so much the case for the outer-ring suburbs, although I would be willing to bet that it is trending that way.
1 comment:
Interesting posting. Very often in sociology, I read posting by white students expressing either their pride or pain of being the only "minority" in a sea of blacks or Hispanics.
A point of correction. Sociologists make a clear distinction between numerical minority and sociological minority.
Surely, some white students are finding themselves to be the only numerical minority but not a sociological majority.
Male students constitute a numerical minority in many universities and colleges in North American, but remain members of the dominant group in the society.
N
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