CitySuburban Dichotomy essays

CitySuburban Dichotomy essays After LAPD officers Laurence Powell, Theodor Briseno, and Timoty Wind, supervised Sgt. Stacey Koon, were found "not guilty" of beating citizen King, the Los Angeles riots erupted. Why did the riots occur? The rebellion was an outcome of the fiscal and social troubles which conffroting America's city and now. To understand riots, one must understand the causes of social rage, ussually said to be racism, poverty, lack of economic opportunity, and why people who experience this rage manage it in such a destructive manner. America is a suburban country and urban America is still losing population. Today about three-quarters of all Americans live in metropolitan areas. Two-thirds of them - in other words, about half the nation's population - live in suburbs. Furthermore, in every region of the country - even where city population are increasing - the fastest-growing parts of the metropolitan areas are the surrounding suburbs. During the 1980's, for example, Los Angeles grew by 17.4%, while its suburbs grew by 29.5%. Baltimore lost 6.4% of its population while its suburbs grew by 16.5%. Between 1970 and 1990, Chicago was loosing 17% of its population as its suburbs gained 24%. Furthermore, in fact the suburbs dominate politics. The number of Congressmembers who represent cities is declining, while the number who represent suburbs is increasing. For example, in 1992,when the riots in Los Angeles occured, the House had 98 urban districts, 170 suburban districts, and 88 rural districts; the rest were a mix of urban-suburban or rural-suburban populations. Of course, members of Congress who present "suburban" areas may be personally sympathetic to the plight of the central cities,but it does not mean they will vote to spend their constituents' tax dollars to alleviate urban problems. These aspects have led to the movement of businesses to the suburbs, and these forces are extremely difficult to counteract. Because people live...