The term inner city (also called the hood) has been used, especially in the United States, as a
euphemism
A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...
for
majority-minority
A majority-minority or minority-majority area is a term used to refer to a subdivision in which one or more racial, ethnic, and/or religious minorities (relative to the whole country's population) make up a majority of the local population.
Term ...
lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...
or
city centre
A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely e ...
area.
Sociologists
This list of sociologists includes people who have made notable contributions to sociological theory or to research in one or more areas of sociology.
A
* Peter Abell, British sociologist
* Andrew Abbott, American sociologist
* Margaret ...
sometimes turn the euphemism into a formal designation by applying the term inner city to such
residential area
A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.
Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family residen ...
s, rather than to more geographically
central commercial districts, often referred to by terms like
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...
or
city centre
A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely e ...
.
History
The term inner city first achieved consistent usage through the writings of
white liberal Protestants in the U.S. after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, contrasting with the growing affluent
suburbs
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
. According to
urban historian
Urban history is a field of history that examines the historical nature of city, cities and towns, and the process of urbanization. The approach is often multidisciplinary, crossing boundaries into fields like social history, architectural histor ...
Bench Ansfield, the term signified both a bounded geographic construct and a set of cultural pathologies inscribed onto urban
black
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
communities. Inner city originated as a term of containment. Its genesis was the product of an era when a largely white suburban
mainline Protestant
The mainline Protestants (sometimes also known as oldline Protestants) are a group of Protestantism in the United States, Protestant denominations in the United States and Protestantism in Canada, Canada largely of the Liberal Christianity, theolo ...
ism was negotiating its relationship to American cities. Liberal Protestants' missionary brand of urban renewal refocused attention away from the blight and structural obsolescence thought to be responsible for urban decay, and instead brought into focus the cultural pathologies they mapped onto black neighborhoods. The term inner city arose in this
racial liberal context, providing a rhetorical and ideological tool for articulating the role of the church in the nationwide project of urban renewal. Thus, even as it arose in contexts aiming to entice mainline Protestantism back into the cities it had fled, the term accrued its meaning by generating symbolic and geographic distance between white liberal churches and the black communities they sought to help.
Urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...
(also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
) is a program of land
redevelopment
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space.
Description
Variations on redevelopment include ...
often used to address
urban decay
Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban decay. ...
in cities. Urban renewal is the
clearing out of blighted areas in inner cities to create opportunities for higher class housing, businesses, and more.
In Canada, in the 1970s, the government introduced Neighbourhood Improvement Programs to deal with urban decay, especially in inner cities.
[https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144470328.pdf ] Also, some inner-city areas in various places have undergone the socioeconomic process of
gentrification
Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...
, especially since the 1990s.
[ (]Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...
) and its analysis in — see example in Demographics of Atlanta: Race and ethnicity
See also
*
Bid rent theory
The bid rent theory is a geographical economic theory that refers to how the price and demand for real estate change as the distance from the central business district (CBD) increases. Bid Rent Theory was developed by William Alonso in 1964, it ...
*
Black flight
Black flight is a term applied to the migration of African Americans from predominantly black or mixed inner-city areas in the United States to suburbs and newly constructed homes on the outer edges of cities. While more attention has been paid ...
and
white flight
The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...
*
Concentric zone model
The concentric zone model, also known as the Burgess model or the CCD model, is one of the earliest theoretical models to explain urban social structures. It was created by sociologist Ernest Burgess in 1925.
The model
Based on human ecology ...
*
Ghetto
A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...
*
Industrial deconcentration
Industrial deconcentration is the movement of industrial zones (factories) away from the center of the city, and further away from each other. It is similar to suburbanization, a residential trend in which a large number of the population move awa ...
*
Inner-City Games
The Inner-City Games were founded by Daniel Hernandez of the Hollenbeck Youth Center in 1991 as a way to build self-confidence, self-reliance, and camaraderie among inner-city youth. The Games began in East Los Angeles with more than 40,000 youths ...
*
Skid row
A skid row, also called skid road, is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people " on the skids". This specifically refers to people who are poor or homeless, considered disre ...
*
Slum
A slum is a highly populated Urban area, urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are p ...
*
Suburban colonization
*
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted ...
*
Urban structure
Urban structure is the arrangement of land use in urban areas, in other words, how the land use of a city is set out. Urban planners, economists, and geographers have developed several models that explain where different types of people and busine ...
*
The projects
In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inner City
Urban decay
Cities
Vernacular geography
Sociological terminology