Inequality Regime in Public Housing in New Orleans - Essay Example

?Public housing in New Orleans Inequality Regime Part I Public housing in New Orleans Arena has explored the impact of gentrification that hasbeen dominating the cities and towns of the U.S. in the last few decades. Gentrification happens when large investors and affluent people put their money on city spaces thereby increasing the value of properties. Under his concept, the poor and low income families get displaced to make place for the rich and high class people. Such shifting of the wealthier class has been occurring in the U.S. after years of disinvestment and growth of the suburban areas. However, this change in the cities was predicted by many theorists decades back. This urban phenomenon is actually the effect of the larger American policies of relating the nation’s economic structure with the global economy. In the decades following the 1970s, huge corporate owners and multimillionaires have encouraged the fall of “Fordist-Keynesian model of accumulation” and have witnessed the growth of “neoliberal-globalization” model (Arena, 2012, p.xx). In order to cope with increasing globalization, the ultra rich class has used the tactics of stripping the urban areas of poverty and low-income classes. The idea was to shift the base of production to low wage areas in the south of the U.S. In these areas, business activities are not dictated by labor unions and also there are close ties between state and local governments. Thus, the brunt of gentrification has been endured by the worker class since wages have declined sharply. On the other hand, the benefits fell on the affluent population of American cities. Gentrification has essentially hindered the growth of production center as the focus was on expanding the service sector. During the second half of the twentieth century, the industrial areas of American cities were transformed into centers of urban amenities like hotels, restaurants, malls and so on. Thus, wealth began to get accumulated in the hands of the ultra rich making them even richer at the expense of poorer urban community. The author has explored the political struggles in New Orleans that occurred as a result of privatization of public housing. From 1960s onwards the U.S. federal government played a vital role for providing housing provisions at affordable rents, and for this the government promoted strategies that encourage financial sponsorship of the private owners of rental housing sectors. Contrary to the properties that are publicly owned, houses that are constructed solely for the purpose of providing housing at affordable rents were construction by support from federal programs like Low Income Housing Tax Credit launched in 1986, and home funds from National Affordable Housing Act of 1990 (Arena, 2012, p.4). Such subsidization of private housing has been supported by the political opponents since it was an appropriate process for delivery low rent housing provisions. It has been claimed that historically U.S. government has failed to provide quality public services at low price because of inefficient bureaucracies. Failure of the government encouraged private sectors to enter public service sector in order to provide quality services at affordable prices. This also enhanced the financial interest of the private sectors. The two housing projects, St. Thomas and Iberville were identified as lucrative areas by political and economic elites, especially the areas inhabited by the African American community. The area surrounding St. Thomas which was predominated by the Blacks was particularly regarded as a hindrance to tourism. The idea was to evict this community in order to transform the cities’ factories, warehouses and low income housing to promote tourism. Struggle ensued when the responsibility of removing the Blacks fell on the black political elite. In the year 1986, two black candidates participated in the mayoral race. William Jefferson who was an Angle- African American became the mayor that year. The losing candidate, Sidney Barthelemy befriended the low income public owners of houses to increase his racial and political base. On the other hand, Jefferson was committed to disrupt the public housing communities of St. Thomas (Arena, 2012, pp.29-30). In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which proved to be an economic disaster for New Orleans, the political and economic elites grabbed the opportunity to capitalize the affected areas. The agenda that was initiated by President Bush and expanded by President Obama took full advantage of the displacement caused by the Katrina. Their goal was to redevelop the areas by forcing the African American immigrants out of the region in order to promote tourism. The strategy that was applied was to provide the Black community housing provisions with high rental rates. This allowed for construction of a new district which was known as Storyville (Arena, 2012, pp.xxxiv,223). Part II Inequality regimes According to Joan Acker (2006), an inequality regime “is the configuration of inequality-producing practices and processes within particular organizations at particular times” (Acker, 2006, p.10). In multinational companies, inequality is often based on gender, race, nationality, class etc. Wages, opportunities for job promotions, expectations about work performance are based on these elements. Inequality regimes are difficult to notice in international trade since multinational companies send labours from low wage countries to other countries. These companies relocate production processes to avail of cheap labour (Acker, 2006, p.172). Inequality regime is common in any corporate body so as to derive the maximum benefit from low wage from skilled labours. Very often women workers with low wages are hired to replace men. Also, in international trade, transferring labor from low wage countries is a common issue. The systematic perpetuation of inequality regimes legitimizes and rationalizes distinguishing of Asian immigrants, especially the Korean immigrant women from the rest of the American society in the book, The Managed Hand. The author Miliann Kang observed the Korean immigrant women who work in New York’s nail salons. Her initial excitement and feeling of self-indugence were soon replaced by harsh reality of daily inequalities and dynamic pressure of this intimate service exchange. These workers did not immigrate to America leaving behind their country and family with the dream of grooming the hands and feet of other women. However, the rapid success of this entrepreneurship, have encouraged thousands of Korean women to take up this job as a ladder for economic upliftment. Similarly, “while no individual woman suddenly wakes up with the idea that manicured nails are central to her identity,” (Kang, 2010, p.9) this service has fast become affordable and accessible to women of all races and social position. Kang writes, “Rather than being an end in and of itself, nice nails and beauty more broadly are vehicles, albeit flawed and unreliable vehicles, to claim power in work, family, and relationships” (Kang, 2010, p.132). The general idea that mostly Korean women are engaged in manicuring services stems from the fact that many whites believe that most Asian women are naturally talented with sense of service, and they enjoy doing this work. For this reason, the upper and middle class white women visit nail salons attended by Korean women as they are not only satisfied by the Koreans’ service of polished and painted nails, but they also expect pampering and reverence. Thus, for these customers, the nail technicians need to learn the language of “complimenting and coddling” (Kang, 2010, p.163). However, white customers do not apply the same logic on women of other ethnic communities like the Russians and Polish women. Supporting this belief, many Russian immigrant women worked in nail salons before shifting to other jobs. The general explanation is that they became fluent in English and acquired enough education to prove themselves worthy of other jobs, and not because they did not enjoy the job. However, the Korean women even after acquiring high education do not do the same. The answer lies in racial categorization. The question is not about becoming competent for other kinds of jobs, but the Russians after acquiring fluency in English simply mingle as whites. Contrary to this, Korean women even after falling in the bracket of “upwardly mobile, hardworking model minority”, (Kang, 2010, p.141) still find nail salon jobs as best available option. In contrary to the whites, the African American customers demand less pampering and more respect. Instead of demanding extra hand messages, they want “aesthetic nail designs” (Kang, 2010, p.167) along with fair and respectful treatment. Kang has attributed the reason as that the whites are most interesting in doing nail jobs for self-expression than for advancement of status. This is also because the blacks are aware of the professionalism of the Korean manicurists, and so are congenial. However, even this condition is unstable because of the underlying Black-Korean conflict. The conflict arises from feeling of superiority by the Blacks. Even though according to the model minority concept, the Asian immigrants are given a middle status between the blacks and whites (above blacks and close to whites), the African Americans ignore this since they feel they are superior because they do not perform such subservient jobs (Kang, 2010, p.167). However, Black-Korean conflicts are less matter of concern in these nail spas where the black customers and Korean manicurists interact keeping aside racial and class tensions (Kang, 2010, p.30). References Arena, J. (2012) Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization, Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Acker, J. (2006) Class Questions: Feminist Answers, Rowman & Littlefield Kang, M. (2010) The Managed Hand: Race, Gender, and the Body in Beauty Service Work, California: Univ. of California Read More