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Essay/analysis on Inequality
Notes:
First half of class:
Why does high finance need network of cities?
Subsidizing CEOS fast food (sep15)
50 percent of people that live in NY live below the poverty line (sep15)
New types of inequality (sep15)
Real estate developers threat to working slums (Sep 10)
When operating in many countries you’ll need specialized services lawyering etc. -Here’s where agglomeration economies appear -High skilled people come in with high salaries and therefore take up a lot of space, but I think this is a good thing. (commentary)
Security of tenure is problem with slums
What looking for is “yes this article says this but…”
French guy says France basically better than U.S. Second half of class:
From book: Chapter 6:
Manufacturing was the leading sector in market based economy for much of 20th century - 1. It facilitated unionization 2. Based on household consumption—wages mattered because they created effective demand. 3. High wage levels and social benefits became model for broader sectors of the economy.
What is the impact of the ascendance of finance and producer services on the broader social and econ structure of major cities? And what are the consequences of the new urban economy on the earnings distribution of a city’s workforce?
Unskilled workers have become excessive for new advanced sectors
Not necessarily an impact of the ascendance, but there is workplace organizational segmentation based on social, economic, and racial status.
Research shows increases in socioeconomic and spatial inequalities in major cities od developed world in last 2-3 decades, and now even in global south.(241-242) -These trends can be seen as merely a quantitative increase in inequality, but can also be interpreted as social and economic restructuring emerging from new social forms and class realignments. --evidence of this: Growth of informal economy. High income gentrification. Sharp rise in rich countries of specific type of homelessness
The concern of this chapter is to describe the general outlines of this transformation.
European countries have protections built into their social welfare systems that keep people from sinking below a certain threshold—unlike here in U.S. Therefore social outcomes of this stuff is less extreme and less visible in Europe.
First half of Chp 6: transformation in organization of labor. Second half: Earnings distribution in service dominated economy.
-Includes detailed accounts of informal economy and restructuring of urban consumption – two key processes that are part of changed earnings distribution. (242) Transformations in the Organization of the Labor Process
Move to service based decline of manufacturing
Reshaping of job supply
-Computer
- can do professional, clerical, manufacturing - Production jobs have been replaces by machine (often computer/service or worker/engineer -division of processes Ex: delivery, outlet, headquarters separate now -increased customization, specialization, and in-formalization (including sweatshops)
The post WWII era economic growth from various things including fixed capital, standardized production, and suburbanization-led-growth deterred and reduced systematic tendencies toward inequality by constituting an economic regime centered on mass production and mass consumption. Cultural form contributed too: large middle class equals mass consumption which equals standardization in production.(243) -these trends led to greater levels of unionization and other forms of empowerment -this along with gov programs contributed to reduce poverty and helped expand the middle class in the U.S and even other developed countries.
The U.S though has the most visible trends and date shows sharp growth in inequality
-for instance econ growth from 2001-2005 was high but unequally distributed -most went to upper 10%, especially the upper 1%. The rest (the 90%)
