Puzzle Paragraph Time

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After discussing the eminent domain and the racial issues such as housing discrimination in A Raisin In the Sun, I think that they are actually connected to each other. When there is segregated housing in a society, everyone is split off by racial, ethnic or class. Because of this separation, one community is visibly poorer or richer than the others. Today we can see this type of wealth inequality in many states such as the one between Clawson and Troy school district. Once upon a time, both districts had somewhat equal educational rankings and similar grades, however with the influx of new racial groups and different people from different social classes--which began after the global expansion of the auto industries in Michigan--the two districts started to become more and more different. As newcomers move into an area, others with similar races, classes or ethnicities tend to also move there with them. This caused more and more people to move into Troy and greatly increased the amount of money the government had to expand schools in Troy. On the other hand, Clawson did not experience the same thing. Their residents started to also move into Troy because of the drastic difference in schools. This left Clawson poor and the schools in Clawson started to decline in quality: teachers started to leave because of the lower wage, the district cannot hire new staff because of the lack of money. This type of city becomes the new target for big companies to take advantage of using eminent domain. In the packet for the eminent domain essay, many of the examples included worn down communities getting chosen by the government/companies to take over. It is because those communities are weaker and need more money to survive. So by offering them really good benefits that can revive the communities, the companies can easily convince the poor to give up their properties. 

How can this issue be solved then? Someone might say: "Jesus, you guys are so dumb. Couldn't this be solved simply by using government regulations?" I think I would ask him if he is also seeing pink elephants in the room. There is no way to put a quota on people's choice of housing. The government cannot just say this year only 10 Asian families can move here and only 10 white families can move here. That violates many basic rights and simply just too inefficient to do. I think this is sort of a type of natural selection where the strong communities will eventually take in the weak or the weak will be destroyed (or maybe revived) by eminent domain. And since the beginning of time, natural selection usually cannot be stopped. 

Comments

  1. Alex XuDecember 15, 2019 at 9:44 AM

    I was thinking about the proposed Clawson merger again, and how most people in Troy would instinctively be against it but as we learned from the podcast last week we should reconsider that decision. However, I realized there's a catch - capacity. Just as racial differences increase over time, so do differences in student population, and Troy High is already crammed as is and accepting 250 more students from Clawson might not exactly work when classes are already nearly full, locker rooms are already being turned into classrooms, and there are literally no lockers left. This is a legitimate concern for some Troy people but at the same time it leaves Clawson vulnerable, there's no good way out...

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