The City That Lost Its Soul By Sharon Zukin

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a non-fiction book about an architect who led the Chicago World Fair of 1893; a serial killer used the fair to lure people to him. Blocks from the fair, the killer built a hotel with equipment ready to use. This book known for incorporating some of America’s history also had very dramatic and entertaining story behind it. Erik Larson wrote in third person. He wrote this book to inform people on what happen in Chicago. Erik uses a great amount of imagery and diction to inform people of this event. ”The lake was grey, darkening to a band of black at the horizon “was just one of his many spots of imagery. His tone also comes across as objective and neutral limits from using any language that

My favorite nonfiction book is Devil in the White City  by Erik Larson. I enjoy Larson’s book because of my love for a book with mystery. The complex psyche of Holmes is something that intrigued me throughout the read and the abundance of history within the pages kept me turning them. Moreover, the multiple perspectives from which the “novel” is told kept my mind turning. The point of view may quickly change to Burnham to Holmes and the topic may shift from dissecting female victims to what color should the facade of a building be.  One takeaway I got from the book is the need to always change and evolve. To quote Winston Churchill “ To improve is to change, to perfect is to change often”, this ideology is found enrooted in the novel as architects

Erik Larson’s literary nonfiction novel “The Devil in the White City” surrounds the events of the 1893 Columbian Exposition World’s Fair in Chicago. Larson does a magnificent job intertwining the lives of two men who were changed by the events of the fair. Daniel H. Burnham, the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World 's Fair and Dr. H. H. Holmes, the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. The purpose of this review is not only to summarize Larson’s fascinating and satisfying work which vividly portrays one of the last grand gasps of the nineteenth century, but to also evaluate his work as a writer while providing a critical analysis of his book.

First Draft Chicago, the White City, full of life and amusement, a jaw-dropping experience. However, this White City also has many dark secrets that hide in the shadows. Erik Larson portrays both views in his book The Devil in the White City. When an ambitious leading architect, Daniel Burnham, has the task to run and design the renowned Chicago World’s Fair.

Social History is a vast term that very closely ties into the concept of history as a whole. The use of social history is necessary when it comes to fully understanding the past. Many nonfiction books and movies carry the essence of social history to give the viewers a deeper perspective of major issues. Social history is the use of personal stories that shed light on dominant issues by building public awareness.

Most curriculums being taught to students withhold a mass amount of history. Some may do this because they feel some events do not have the same importance as other topics being taught. Such topics for example would be the rape and sexual exploitation of thousands of African American females during the time periods where racism and segregation was the norm. It is important for people to be educated about the horrific events that these women went through without justice. It is also essential because it shows the amazing activism Rosa Parks took part in. Most people are often just taught about Parks’ actions on the bus. At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle L. McGuire shows how Rosa Parks and many other dedicated their lives to receive equality not only for themselves, but for all African Americans in the south. Danielle L. McGuire’s work is an amazing way for people to not only learn more of Rosa Parks story, but to get a better understanding of what all African American woman had to deal with during this time period. The realism of sexual violence and its dominant impact on the African American women was one of the many events that helped ignite the Civil Rights Movement. McGuire wrote At the Dark End of the Street in order to resolve the negligence of this reality.

The birth of a child is a truly magical occurrence. Once a baby’s gender is determined, either through ultrasound, or from the brief examination of a doctor, this small branch of a family’s inheritance, has already been designated with countless burdensome requirements to follow within their limited world. In regards to historical stereotypes, timid, little girls wear pink skirts and hair bows. These girls grow up to become housewives, who cook, clean and babysit the children. Meanwhile, boisterous young boys have the whole world to conquer and rule. The multiple responsibilities of a man are deemed as very important since he is the person who earns the family income. In contrast, Teddy, the main character of “The Fall of a City” by Canadian author Alden Nowlan, is a very inventive and quiet child, who uses his imagination to build himself a utopian escape in his dark, gloomy attic. He uses scrap paper to create the citizens of Upalia and cardboard to fabricate the radiant city of Theodoresburg. Eventually, Teddy’s aunt worries about what Teddy is constantly doing, hidden away from his family. His uncle heads to the attic only to discover the shocking revelation that Teddy has been playing with paper dolls and a doll house. Teddy’s uncle laughs and teases Teddy mercilessly, culminating in Teddy to go against his accomplishments and lose an important part of his individuality. Furthermore, the conflict between Teddy and his uncle is a manifestation of how many adults, such as

In the constantly changing economy of cities, the growth of city housing is oftentimes neglected. In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification” Timothy Williams recounts how gentrification has evolved over the years. Mentioning how cities have changed in order to appease the younger professionals, Williams shows how the city itself is in jeopardy due to the tax increases. Slowly loosing their faithful residents as well as historic culture cities face a big deal. Williams gives quotes from faithful residents, “…long time homeowners are victims of the success story”, (Williams 346). In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification”, Williams uses his credible quotes and modern statistics to generate the reader’s emotions, with desire to change how city officials go about gentrification in culturally infused cities.

Gentrification is not a new phenomenon, but in recent years it has become more prevalent due to many cities, especially low-income districts being renovated and rejuvenated by business and economic opportunities. Many of the cities that are being affected by gentrification are primarily sought out for renovation due to their location. Chris Hamnett views, “Gentrification as essentially a class-based process whereby working-class or rundown area of the city are transformed into middle-class residential areas often with attendant changes in commercial use” (Hamnett 467). Governments, states, and cities need to implement better the political, social and cultural neighborhood changes, including wider economic changes, related to gentrification, into the concept of displacement to understand the entirety and temporality of the process (Davidson 2389). It is easy to blame the incoming middle-class civilians for displacing the low-income/working class locals from their neighborhoods, but not having rent control is more at fault for the low-income residents' displacements.

In “The Victims” by Sharon Olds it describes a divorce through the eyes of the parents’ children. The first section is shown through past tense as the speaker is a child and the last section is shown in present tense with the speaker already being an adult trying to make sense of past events. The word “it” in the first two lines carries a tremendous weight, hinting at the ever so present abuse and mistreatment, but remaining non-specific. The first part generates a negative tone toward the father who is referred to as malicious by the mother who “took it” from him “in silence” until she eventually “kicked him out.” Through the entirety of the poem the children are taught to hate their father. Who taught them? Their mother showed them that their father was a villain and were taught to have no sympathy for him but “to hate you and take it” and so they did so. Although the poem never directly states what the father did to receive the family’s hated, the speaker gives examples as to why he is hated.

“Words are not passive; indeed, they help to share and create our perceptions of the world around us. The terms we choose to label or describe events must, therefore, convey appropriate connotations or images of the phenomenon under consideration in order to avoid serious misunderstandings. The existence of different terms to describe gentrification is not an accident, neither is the plethora of definitions for it” (Palen & London, 1984, p. 6). SAY SOMETHING Peter Marcuse (1999) argues that, “how gentrification is evaluated depends a great deal on how it is defined” (p. 789). Defining gentrification properly is necessary for anchoring an analysis of neighborhood change, particularly in light of recent scholarly efforts to replace the term (to describe the process) with less critical names like: ‘urban renaissance’,

Zukin, an avid advocate for authenticity, discussed in detail how cities are losing their authenticity. Zukin described authenticity as “a continuous process of living and working, a gradual buildup of everyday experience.” The issue is many cities are that people are now coming and going all the time to the point where everyone stays a stranger to one another, shops are always being closed and changed, and nothing is ever around long enough to create a culture that leads to authenticity. Gentrification is taking away many neighborhoods authenticity as many corporate leaders and politicians look to “clean up” areas which usually has to deal with people of color that are poor. Authenticity and racial diversity are traded for capital. This leads to segregation of less fortunate individuals and families of color. When governments or businesses try and gentrify different neighborhoods they rely on laws, pressure, and lie in order to remove the people who live in these areas.

First, let's start with what gentrification is. Google defines it as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste”, but the image Gentrification usually evokes when brought into discussion is hipsters moving into a run-down but charming neighborhood and transforming it into something completely different. What is a hipster? Some may call them the fairy godmothers of the once neglected area, and others may refer to them as the monsters that are displacing families to make an artisan beard oil shop, but we’ll touch on that later.

The term Gentrification was coined by a British Sociologist Ruth Glass to describe the movement of middle class families in urban areas causing the property value to increase and displacing the older settlers. Over the past decades, gentrification has been refined depending on the neighborhood 's economic, social and political context. According to Davidson and Less’ definition, a gentrified area should include investment in capital, social upgrading, displacement of older settlers and change in the landscape (Davidson and Lees, 2005).Gentrification was perceived to be a residential process, however in the recent years, it has become a broader topic, involving the restructuring of inner cities, commercial development and improvement of facilities in the inner city neighborhoods. Many urban cities like Chicago, Michigan and Boston have experienced gentrification, however, it is affecting the Harlem residents more profoundly, uprooting the people who have been living there for decades, thus destroying the cultural identity of the historic neighborhood.

What is an urban revolution? Why is it important for cities to have one? What are that factors that cause these revolutions? In the articles The Urban Revolution by V.Gordon Childe, The Right to The City by David Harvey and lastly, What Type of Public Transit for What Type of Public? by Kafui A. Attoh, displays the different ways the residents in a city react to the social inequality and human rights.