Klinenberg reflection

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Ryan Pang

The thing I found interesting about this article is the fact that it only takes a small heat wave to distinguish the class segregation in a city like Chicago. The neighborhoods with the most deaths consist of the lower class, while the neighborhoods with the least amount of deaths consist of the upper class. This is because the people of the upper class can afford to buy air conditioners and home cooling systems while an air conditioner may mean punching a hole in one’s savings for people of the lower class.

What also surprised me was that a lot of people died because of seclusion in their houses. This was most prevalent in the poorer neighborhoods because the elderly and many others were scared to go outside, even though it was hot. This may be due to the fact that the neighborhoods themselves were so dangerous that baking in one’s house seemed a better option.

I also found it scary how many hospitals rejected patients during the first few days of the heat wave and how the morgues didn’t even have enough space to hold all the people who died from this tragic event.

Alvin & Jana’s Avenue U Field Notes

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Jana Hitgano

Alvin and I visited Avenue U on March 22 and found that there were many disparities between this area and Manhattan’s historic Chinatown. First and foremost, we noticed the lack of people present on the streets. Chinatown is almost always packed to the brim, with street vendors, residents, and tourists walking the winding, narrow streets. The layout of the area itself was another difference we noticed between the two neighborhoods. Manhattan’s Chinatown features very narrow, maze-like streets, with the exception of Canal St. and Avenue U was a stretch of 10 blocks with stores on either side of the street. The avenue itself was quite broad and it was easy to navigate through the area. Probably one of the only similarities between Avenue U and Chinatown are the presence of Chinese shops. As seen in our photos, there were many salons, drugstores, electronic stores, supermarkets, and small eateries along Avenue U. Despite the presence of all of these commercial venues, there was a stark lack of people going in and out of them. In comparison to its Manhattan counterpart, Avenue U was a ghost town.

Of the people we noticed walking around the area, probably only half of them were Chinese. There were all kinds of people there, most notably Russians and Hispanics. If it weren’t for the Chinese shops littered on every street, we probably would not have guess that Avenue U was considered a satellite Chinatown.