In “The Warmth of Other Suns,” Isabel Wilkerson talks about different viewpoints from African Americans during the Great Migration. She interviews three people who migrated to the north during the Great Migration. I found this topic to be very interesting since it is not very easy to find people of that generation to share their experiences from those difficult times.

Prior to this reading, I never thought of African Americans to discriminate between suitors based on the skin of their color. The struggles that African Americans went through during the Great Migration and before then are hard to describe for those who experienced it. For example, the trip to school for Ida Mae is very difficult to understand for most people today because of the ease of transportation and greater equality in society.

It is hard to imagine life in which people have to take certain modes of transportation, even walk, for long distances based on the color of their skin. The decision for many African Americans to leave their homes in the South and move to the North was clearly very hard since it would change their lives forever. Considering the famous African American people in today’s generation and the fact that they would not have been in their position today if it was not for their ancestors who made the decision to migrate, it is drastic to think of how different society would be.

I believe that today’s society is almost the complete opposite of society at the time of the Great Migration. Back then, racial discrimination was still present and there were still separation in public places. Southern African Americans decided to move to northern cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, because their lives were already so difficult in the south. Their decision was definitely very risky since they did not have any established residence in the north nor any occupation. It was essentially a whole new country for them, as Wilkerson describes the migration experience.

Overall, I found this reading to be very informative and it certainly taught me a lot about the experiences of the migrants after the segregation against African Americans was outlawed. Most, if not all, of the northern cities in today’s America would be drastically different if those people had not made the decision to move. The migration of black Americans led to great developments such as the rise of the language and music of urban America that sprang from the blues that came along with the migrants and dominates our airwaves today. After the influx of African Americans into northern cities, the appearance and make-up of those cities changed.

In Michael B. Katz’s “What is an American City?,” there were several interesting points that he rises in regards to the makeup and definition of the modern-day city. His claim that “America is living through a transformation as profound as the Industrial revolution” was especially interesting because I never thought of modern-day American cities to be in that extreme of a phase as the Industrial revolution was.

I agree that American cities behave in cycles and people and cities themselves are always going to be changing over time. This is obvious through photographs of nineteenth and twentieth century American cities, which show very different lifestyles from today. I also found it interesting how he compares the development of Philadelphia and Los Angeles. In modern-day America, these cities are considered to be two of the biggest and most lively cities, but clearly it was not always that way. Los Angeles grew more rapidly than Philadelphia, which lost its population because it was an old industrial city and many manufacturing jobs were lost. The growths of these cities have made them very different but they have change drastically from the cities they were considered to be before. This further emphasizes his curiosity about the definition of the American city.

It is also interesting how the development of so many American cities was based on the regional location and the types of jobs that the cities can provide for its residents. For example, it is interesting that cities like Las Vegas and New Orleans build their cities around entertainment. The distribution of jobs in various American cities is a vital reason why many cities today are the way they are.

Another strong influence on cities has been immigration in America, which has clearly made many American cities stronger than before. Immigration in general changed the culture and lifestyle in many cities. I agree with his point that over time, the distinction between cities and suburbs was diminishing.

Personally, I agree with the belief that modern-day cities are defined by what they produce. Since America has become a consumer-based country, the cities are easily identifiable by what they have to offer. For example, Silicon Valley is clearly infamous for producing successful technology companies. In conclusion, I don’t really think that there can be a permanent definition for what makes up an American city since there are always changes taking place, but the closest one for modern-day cities would be defining them based on what they produce.