It’s hard to argue with the numbers – current strategies for dealing with homelessness are not working. The current tactic of trying to outlaw homelessness resembles the almost cartoon-like strategy of trying to clean your room by cramming all of the clutter in one closet. Of course, this strategy can only work for so long before the closet begins to overflow and eventually burst, which is the same problem New York and other cities are facing. New York has more homeless now than it ever has, and it’s rapidly becoming less practical to try and simply remove them. What’s troubling is that a very clear and simple solution has been staring New Yorkers in the face for quite some time – a massive quantity of vacant rooms. Currently, there are no laws or rules which encourage or incentivize  private landowners to offer their empty rooms to people in desperate need of shelter.
Why is this? It would likely be very easy to use the money currently being spent to relocate and remove the homeless on something like a tax break being offered to property owners who offer genuine help to the homeless.

While reading through “Theoretical Perspectives on The City,” I was struck by Tonnies’ view that the gradual but inevitable shift from small rural communities to larger, metropolitan environments posed a significant hazard to society. Tonnies stated that these larger, more urban settings were less conducive to cooperation and would eventually destroy themselves. While this is a potential issue of larger urban cities, I believe there is a larger issue than Tonnies overlooked, which was well covered by Ernest W. Burgess. Burgess predicted a pattern in the growth of cities in which the center of any given urban setting would be dominated by entertainment and business, which would fan out into residential areas of varying wealth. Burgess made another observation – the central business area of any given city will slowly expand outward, gobbling up poorer residential areas in what is effectively a process of widespread gentrification. This is a pattern which can be easily seen in many modern cities, and is the one which poses the greatest threat. As gentrification continues outward, the communities which are displaced will be left with nowhere to go. This process will continue further and further until eventually there is no space left for the poorer communities and society will enter a state of decay, as Tonnies predicted.