When our class discussed what draws immigrants to places like New York, one of our best-agreed-upon answers was the economic opportunity and relatively high standard of living that such cities supposedly have to offer…. which is obviously pretty hard to reconcile with the images of squalid tenement life painted in this week’s readings. Foner tries to trace some of the transition from poverty-ravaged tenement neighborhoods into their modern counterparts, but the transformation is still pretty hard to wrap one’s head around.
To jump in on this capitalism debate bandwagon, I have to agree with Jessica that the horrors of places like mid-19th century Five Points were more about the lack of regulatory legislation than capitalism per se (and anyway, it’s not like socialism somehow wipes out greed).
