Page and Half?

Introduction to Research Paper

For my final paper I will attempt to answer my question “Why did American inner cities decline in influence and population in the middle part of the century?” I will do this be synthesizing a wide variety of scholarly sources from different perspectives, including Sociology, History, Economics, and Human Geography. Through this I hope to discover whether there is truly a singular root cause to a phenomenon referred to as “Urban Decay” or if it is an issue deeply engrained in a multitude of focuses social and natural. In part I also want to look into examples of this in the city of Saint Louis, Missouri, which is often considered the poster boy for urban decay and deindustrialization.
The First paper I looked at was called "Urban Sprawl" written by Thomas J. Nechyba and Randall P. Walsh. In this they argue that the dilapidated state in which inner cores across the United States stand is primarily caused by the accessibility and advances of the automobile and the freeway, as well as a downturn in usage of mass transit. Sociologically, they argue that an increase in income and a decrease in transportation expenditures made it possible for such vast suburbanization to occur. In William Frey's "Central City White Flight: Racial and Nonracial Causes", he argues that although there was an economic demand for housing after World War 2, there were extremely important social and racial implications to the decline of the American inner city. He states that increasing tensions in the 50's, stimulated by an influx of African Americans from the rural south moving to the cities for "mobility", a sociological term form how well and individual or unit can adjust or improve upon their status, like job opportunity. Essentially, he says that the market actively made it easier for established residents to flee the cities for suburban areas, thus avoiding interaction.
In Leah Platt Boustan’s, "Was Postwar Suburbanization "White Flight"? Evidence from the Black Migration." She uses evidence to prove that the population shift in the middle part of the 20th century was caused in part by social and racial tension especially after World War 2. This work actually infuses both cultural and economic context to solve a relatively similar question to the one I am asking in my Research Paper, which is not only why urban decay has occurred but also what are the lasting effects on the present inner city essentially.


 
Works Cited
Frey, William H. Central City White Flight: Racial and Nonracial Causes. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, Institute for Research on Poverty, 1977. Print.

Baumol, William J. "Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth: The Anatomy of Urban Crisis." (n.d.): n. pag. Rpt. in The American Economic Review. Vol. 57. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 415-26. Ser. 3. JSTOR. Web. 23 Nov. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1812111>.

Dreier, P. "America's Urban Crisis: Symptoms, Causes, Solutions” North Carolina Law Review 71 (1992): n. pag. Print.

Nechyba, Thomas J., and Randall P. Walsh. "Urban Sprawl." Journal of Economics (n.d.): n. pag. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3216798?seq=2>.

Boustan, Leah Platt. "Was Postwar Suburbanization "White Flight"? Evidence from the Black Migration." National Bureau of Economic Research. N.p., Oct. 2007. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.nber.org/papers/w13543>.

Mieszkowski, Peter, and Edwin S. Mills. "The Causes of Metropolitan Suburbanization."The Journal of Economic Perspectives 7.3 (1993): 135-47. Print.

Gordon, Colin. Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2008. Print.

Lots of great sources you are using however make sure you are using MLA format on your citations.Remember they chnged the format a couple of years ago and this made it so links ar no longer in the citation so just by looking and seeing that I can tell that your citations are incorrect.

I agree with Adam, these sources seem really credible and you seem to have a very good start to your presentation. Keep up the strong research and find information that interests you, not just to finish the project.