Women in US cities: urban captives
Abstract This article examines the contemporary position of women in US urban areas. It seeks to explain the increasing numbers of service-dependent women residing in urban locations through reference to the historical evolution of the urban political economy as it reflects the national and global political economy. More specifically, it recognizes that policies at the national level influence and change urban form and function, a process which has definite and identifiable consequences for society.
Woman and Urban Policy
Any analysis of the impact of urban policy on women is complicated by the absence of an urban policy. While the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been in place since 1965 and hundreds of policies and laws affecting urban areas have been promulgated in the last forty years, there is no coordinated, directed policy with specific programs to achieve important goals. From this perspective, President Carter's announcement early in his term that he would present a national urban policy was a major step. The fact that his "policy" was largely a smorgasbord of already existing programs capped by some new ideas that Congress did not pass into law reflects the difficulty of creating coherence out of chaos when there is no consensus on goals and many vested interests with stakes in specific means. Within the arena of urban policy are several recognized but unresolved conflicts for which Carter's proposals did not display a clear preference. One of the most overwhelming is the sheer diversity of urban conditions. The phrase "urban crisis" suggests pervasive decay, but an ordering of cities by an "urban hardship index"1 shows that the crisis is concentrated in the older cities of the Midwest and Northeast, and "within these cities, to certain areas that have been characterized in recent years by a rapid process of decentralization."2 In part, the highly
Residential segregation by age in American metropolitan areas.
Dissimilarity Indexes were computed for 241 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in 1970 measuring the dissimilarity of residential distribution between the population 65 and over and the population under 65. When possible comparable indexes were also computed for the same areas for 1960, 1950, and 1940. The pattern of age segregation in 1970 was analyzed and trends were computed from 1940--1970. The average DI in 1970 was 23.1 with a range from 10.9 to 44.4. The highest segregation was found in rapidly growing SMSAs, particularly in the West and South, and in areas with major military or educational institutions which fostered aggregations of age-homogeneous populations. A trend toward increased age segregation was found, especially in the period of rapid urban sprawl during the 1950s. The main factor conducive to age segreation was growth and differentiation accompanying it, although the presence of higher proportions of aged retarded the process and high proportions of nonwhites accelerated it.