Geoffrey Keane \u201816<\/p>\n
\u00a0An Essay for From Hartford to World Cities (URST 201)<\/p>\n
Fall 2014<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Human capital is the lifeblood of any city and the ethnicities contained within are a natural part of the melting pot of American cities. However, this mixture of cultures, languages, and races can both ease and strain the city. The mix may lead to greater prosperity and vitality or conversely increase tensions and decline. Hartford is no exception to this rule and its rapidly changing racial and cultural demographics has been both a bane and a boon on the city. Historically, Hartford was established by Puritan English settlers from Massachusetts. These settlers formed the backbone of a culture that would dominate the city until the 1850s. While initially an agricultural and Hartford had its initial lift into greater prominence by expanding into the mercantile market, utilizing connections across the Atlantic with the British merchants and emerging markets produced by the slave trade in the Caribbean.[1]<\/a> From this stepping stone, the 1830s saw Hartford expand as one of the advanced manufacturing cities on the East Coast. At the same time, Hartford began its emergence as an insurance magnet, utilizing the gained connectivity to expand business both locally and internationally.[2]<\/a> Hartford was able to really achieve its manufacturing height in the late19th and the majority of the 20th century with specialization in high skill manufacturing and the basing of companies including Underwood Typewriter Company, Pratt & Whitney, and Colt within the city limits.[3]<\/a> However, with globalization, and the movement of industry overseas to developing markets, as well as the abandonment of the city for the suburbs by the tax base in the late 20th<\/sup> century, Hartford slipped into an economic decline and became one of the poorest cities in the entire nation despite still boasting a financially powerful metro region.[4]<\/a> Throughout this history, Hartford has experienced a number of different immigration tides vastly changing the cultural and racial makeup of the city and its inhabitants. First, the puritan influx at the foundation, then in the manufacturing age immigration came from Europe with skilled machinists coming to fill positions. Subsequently, there was a massive influx of Irish citizens. The introduction of the Irish community caused the first major immigration rift between the Protestant community and the Catholic newcomers and led to a long standing tension in the city. Finally, with additional European migration prevented by the global conflict of World War II, immigration predominately arrived from the southern United States and the Caribbean.[5]<\/a> This movement added color and language to a dominantly Christian white monoculture, but the lack of integration of the two communities would lead to disparities in wealth and cultural tension. The tensions from the immigration of minorities combined with a large suburban draw caused a huge landscape change within Hartford and trapped the minority residents in a city with an uncertain fate.<\/p>\n As the tax base and the industry moved out of the city, the minorities who had immigrated at the start of the decline were forced to remain within the city borders. Discriminatory housing practices, scare tactics, redlining districts and subsidized housing availability curtailed the minorities to designated sections of the city and left the middle and upper class, usually white, to have the pick of the litter in suburb communities.[6]<\/a> This racial selection segregated the minorities from the greater services and schooling provided by income rich suburban families who often worked in and took the tax income out of the downtown.[7]<\/a> In addition, with the services and shopping moving out of the city, the only available employment also moved to a greater distance away making minority worker spend more of their already low income on private transportation or underdeveloped public transportation out to the suburbs. The combination of these factors left the collapsing Hartford without a strong tax base to provide services to the resident or means of repair. For the minority community this meant that their problems were exacerbated, there was little chance to invest money in social mobility and that government provisions for basic necessities and education were too little and too poor quality to turn around the minority\u2019s fortunes.<\/p>\n Personally, I can attest to the predominately minority community that is currently in Hartford. During freshman year, I participated in a street observation on a block near the north side of Trinity\u2019s campus. This experience, both the guided and unguided portions gave me my first inkling of the history that was stored within the city\u2019s neighborhoods. While much of the architecture was classic New England, the faces and the signs that decorated the outsides and the first floor shops were primarily in Spanish and dual lingual. Perhaps the most concrete contrast was the cemetery. While the cemetery was marked as a classic Jewish cemetery, the buildings packed around it did not sport a single white face. Instead, like on the other streets, Spanish was the primary language and the church on the corner had clearly tailored its services to the Hispanic community. This neighborhood was a reminder of the fluidity in migration, a neighborhood that was once a Jewish stronghold had long since been abandoned and left for the new immigrants coming in from the Caribbean. Additionally, subsequent observations in the outer suburbs of Hartford allowed access to the opposite demographic. The predominantly white suburb community surrounding the minority majority city center provided first hand evidence that minorities seemed to be trapped within the center city (the center city itself, not inner ring suburbs). Overall, this observation showed the sharp contrast that has occurred within Hartford due to both immigration of a predominately minority crowd and exodus of the previous residents.<\/p>\n The minority majority that is present in Hartford is also accounted for by the refugee influx into the city. Like the other minorities, the refugees are limited by economic fortune and subsidized housing that is restricted predominately inside the city. However, while there is a somewhat established community of Hispanic and black groups, many refugees that may have similar racial identities do not mesh particularly well culturally with the minorities that have been living in Hartford for multiple generations and have acclimated to or adapted to the \u201cAmerican\u201d culture. Additionally, there is some problem of employment that is present. Most of the refugees are required to work in low skill service industry jobs regardless of their abundance or lack of training that they were exposed to in their home country.[8]<\/a> This leaves many in unfamiliar situation and without the opportunity to experience culture or prospects beyond that of the Hispanic and black community that they work within. The influx of these refugees further fragments already strained communities and just adds unstable and unsustainable population to what may be a sinking ship.<\/p>\n A major problem that has occurred within the minority community is placelessness. While there have been some attempts by the government to reenergize and form cohesive neighborhoods, even attempted revitalization projects, like the construction of Rentschler field in Hartford metro region (in East Hartford though), proved only to further alienate the native community from the land that they lived on. Termed as Podunkification, the destruction of one unrecognized place for the replacement with something just as meaningless and insignificant, the attempted revitalization of Hartford metro region (be careful about mixing Hartford and East Hartford) clashed with what little community that the minorities were able to establish and left some enclaves geographically fractured by inaccessible \u201cpublic\u201d works.[9]<\/a> The feeling of a place would allow for the investment into the neighborhood and the community, something the minority residents may not feel is worthwhile if they do not feel welcome in their own homes.<\/p>\n Despite what may appear to be a bleak forecast for Hartford there is a possible path forward for the minority majority within the city. Even with abandonment and reduced investment, communities can develop and thrive with the development of an identity, or a place as mentioned prior. While their cultures of the many minority citizens may not mesh with the cultural preferences of the white majority of the state and region, they can form a dynamic space to foster local and cultural specific businesses. As seen in Lawrence, a minority group can foster an environment that allows for a revitalization in economy and culture.[10]<\/a> However, refugees must either be provided with the social and economic support to integrate into the existing community or be given the opportunity and concentration to create a place and culture that they can call their own. While this plan is arguably not a long term solutions due to the potential for enclave exploitation and the limited economic mobility, the establishment of prominent racial or cultural enclaves within the neighborhoods of Hartford would provide a foundation that focuses on education and local business viability stepping stones for the overall improvement of both Hartford as a city and minorities as a community.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0Walsh, Andrew. “Hartford: A Global History.” Pp. 21-45 in\u00a0Confronting Urban Legacy: Rediscovering Hartford and New England’s Forgotten Cities<\/i>, edited by Xiangming Chen and Nick Bacon. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [4]<\/a>\u00a0The Metro Hartford Progress Points Report<\/i>\u00a02014. Hartford: Metro Hartford Progress Points, 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [5]<\/a> Walsh, 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [6]<\/a>\u00a0Dougherty, Jack. \u201cInvestigating Spatial Inequality with the Cities, Suburbs, and Schools Project.\u201d Pp. 110-126 in\u00a0Confronting Urban Legacy: Rediscovering Hartford and New England\u2019s Forgotten Cities<\/i>, edited by Xiangming Chen and Nick Bacon. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [7]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [8]<\/a>\u00a0Bauer, Janet. “A Metro Immigrant Gateway: Refugees in the Hartford Borderlands.” Pp. 145-168 in\u00a0Confronting Urban Legacy: Rediscovering Hartford and New England’s Forgotten Cities<\/i>, edited by Xiangming Chen and Nick Bacon. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [9]<\/a>\u00a0Bacon, Nick. “Podunk after Pratt: Place and Placelessness in East Hartford, Connecticut.” Pp. 46-64 in\u00a0Confronting Urban Legacy: Rediscovering Hartford and New England’s Forgotten Cities<\/i>, edited by Xiangming Chen and Nick Bacon. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [10]<\/a>\u00a0Barber, Llana. “”If We Would \u2026 Leave the City This Would Be a Ghost Town”: Urban Crisis and Latino Migration in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1945-2000.” Pp. 65-82 in\u00a0Confronting Urban Legacy: Rediscovering Hartford and New England’s Forgotten Cities<\/i>, edited by Xiangming Chen and Nick Bacon. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Geoffrey Keane \u201816 \u00a0An Essay for From Hartford to World Cities (URST 201) Fall 2014 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Human capital is the lifeblood of any city and the ethnicities contained within are a natural part of the melting pot of American cities. … Continue reading
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