Blowing In The Wind: Why Do So Many Cities Have Poor East Ends?

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The wealthiest district in NYC is the eastern upper half of the core (the UES). And if you move further out, you have generally middle class Queens.

So why is NYC included in having "poor east ends"?

brownsville/eny

[MolsonExport]

In Canada, the West is best holds in many cities (and for the same reasons given the former industrial pasts...both airflow, and often, waterflow).
Montreal, London, Ontario, Vancouver, Toronto, even Kelowna (east end Rutland) all have East end working class, and a "wrong side of the tracks" reputation (whether founded or not).

[Centropolis]

i guess the wealthy living on the westside of a region or west end of an urban core and poorer to the east aren't as prevalent in the u.s. as i tend to think. certainly my home city of st. louis takes that as far as any city has and further. west west west west west. hard to shake that, especially knowing the differences in air quality even today in an area with prevailing winds from the west.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Not sure what you really mean, but that's ok. I think all US cities were pretty much "industrial" in the 1880s. And I imagine that both Cleveland and Pittsburgh were considered sizable cities back then... they still had to be at least among the nation's larger cities, no? Maybe not right in the top 10 nationally prior to immigration at the turn of the century, but they were still pretty big.

yes, cleveland (#11), pittsburgh (#12), and detroit (#18) were all among the 20 largest US cities in 1880.

largest US cities in 1880: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1880_United_States_Census#City_rankings



sometimes st. louisians get this weird attitude that their city is SO MUCH older than other midwest cities because their city was one of the first ones that boomed, and got big a couple of decades before the other midwest cities followed suit right on their heels.



Major Midwest city growth in the 19th century:

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yes, cleveland (#11), pittsburgh (#12), and detroit (#18) were all among the 20 largest US cities in 1880.

largest US cities in 1880: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1880_United_States_Census#City_rankings



sometimes st. louisians get this weird attitude that their city is SO MUCH older than other midwest cities because their city was one of the first ones that boomed, and got big a couple of decades before the other midwest cities followed suit right on their heels.

hahah i didn't say that...it was at least 2X as large as those cities in 1880 though and with the exception of pittsburgh was built far more "classically" victorian in nature in the dickensonian-industrial way, in fact charles dickens visited st. louis. the upper classes huddled on the highland saddle that runs due west from the river, exactly upwind from the smoke. why they didn't do that in other u.s. cities is up to local conditions and technology available i guess but when you had limited options it's simply what you did. why would those of means live in a colossal plume of coal smoke? once the faster streetcars came online it didn't matter as much i guess.

chicago of course took it even further and seems to have slung the dirtiest industry as far east AND south as possible.

[mhays]

Seattle's eastern suburbs (the Eastside) are high-end...Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah. They have giant lakes (Washington and Sammamish) and they get rainier as you go east toward the Cascade mountains.

The poorer areas tend to correlate with where paper mills used to be mostly north and south...those smell terrible. Also the Port and industrial valleys from Elliott Bay south to Auburn. And the military around Lakewood, Everett, and Bremerton. And generally where there aren't views.

[Centropolis]

regarding cleveland...this was potentially the thinking at the turn of the twentieth century there:

The lake influence disturbs the regular course of the south- west winds by the land and lake breezes, which, combined with frequent changes of wind direction during the passage of the barometric areas, make the prevailing winds at Cleveland from the southeast.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221340908985406?journalCode=rjog20

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

In Canada, the West is best holds in many cities (and for the same reasons given the former industrial pasts...both airflow, and often, waterflow).
Montreal, London, Ontario, Vancouver, Toronto, even Kelowna (east end Rutland) all have East end working class, and a "wrong side of the tracks" reputation (whether founded or not).

Traditionally in Toronto, both the East & West Ends were predominantly working class, heavily industrial areas (the East End being more Irish & Anglo-working class; with the West End being more multicultural immigrant-populated), with a few pockets of wealth on either side - like Parkdale & Dufferin Grove in the west, and Riverdale & the Beaches in the East. The most extreme poverty was located in the centre, in what is now the downtown core, while the real wealth was to the north - something that is still clearly evident today:




The West End has been faster to gentrify (at least commercially) and is certainly the more popular of the two sides, probably because it has an older, nicer building stock and more seamless integration into downtown; but wealth-wise, they've always been fairly equal.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Detroit's industrial belt and worst air quality tends to be SW, along the river. This is also probably the least desirable directional.

That said, Detroit's East Side and eastern suburbs are blue collar, and there is significant industrial base. The "favored quarter" is North/Northwest.

Yep, and that’s why Windsor’s Poorest neighbourhoods are in the city’s far west end, right across from the river from all that. Not too surprising really!

[Docere]

Most Canadian cities do have a more affluent west and more working class east, but that doesn't really apply in Toronto. As Monkey Ronin says, the west and east are fairly equal socioeconomically, and north was the favored direction. But it's also competing with a core-periphery polarization.

The Don River in a way divides the city in a way somewhat akin to the Thames in London. Not so much in the sense that it's poorer, but in that it's the less urban, less populated part of the city and serves as a sort of psychological barrier.

[Docere]

The biggest high income cluster in Toronto is located roughly north of Bloor, south of Highway 401, east of Bathurst and west of Leslie. If you want to know where say, the partners at a downtown law firm live, a majority would probably live in this area.

[Busy Bee]

Wait, Fiinnlaaand has poor people?

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The most extreme poverty was located in the centre, in what is now the downtown core

The area directly east of the CBD was also more impacted by postwar "renewal" and has more poverty, public housing etc. and less attractions for visitors, than directly to the west which transitions rather smoothly. Hence a visitor may be under the impression that the "east" is the poor side of town. .

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

yes, so, *almost* any u.s. city worth its 19th century industrial salt has an (originally) poor east end due to prevailing winds, with exception of cities located on a coast with no east end. cities that were less reliant on industry probably not so much.

River direction matters too. "Upriver from big city" is more desirable than "downriver from big city".

That's probably why Detroit goes against the trend (prevailing winds don't matter as much as water flow). A quick glance at a map and you can immediately guess the rich will be living in Grosse Pointe, not Zug Island and River Rouge.

In Montreal, though, water flows the other way: predictably, the East neighborhoods have been subjected to the double whammy of downriver water and being downwind, and they've traditionally been industrial, poorer, dirtier...

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The wealthiest district in NYC is the eastern upper half of the core (the UES). And if you move further out, you have generally middle class Queens.

So why is NYC included in having "poor east ends"?

Lower East Side vs...Soho/Tribeca/West Village? Agree that makes no sense overall, that distinction fades out by the time you hit Midtown.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by lio45

River direction matters too. "Upriver from big city" is more desirable than "downriver from big city".

That's probably why Detroit goes against the trend (prevailing winds don't matter as much as water flow). A quick glance at a map and you can immediately guess the rich will be living in Grosse Pointe, not Zug Island and River Rouge.

I don't think Detroit would prove the water flow theory. River Rouge happens to be directly adjacent to the industrial areas, but just south of River Rouge/Zug Island is another affluent community, Grosse Ile, that is similar in demographic to the Grosse Pointes.

[Matthew]

In Winston-Salem, upper income residents wanted to be west of the International Rail Port and the factories around it, due to pollution, but, in a city of ridges and valleys, they also wanted to be on high-elevation sites in some areas of the city, to avoid flooding and to look down on the city they helped build. Some industrialists would speak of looking out their windows at their factories below. Valleys with wide waterways often became parks.

[mhays]

It works that way in Seattle too. The whole city is hills and valleys, and anything with a view is probably expensive, especially if it looks over water, mountains, and/or urban skyline.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think Detroit would prove the water flow theory. River Rouge happens to be directly adjacent to the industrial areas, but just south of River Rouge/Zug Island is another affluent community, Grosse Ile, that is similar in demographic to the Grosse Pointes.

A lot said of Detroit in the thread is kind of off. Southwest Detroit is kind of a geographical anamoly. It's not really considered "west," either, despite its name. Downriver is considered a whole other "side" of the region. Southwest Detroit is "down" or "below" or even "south" of Michigan Avenue is how I always thought of it.

Taking it out of the equation for a moment, though, the east side is far more industrial, both historically and currently, and especially the latter. The gets higher as you go northwest from the river and most of the stuff developed in this direction were middle-class residential, hospitals, etc...Aside from the winds, Detroit's east side is also generally at a lower elevation, so it gets more flooding, too. Of course you have some wealthy stuff around Jefferson because of the straightness of the riverfront, here, but apartment from that this was less valuable land for development.

Maybe coming from a West Sider it's a bit of a stereotype, but we always thought of it was the rougher/tougher side of town by far. Far more working class, generally.

[Pretext]

In terms of London wasn't the reason due to the massive docks being in the East End, and the dockworkers living there. At the time the docks were the largest in the world, and the area has been regenerated in recent decades with Canary Wharf docks now a major financial centre and numerous other such regeneration projects.