Monday, April 13, 2009

Standard of Living

In 1919 the Bureau of Municipal Research in Philadelphia conducted a report that outlined the standards of living within Philadelphia.(Workingmen's Standard of Living in Philadelphia).There were over 200 families involved in this survey, all of them meeting certain requirements to be involved. The researchers estimated each family had five members; husband, wife, two boys and one girl. It was dated that in 1918 a family could not maintain a fair standard of living on less than $1,636.79 a year. When thinking about this in comparison to today's standard of living it is astonishing. Most researchers would say though since then the normal standard of living has increased ten-fold. Although this is true for many, the standard of living for the lower class has not changed at all. Since the push of suburbanization the people who have the better standard of living have moved out of the cities and on to their own lots of land. This has left many areas with numerous vacant buildings along with acres of unoccupied lots. These are the lots that will attract blight. Although some say that the suburbanization period is coming to an end and people are moving back in to the city, it is the areas that have been neglected the most that are still not receiving the influx of people or money.  This is a form of social segregation that occurs daily within the city. It is clear from just walking around the city that a normal standard of living is much different now then it was back then. The richer stay rich and the poorer get poorer. Once a fair standard of living is maintained across the economic spectrum of all residents in Philadelphia, then neighborhoods will once again be revitalized. 

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