What are some of the challenges that inner cities face in the U.S.?
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: Inner-city residents are frequently referred to as a permanent underclass because they are trapped in an unending cycle of hardships. including inadequate job skills and a context of poverty, crime, and poor housing.
Inadequate Job Skills. Inner-city residents are increasingly unable to compete for jobs. They lack technical skills needed for most jobs because fewer than half complete high school.
Culture of Poverty: Unwed mothers give birth to two-thirds of the babies in U.S. inner-city neighborhoods, and 80 percent of children in the inner city live with only one parent. Because of inadequate child-care services, single mothers may be forced to choose between working to generate income and staying at home to take care of the children.
Crime: Trapped in a hopeless environment, some inner-city residents turn to drugs. Although drug use is a problem in suburbs as well, rates of use have increased most rapidly in inner cities. Some drug users obtain money through criminal activities.
Homelessness: Several million people are homeless in the United States. Most people are homeless because they cannot afford housing and have no regular income. Homelessness may have been sparked by family problems or job loss.
Poverty: The concentration of low-income residents in inner-city neighborhoods of central cities has produced financial problems. These people require public services, but they can pay very little of the taxes to support the services. Central cities face a growing gap between the cost of needed services in inner city neighborhoods and the availability of funds to pay for them.
Deteriorated Housing. Inner-city housing is subdivided by absentee landlords into apartments for low-income families, a process known as filtering. Landlords stop maintaining houses when the rent they collect becomes less than the maintenance cost. In such a case, the building soon deteriorates and grows unfit for occupancy.
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