Why did the quality of life for urban minorities decline during the sixties and seventies?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should include:
- Inner-city deterioration: funds for new construction had been limited during the Great Depression and World War II; postwar building boom was taking place in the suburbs
- Negative impact of civic revitalization: The Death and Life of Great American Cities-urban planners invested in business districts at the expense of neighborhoods and local communities; developers sliced up poor neighborhoods with new superhighways or demolished them for new office complexes; Chicago's Uptown-residential development for the middle class rather than the poor; 80 percent displaced through the "Negro removal" under urban renewal programs were people of color
- Declining employment opportunities: black unemployment was nearly twice that of white unemployment; many urban minorities worked in low-paying service sectors; African Americans were steadily falling further behind whites
New migrants: included African Americans from the South, white Appalachians, and Puerto Ricans; African Americans had become near majorities in the decaying inner cities by the mid-1960s; many African Americans had fled rural poverty only to earn minimum wages and face segregated housing in northern cities