The end of the line: The relationship between New York City's subway system and residential class structure.
Item
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Title
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The end of the line: The relationship between New York City's subway system and residential class structure.
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Identifier
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AAI3287137
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identifier
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3287137
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Creator
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Rhindress, Mindy.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Charles Kadushin
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Date
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2007
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, General | Urban and Regional Planning | Sociology, Demography | Transportation | Remote Sensing
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Abstract
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Public money is necessary to build and maintain this country's vast network of mass transit systems and highways. Thus you would expect class equity in choices of infrastructure location, types of projects and pricing. However, the influence of commercial interests appears to create a contradictory effect, and may negatively influence the settlement patterns where transit serves. New York City and its subway system offered the perfect case study by which to examine the before and after effects of mass transit introduction given the enormous size of the transit system and the grand development of New York City that appeared to occur simultaneous to subway inauguration. The main objective of this study was to determine the relationship between the growth of the New York City subway system and the establishment of class structure in residential patterns. Regional census data covering the first 16-year period of the subway's development was examined along with geographic statistics on subway line expansion and station openings. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) maps were used to illustrate the development of living spaces as a function of subway introduction into communities, and several Indices were computed to demonstrate the population growth and class disparity. The results revealed that the early years of transit development were entrepreneurial efforts coordinated by business interests. This led to transit first providing significant benefits mostly to the middle and upper classes, giving them a reasonable means by which to escape horrible tenement living conditions while turning a profit at the same time. Thus new settlements were stratified by class almost immediately after introduction. The cycle continued until years later when the automobile was introduced and the once expensive and luxurious, but now more reasonably priced and just functional, public transit system finally befit the population much lower on the socioeconomic scale. Class divisions still existed, but the subway's influence on this stratification decreased. The outcome of this study can provide important direction for new transportation projects that access public money by establishing guidelines to monitor business interests in new transit systems, while ensuring a fair pricing and land use policy.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
