After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a number of surveys were mounted to measure public reactions and responses in New York City and the nation as a whole. Many of the surveys continue to document trends such as patriotism and confidence in leaders, the trade-off between security and civil liberties, and the psychological impact of September 11.
After the terror attacks of September 11, the Foundation invited a number of economists, sociologists, and political scientists to analyze the effects of the attacks on the city’s social, economic, and political life. The working group subsequently produced three volumes, including, Contentious City: The Politics of Recovery in New York City. In that volume, urban planning expert Lynn Sagalyn contributed an essay on the emotionally charged planning process for redevelopment of the World Trade Center site between 2001 and 2004.
A healthy and effective democracy depends on political participation from all segments of society. But what influences civic participation (registering to vote, casting a vote, community action), especially among young adults? Research has shown that among native-born Americans, the parent’s educational attainment makes a reliable predictor of the child’s civic participation. The same does not hold true, however, among children of immigrants.
Effective communities are typically assumed to involve rich networks of trusting relationships that enable the community to sustain cooperation and achieve mutual goals. But such rich social ties are rarely, if ever, found in today’s urban communities. Nonetheless, sociologist Robert Sampson believes that trust is still vital in sustaining cooperative behavior in modern cities.
Effective communities are typically assumed to involve rich networks of trusting relationships that enable the community to sustain cooperation and achieve mutual goals. But such rich social ties are rarely, if ever, found in today’s urban communities. Nonetheless, sociologist Robert Sampson believes that trust is still vital in sustaining cooperative behavior in modern cities.
Along with facilitating the flow of labor, capital, and information across national boundaries, globalization is also sparking a resurgence of immigration--much of it directed to the United States. Most immigration research either focuses on a group's attachment to its home country or on its integration in the receiving society. Ewa Morawska has designed a unique project to explore the extent to which different groups of immigrants maintain connections with their homeland, assimilate to life in the United States, or hold ties to both countries.
According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Dominican Republic was the sixth largest contributor of immigrants to the United States in the 1980s and the fifth largest in the 1990s. Dominicans bring with them a different understanding of racial classification than exists in American society. The main sociocultural trend in the Dominican Republic is intermediate racial categorization, allowing people to distance themselves from blackness. Upon migration to the United States, Dominicans confront a binary system of racial categorization that classifies them simply as black.
The success of immigrants can best be measured by the success of their children--and of their children's children--who are born or raised in the adopted homeland. Richard Alba, of SUNY Albany, has posited three outcomes facing immigrant groups: conventional assimilation into the mainstream; ethnic pluralism whereby a group takes advantage of its ethnicity (the subeconomy created by Cubans in Miami and various Chinatowns, for example) while remaining closely connected to its home country; or segmented assimilation into a disadvantaged minority group or cultural ghetto.
Despite the fact that people of Mexican origin are the largest immigrant group in the United States, little is known about the long-term course of their adaptation and assimilation into U.S. society. Are they progressing on a long path towards middle class status or are they engaging in behavior that will leave them idling at the low end of the economic distribution?