Is Levittown (N.Y) a symbol of American progress, or should it be Essay

Is Levittown (N.Y) a symbol of American progress, or should it be considered a symbol of American prejudice - Essay Example Nevertheless, the long seeded racism cultivates in the town against all races other than Caucasian. Even today, a vast majority of the inhabitants of Levittown are white Americans. According to the 1990 census, 97.37 percent of the inhabitants of Levittown were White Americans (The New York Times, 1997, p. 2). Three years later, in the 2000 census, â€Å"[t]he racial makeup of the CDP was 94.36% White, 2.45% African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.96% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.86% from other races, and 1.17% from two or more races† (Hispanis Dose, n.d.). Owing to the subdued rights of non-Caucasian Americans in Levittown, it is a symbol of prejudice for America. Cultivation of racism in the Long Islands is detrimental even for the racists. Long Islanders have conventionally made every attempt to keep their Island from according with the notion of â€Å"becoming just like Queens† (Newsday, 2002). The fundamental ideology of Long Islanders is that to be Queens-l ike is to be urban, which is not something to feel proud of. In order for the Long Islands like Levittown to be considered good, they have to be suburban with a lot of wealth, safety and most importantly, whiteness! However, â€Å"[i]n their effort to keep things as they are, however, Long Islanders are strangling their own chance of maturing as an economic center and as a vibrant, viable region† (Newsday, 2002). By making the Long Islands race specific, the developers have narrowed the chances of occupancy of their own children on them. They tend to ruin all opportunities to solve the usual issues of protecting open space, controlling overdevelopment, revitalizing the downtown regions, limiting taxes, and most importantly, handling racism. Racism in Long Islands like Levittown moves from private life of individuals to the societal arena. It may frequently show up in public gatherings in terms of racial appellations displayed on the buildings, and humiliation offered to the f amilies of color by the white people residing in the neighborhood. Beatings find origin in racism in such circumstances. Levittown is one of the Long Islands where this happened in particular. Levittown is the first suburb for the American nation after the war. Black soldiers were denied access to this largest housing scheme in the history of America. Since that time, the town has increased in subtleness manifolds, assisting the establishment of a wide range of institutions ranging from schools and boutiques to hospitals. The consequential circumstances have made it difficult for the establishment to take care of the mushrooming problems. The disparity between the rights of Caucasian Americans and non-Caucasian Americans is detrimental for the peace of the town. Long Islanders tend to achieve self control and develop the economic ability to become indifferent to the state of the rest of the nation. The multiple government layers that results in such a system adds so much volume to t he taxes that they promote isolation of the racial grounds. The process of development is curbed by the fragmentation of leadership and it becomes much harder to abolish racism. The price of houses in the Long Islands like Levittown has conventionally been the maximum among all states in the US. The unusually high prices also find a relation to the racism. If the houses become affordable to the public in general, they

Why did Margaret Thatcher sign up to the Single European Act Essay

Why did Margaret Thatcher sign up to the Single European Act - Essay Example These agreements included the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). The United Kingdom was a significant player in the formation of SEA; it participated in the events that led to its creation in the mid-1980s. This paper examines some of the reasons why British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher endorsed the SEA. The very advent of SEA can be traced to the mid-20th century 1945 (Cooper and Tomic, 2007). The then integration activities happened in rather steady steps, especially following the establishment of the ECSC in 1952. Gehler (2006) notes that with six founding member countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, the ECSC marked the first contemporary, multinational economic union in Europe. In 1958, when it became clear that economic integration in Europe was tenable, the member countries of the ECSC advanced their international cooperation through the ratification of the Treaties of Rome, which established the EEC and EURATOM (Basdeo, 1990; Moravcsik, 1991). According to Timur, Picone and Desimone (2011), the EEC’s primary objective was economic coordination of the region via a universal market and the elimination of trade restrictions. From 1970, the subsequent two decades saw the EEC activities deepen to include the United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. The new expanded economic union was faced with political and economic problems including fuel crisis that peaked in the early 1970s and pressures from the North America that needed trade liberalization to succeed (Cooper and Tomic, 2007). The European heads of governments reacted with, perhaps the clearest intent of a common platform that would foster important economic and inter-governmental cooperation. Of particular concern in this paper was UK’s adoption of the SEA following Prime Minister Margret Thatcher’s endorsement of the Treaty