Urban
Cynicism and Decline in the 1970s
Following
urban unrest in the late 1960s and the accompanying
accelerated exodus of the white middle class to the
suburbs, cities in general were increasingly vilified
in media and political circles. Press accounts were
preoccupied with the worst aspects of urban living --
crime, congestion, poverty and alienation. Urban
cynicism prevailed, matched by economic decline in
the inner city. These themes were obvious in popular
culture. In 1970, actors Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis
played a very middle-of-the-road Midwestern married
couple who visits New York City in the comic film, The
Out-of-Towners. George and Martha
Kellerman are confronted with rude and uncaring city
dwellers, pickpockets, muggers, street gangs, and a
garbage strike. Their urban experiences leave them
sanguine for their dull but peaceful suburban
lifestyles. Other popular films of the era depict a
less comical and much "darker" image of the
city. In Deathwish (1974), Charles Bronson
plays a New York businessman turned vigilante after a
gang of urban thugs killed his wife and raped his
daughter. Bronson’s enraged character is
compelled to seek justice through violence in a
chaotic city that has lost the capacity to provide
safety for its decreasing numbers of average middle-class
citizens.
Symbolic
representations of the city in the 1970s not only
produced hyperbole about the state of urban affairs
but also a powerful discourse of despair that
influenced the types of real estate actions and state
urban development policies enacted during the decade.
Increased poverty, sectoral unemployment and other
social costs related to the continued transformation
of cities’ economic bases from manufacturing to
services fostered an air of pessimism about future
urban prospects. Given the prevailing downward trend
of the city’s political-economy in the 1970s,
disinvestment became economically rational for
landlords of low-income housing.
Click here to learn more about
the motion picture The Out-of-Towners.
Click here to learn more about
the motion picture Deathwish.
Some of these factors help
explain "urban crisis."
Click here to learn more about
urban sprawl.
Are we on the verge of another
urban crisis?
Is New York heading for another
burnout?
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The book upon which this
web site is based,
Selling
the Lower East Side,
is available
directly through 
or order through 
Site design © 2000:
Kurt
Reymers and Dan
Webb.
(University at Buffalo, Department of
Sociology)
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