In America's society a war is brewing, it's on the streets, it's in the workplace and quite possibly raging outside your very own window; it is a war which is occurring within ever level of our society and has been for quite some time. These daily battles are not fought with guns or knives (usually) but with unjust tactics by the active government and wealthy to suppress the life chances and opportunities of the less fortunate groups which lie on the lower portion of the racial and/or social stratification table; thus the creation of ghettos was and is inevitable. .
Through the late nineteenth century, as coal and electricity supplanted water power, industry moved from riverside factory towns to cities. The proximity to business establishments, trains and the availability of cheap labor provided economic incentives for the industrial migration, which gave rise to sub-standard housing. The work force built adjacent to the factories with little regard to hygiene or creature comforts, basically the conditions were crowded and unsanitary. Nonetheless, the conditions that prevailed in these early ghettos were fueled somewhat by the strong social and cultural ties that held the immigrant communities together. While the ghettos grew out of economic exploitation and crime flourished in their streets, they housed communities to whom the street became a meeting place for the people within their neighborhood. .
As industry increasingly clogged the inner cities, residents with wealth sought escape from the noise and pollution, and thus began their escape to communities outside the city. The poor filled the vacuum, occupying once upscale neighborhoods vacated by the affluent where mansions were turned into rooming houses and residential hotels. .
As congestion and union activism began to undermine the economic gains that had initially prompted the industries to moves to cities; manufacturing too, abandoned the city, relocating in the suburbs, and away from the threat of union activism.