Urban Soc

Urbanization and urbanism

the process of city metro growth and deveopment, macro level, ecological studies

The behavioral repsone to living in an urban/surburban setting, the social and behavioral consequences of urbanization, micro level, social psychological studies

• Cities are inhabited by poor people and minority group members
• cities are disorderly places without positive social relationships
• cities are post apocalyptic wastelands

• massive population growth
• industrial revolution
• massive urbanization

• Tonnies
• durkheim
• weber
• simmel

• gemeinschaft vs. gesellchaft
• traditional vs. urban society
• negative view of urbanization

• mechanical solidarity vs. organic solidarity
• negative view of urbanization

• traditional vs. rational socities
• negative view, but saw some positives

• blase attitude
• primary vs. secondary relationships

wirth

3 main factors that produced urbanism

• size
• density
• heterogenity

• urban/human ecology- 1970s
• new urban sociology-includes political economy approach in textbook

• robert park
• ernest burgess
• luois wirth

the chicago school

study of relationships between organism within an environment, borrowed terms like adaptation, competition invasion-sucession

views the social and spatial structure of the city as a functional outcome of natural processes of comeptition and adaptaion of the population to its environment

• spatial structure is natural and a result of free market forces
• spatial sturture results in the most efficient use of urban space- maximizes benefit to the largest number of people
• direct planning on the part of powerful individual actor plays reltively little role in shaping spatial structure

• urban ecology
• deveoped by park and burgess
• tried to create general model for cities- unsuccessful- that explained how different groups and land use functions are distributed
• belive city is sorting machine

• explaining how the population shapes the urban environment in adpating to constantly changing environmental and technological conditions
• POET

• contemporary ecology
• population, social organization, environment, technology

pays more attention to isses of social inequality and social conflict and less attention to chnaging technology and functional adaptation

• stresses the use of power, domination and resources in shpaing cities
• focuses on factors like interest and actions of political elites
• examines relationship between cities and borader global economic forces

• cities are the result of the search for profit
• cities are linked in a world capitalist system
• capital in the world system is easily moved but locations-cities are fixed
• politics, circumstances and individual actors matter
• business elites and urban residents value land for different reasons

• new urban sociology
• ???

• urban living is a relatively new thing
• rapid urbanization within the past 200 years

• pre-urban history
• pre-industrial urban epoch
• industrial urban epoch

• occupies most of human history
• happende during hunting and gathering period
• nomadic life style precluded city life

• agrictural revolution chnaged functions of villages and gave rise ot real towns
• allowed for first substantial and reltively stable agricultrual surplus- which increased popultion and specialzation and social stratification
• very slow process

• modern urban form
• did not start until the start of the industrial revolution

• commerical city
• industrial city
• corporate city

• deveoped in the early 17th century
• first colonies like boston rhode isalnd ect
• served as administration/political centers and commerical ports

• 1840
• new means of production, large scale factory production, long distance trade
• fed massive rural to urban migration

• urban growth followed same east to west population growth
• enviornmental, natural transportation routes and resources
• land speculation- buy land from govt and then convince people that the city has strong commercial future

• economic activity decentralized- edge cities
• dependence on paper profits- as opposed to manufacturing
• chnaging role in city center- decrease in retail and increase in corporate offices

• midwest and northeast dominated urban deveopment because
• they develop as centers of trade, south centered on plantation economies, south became dependent on north for economic survival

• started in 1970s
• growth of the sunbelt- population growth, biggest growth indutries- high tech high skills industries, service industries and energy industry

• started as deconcentration
• dramtic decentralization

• walking/horse car era
• electric street car and railroad era
• recreational automobile era
• freeway era

• race and ethnicity
• age/life cycle
• socioeconomic status

businesses employment, apartment buildings, entertainment culture, deveopment of edge cities

• boom in suburbs reuslted in decline of many central cities which led to the creation of economic and social problems espeically the movment of jobs
• resulting in mismatch hypotheis, overburdened city services, tax base eroded and loss of political power