6: Urban Social Geography Flashcards
Urban Social Geography
Examines the urban environment that affects human relationships on social, economic, and political levels
and how those human relationships shape dynamics of the city itself
Mix of approaches
Urban Studies and Urban Social Geography
- Interdisciplinary: different scientific domains (geography/planning; sociology; cultural studies; history)
Science, Social science and humanities - Broad variety of topics, sources and methods
Behavioral approach
Study of people’s activities and decision- making process within their perceived worlds
- Relation between urban setting and behaviour
- The ways urban populations experience the city
- How do urban settings influence individual and group behaviour (deviant behaviour).
Structuralist approach
Study of underlying mechanisms and structures that shape people’s behaviour in cities:
Universal cultural structures determine human behaviour (Anthropology)
Neo-Marxist approaches: class conflicts
Organization of society, powerful groups and institutions govern behaviour
Poststructuralist approach
Study of culture to understand language and communication in urban settings
- Opposed to structuralist approach
- Not one underlying mechanism/structure, but numerous shifting variables
- Urban divisions and inequality reflect in forms of representation, such as language, clothing, music
- Representations involve shared meanings= discouses
‘Cultural turn’
Cities are not only physical spaces, they are also a product of human imagination. If you want to understand them you have to know there are many different visions of city and they change. Those images of urban public spaces refer to range of variables, class, ethnicity. This is what we call portrayal of the city, not only ideas of cities but also images that are repeated by people, people move to different cities because they have an idea of it, how it looks, how its inhabitants look like.
Sociospatial dialectic marx
-conceptualizes the complex interrelationship between social and spatial structures
- Space defines nature of relationships between different social groups
- Distance as important determinant of quality of life (facilities and opportunities)
- Formal, legal boundaries (housing, education)
Urban spaces are created by people, and people accommodate to urban environment. We look at how groups in certain neibourhoods are defined by way they are defined by buildings. The extend to which you have access to schooling, all kinds of facilities defines your behaviour. The way they have the freedom to chose it explained the crime, if you don’t have the opportunities maybe you show deviant behaviour.
Policy makers set up rules to limit peoples movements, rules regarding housing, schooling, there are rules that exclude certain groups, it does impact their behaviour.
Macro-geographical dialetic
Macro analyses of cities and urbanization
- Map important differences between cities in different world regions
- Focus on differences between European and North American cities
1. History European cities
2. Minority groups in North America
3. Urban government
4. Welfare State (housing, sociale care, education)
5. Privatism vs public sector
Aiming to map big differences, looking at global developments, it focus very much on European and North America cities.
Looks at the behaviour of minority groups in North America, its all about larger questions, general developments, its not about one particular city.
Economic change
New regime of production
Shift from agricultural and manufactoring industries to services
How?
Market dominated by fewer corporations
Flexible production systems
Where?
Redeployment of activity (movement of production to low labour cost areas)
Demographic change
Household compositions after 1950
- Single-parent families
- 2 wage earners
- Persons living alone
Baby boom generation(1946-1964)
Postboom generation
- From focus on family to consumption
- Financial burden obciążenie of baby boom generation
- Changing status of women (feminization of poverty)
the way households are structured is different
this resulted in families not focused on themselves but on consumtion
increasing single parent families, women- feminisation of poverty
Cosmopolitanism
- Growing cultural and ethnic diversity
- Scale of movement smaller, but range more diverse
- Movement from all around the world to Western cities
Huge impact on housing, shops, restaurants, buildings (religious diversity).
Cultural change
Rise collective consumption
- Shift from focus on family to focus on consumption
- Shift in economy from production to consumption
- Increasing prosperity postwar period
Impact on the urban environment
- growing home ownership
- urban space increasingly used for consumption (food, clothing, home accessories, technological products, etc.)
Political change
Economic changes in combination with state formation resulted in the rise of welfare states:
- Public services
- Social housing projects
Since 1980s-1990s reduction role of the state:
- Neoliberal policies: welfare state as a problem
- Privatization of housing, schools, and public services
- Participation of urban dwellers: mutual support
QUANTITATIVE methods
Descriptions of urban space using statistical data and analysis:
- Maps: Geographical Information System
- Graphs and tables
- Mathematical equations
Based on counting, calculating , measuring
Cartesian approach:aim to be ‘scientific’ (objective)
QUALITATIVE methods
Description of urban space in detail, without answering questions of causality or demonstrating clear relationships among variables.
- Participant observation
- Ethnographic interviewing
- Close-reading: tekst analysis
- Discourse-analysis (cultural representation)
- Surveys
Based on describing, analysing, understanding
