L1: Introduction to Urban Geography Flashcards
Cities as Urban Systems
Cities part of systems
Can be studied or modelled as general phenomenon
Find patterns among and within cities
Component Elements and Parts (relationship)
Scientific Approach
Cities as Imagined Environments
- Planning and designing cities
- Based on assumptions between urban environments and populations
- Most urban planning in the 20th century was a reaction against industrialization
- Urban planning in 2nd half o the 20th century was rebuilding cities based on implicit assumptions between cities and people who live there
Metropolis (1927)
Seminal silent film by Fritz Lang
TH: Visual representation of cities, labour, inequality, gender
Presents allegorical metropolis with biblical parallels to capture contemporary themes about industrial cities
Despotic industrial city
Promised perfection of technology in the skyscrapers and mulit-level motorways of New Babel
“The shot-by-shot script takes in the dominant features of the new metropolis, as cameras track across the urban scenes” (704)
Imagery is more effective than the plot, according to Clarke
Cameras pan from upper world of control to autonomous workers in the subterranean workers world
Imagery shows signs of dystopia
TH: oppression and revolt
- Sentimental and romantic plot
- Expectation that one good revolt will make a better world
Moloch
Biblical/literary reference to the god of child/human sacrifice
TL in Metropolis as Moloch eats the workers when the factory fails
Joh Frederson
Master planner of the city in Lang’s 1927 Metropolis
How does power interact with Urban Planning?
Use reasoning and science to force order upon chaos of industrial cities (early 20th century)
Decisions founded on political relationships
R1 - “The City: Heaven-on-Earth or the Hell-to-Come” Clarke (1992)
Exploration of perspectives on cities in literature and performance arts
Perspective #1: Ideal States
Perspective #2: Tale of the Tyrannies
Abe urbe conditia
City is past/present simultaneously
Physical and political inheritance of citizens
Aristotle on Cities
1) Cities are the greatest invention - supporting Plato
2) “Men come together in the city to live; they remain there in order to live the good life”
3) “The origin of the city is … due to the fact that no one of us is sufficient for himself but each is in need of many things”
Plato - “Republic”
Principles of ideal city state
The “Eternally covenanted but never consummated marriage of justice and right order” (Clarke 701)
Implicit agreement between cities and city-dwellers cannot be consummated –> has no sign of ending
Debate between intellect and civilization
Plato - “Timaeus” and “Critias”
Projection of principles of the example-city state describe in “Republic”
Utopian myth of Atlantis and lost continent used to explore social theory
Atlantis held dominion over other islands
Leisured society with environmental management to produce permanent surplus
Beatitude of social and technological status (Indicators = aqueducts, irrigation, hydraulic engineering, handsome buildings, etc)
Lived during epoch of Peloponnesian War and collapse of Athenian empire
Symbolism of Ideal Utopian City-State in Literature
1) Indicator of societal success
2) Conclusive felicity (final condition of happiness and luck
3) Refuge from world in turmoil (during times of social change)
Thomas More
Utopian author in 16th century
“Libellus vere aureaus” (1516)
“Utopia” (1551)= Amaurotum,
Capital of the happy island to create a largely classless society (with the key exception of slaves), rather than a society in which many work to sustain public life for a few.
Died a martyr after a troubled life between his conscience that wouldn’t allow him to adapt his principles to suit the ambitions of a monarch
Utopian Fiction of 1870s
Utopian fiction changed from small-scale ideal states to seductive accounts of better worlds-to-come
Era of IR, applied sciences, and rapid tech change (steamships, railways)
Changes evident in progressive philosophies of Industrial age (Condorcet and Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx)
TH: Conformity, coherence, congruence, continuity = dynamic principles of industrial utopias
TH:
○ Spread of great cities
○ Communication improvements (smaller world)
○ Centralized gov that would guarantee social justice, peace, and universal plenty
○ Metropolises show public good always coincides w/ private amenity
Edward Bellamy
“Looking Backwards” (1888)
Utopian Science Fiction Novel
Formula for Utopian city = Democracy + socialism + industrialism
Plot: Boston of 2000 - city built by the citizens for the citizens –> where shopping centers are central
Time traveler finds a place of plenty to contrast the old
Dynamic Prcinciples of Industrial Utopias
TH: Conformity, coherence, congruence, continuity
Influence of WW1 on Cities in Literature
Utopia becomes dystopia
Writers discern terror-to-come
Triumph of mechanisms in the war
Chronic social disorder in European countries
Despotic new order in Russia
Examples of Early 20th Century Dystopian Fiction (3)
- “We” (Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamytin, 1924); projection of totalitarian state
- Stage machinery
- city b/w prison (obedient inmates, happy conformists in all things, rejoice in the security of their cage)
- fascism creates pride in “forced” conformity and desirable norm
R.U.R (Czech Karel Capek, 1921) - Capek composed Ragnarok choreography of the final war b/w men and machines
- New age metalanguage
A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess 1962)
- Shifts from leisurely pace of old utopias to hectic race of rebellion and pursuit in dystopias
Zamytin –>
Goals of Dystopian Fiction (4)
Transform values and circumstances to shock reader
Show contemporary cause and effect w/ no escape
Final confrontation b/w state and citizen
Illustrate how fascism creates pride in “forced” conformity and desirable norm
Aldous Huxley
Author of “Brave New World” (1932)
Presents city as allegory to illustrate terrors of stable technocratic society
Fertilizing room, Infant Nurseries, College of Emotional Engineering, Propaganda house
Making components and manufacturing the human experience efficiently (applying industrial rev and scientific method to feelings, love, life)
Mid-20th Century Cities in Literature and Arts
Parables for their time Consequences of… - Overpopulation - Nuclear warfare, - Global pollution - Industrial decline - Political tyranny - Runaway computer
Trope = after-time tribes post great disaster
Loss of stability of old society
Silverburg
The World Inside (Silverberg 1971)
- Overpopulation "solved" by Urban Monads: vertical cities 1000 storeys high - Upper classes with a nice vew - Lower levels work for promotion upwards
