L1: Introduction to Urban Geography

Question 1

Cities as Urban Systems

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Cities as Imagined Environments

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

Metropolis (1927)

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Moloch

Answer 4

Biblical/literary reference to the god of child/human sacrifice

TL in Metropolis as Moloch eats the workers when the factory fails

Question 5

Joh Frederson

Answer 5

Master planner of the city in Lang’s 1927 Metropolis

Question 6

How does power interact with Urban Planning?

Answer 6

Use reasoning and science to force order upon chaos of industrial cities (early 20th century)

Decisions founded on political relationships

Question 7

R1 - “The City: Heaven-on-Earth or the Hell-to-Come” Clarke (1992)

Answer 7

Exploration of perspectives on cities in literature and performance arts

Perspective #1: Ideal States

Perspective #2: Tale of the Tyrannies

Question 8

Abe urbe conditia

Answer 8

City is past/present simultaneously

Physical and political inheritance of citizens

Question 9

Aristotle on Cities

Answer 9

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”

Question 10

Plato - “Republic”

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Plato - “Timaeus” and “Critias”

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Symbolism of Ideal Utopian City-State in Literature

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

Thomas More

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Utopian Fiction of 1870s

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Edward Bellamy

Answer 15

“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

Question 16

Dynamic Prcinciples of Industrial Utopias

Answer 16

TH: Conformity, coherence, congruence, continuity

Question 17

Influence of WW1 on Cities in Literature

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Examples of Early 20th Century Dystopian Fiction (3)

Answer 18

• “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 –>

Question 19

Goals of Dystopian Fiction (4)

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Aldous Huxley

Answer 20

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)

Question 21

Mid-20th Century Cities in Literature and Arts

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Silverburg

Answer 22

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