midterm concepts Flashcards
U.S. Census definition of an Urban Area
“areas with a population density of at least 1000 people per square mile, plus all surrounding areas that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile”
Incorporated place
“is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division, which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population” and can include “a city, town, village, or borough”
Village
- non-urban
- often called a “small-town”
Town
- urban area, but small
- often not merged with other areas
City
- larger urban area
- often the center of a metropolitan area
- seat of most administration
Robert Park
- 1864-1944
- leader in the Chicago School of Sociology
- goal was to take Durkheim’s social facts and apply them to Chicago as a social laboratory
Chicago’s Community Areas
- delineated in the late 1920s by Park and his colleagues at the University of Chicago
- only changes are the addition of O’Hare and the splitting of Uptown from Edgewater
Institutions
- structured and enduring practices of human life that are built around well-established rules and norms
- typically centered in important organizations like the government, courts, churches, schools, or the military
- examples: U.S. Government (separation of powers, voting on Tuesday, citizenship requirements), Pepperdine (OneStep, convocations), Catholic Church (sacraments, celibate male priesthood, papal succession), Marriage (who, when why? wedding receptions and colors
How do cities develop in the first place?
- physical geography and natural advantages
- as cities increase in population, the subtler influences of sympathy, rivalry, and economic necessity tend to control the distribution of population
Meaning of “moral”
about norms, not ethics
Neighborhood
more than just geography, but “a locality with sentiments, traditions, and a history of its own”
Mechanical Solidarity
social integration of people who share similar values and beliefs and do similar things
Organic Solidarity
social integration due to interdependence and relying on others to do those things that you are not doing
Megacity
metro area with over 10 million people
Megaregions
two or more large cities in geographical proximity linked together through infrastructure and economic activity
Ecology
the study of the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical environment
How do people relate to one another and their physical environment?
- extension (from the center, how far out can we extend)
- succession (as one area expands, how we start to see areas that used to be the second and third ring become part of the first ring; as groups move, it makes room for new immigrants to fill those holes)
- concentration (where the center and all the businesses and industry is, where everything converges, people groups will also naturally concentrate in different places)
Mobility
- movement in response to new stimuli or situations
- land value indicates mobility
- mobility can also create segregation and disorganization
Social disorganization
“the inability of a community to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls”
Main points of the Chicago School
- cities grow naturally, through the interaction of the physical environment and the culture/institutions of people
- tend to grow from the center out
- neighborhoods matter
Ecological conundrum
- “the lack of employment opportunities for Black Philadelphians despite the proximity of their neighborhood to the urban core”
- how was this the case? - White families did not want to live near Black families and made sure they didn’t; Black workers were excluded from factory work (where cheap houses were nearby) and were forced to work in White homes, requiring them to live nearby, but not next door; it’s not that the core is shaping the rest of the city, but racial geography of opportunity (cultural, political, economic, etc.)
Black agency
- within segregated neighborhoods, Black individuals and families developed cultural and economic institutions in order to survive and attempt to thrive
- while not intended, these institutions also enabled spatial segregation
Post-modern approach (Los Angeles School)
does not believe that all develop in one way according to ecological principles or according to modernist industries
Post-modern approach (Los Angeles School)
does not believe that all develop in one way according to ecological principles or according to modernist industries
Non-concentric, non-linear approach
decentralization and growth from the outside in has been popular
Edge cities
concentration of business, entertainment, and residential life outside of downtown
Economic development
growing the economy of the city, state, or region through incentives and policies
Economic development
growing the economy of the city, state, or region through incentives and policies
Growth
the increase in a city’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment base
Growth as a guiding principle of cities’ development
- growth brings people together, however they may be split on other issues
- land has value, politically and economically
- growth imperative is therefore the most important constraint on options available to communities
Growth machine
coalition of those who have vested interests in increasing growth in a community
The financial “we” feeling
because land values are related to what happens in the community, future benefits are linked to what happens to the area
Preconditions of growth (they also matter)
- favorable taxation
- vocational trading
- law enforcement
- business friendly labor laws
Liabilities (of growth)
- growth only benefits a small proportion of local residents
- growth can cost existing residents more money
- growth can impact the physical environment
Culture
systems of belief and knowledge shared by members of a group of society that shape individual and group behavior and attitudes
Symbolic economy is defined by 3 points
- it is urban
- it is based on producing symbols and commodifying them
- it is based on the self-concious production of spaces as both sites and symbols of the city and of culture
Symbolic economy’s effects
- putting parts of the city “on the map” and creating “urban oases”
- creating a competitive advantage - culture becomes an instrument in entrepreneurial strategies of local governments; creates further justification of growth (potentially)
- can be democratic - provision of access to resources and civic events; “giving distinctive cultural groups access to the same public space, they incorporate separate visual images and cultural practices into the same public cultures”
Main points about Sawtelle Japantown
- “Randy Sakamota, who has documented Sawtelle’s history in several books, noted that there is a large concentration of Japanese Americans in the area due to race-based restrictions on buying homes from the early 1900s to the 1950s”
- for awhile, marketers started to refer to the area as “Little Osaka” to designate it as related to and distinct from “Little Tokyo”
- ## local residents did not see this as meaningful - they had no connection to Osaka; they had no hand in creating the name
Symbolic economy features 2 parallel production systems that are crucial to a city’s material life
- production of space: infusing cultural meaning into capital investments
- production of symbols: constructs a currency of commercial exchange and language of social identity
How do the Chicago School and Growth Machine look at organizations?
- Chicago School: organizations are expressions of the level of neighborhood social organization; organizations are containers for interaction among neighborhood residents, but not independent actors
- Growth Machine: organizations are cogs in the machine, are often used to continue and support growth
Structuration
- structures are tacitly accepted social practices that are consistently reproduced across time and space
- ## these practices form the basis for the social solidarity that supports society
Social integration
shared meanings of people in a given location, which is produced through interaction
Systemic integration
links between communities and to mainstream society, based in institutions (rules and regulations that are stable and organize the stakes of many interactions)
Urban structuration
organizations are the key factor in the structuration of neighborhoods, connecting neighbors to resources in different spheres of influence and developing social integration within the neighborhood
Urban planning
a technical and political process concerned with the use and development of land in an urban area
History of urban planning (according to Hall)
Post-1960s
- two options sprung up: disjointed incrementalism: planning should be partial, experimental, incremental, and responsive to problems as they arose; advocate planners: planner as an informal coordinator and catalyst
- both took political factors seriously
History of urban planning (according to Hall)
1930-1955
- professionalism of planning
- viewed similar to engineering
- no theory of planning, but viewed cities as static and stable
- goals were left implicit, coming from the planner’s intuition values
- planners were seen as expert and apolitical
History of urban planning (according to Hall)
1960s
- systems approach: world is not static, but a series of interrelated parts that all impact each other and are a part of a larger human-made system
- still largely engineering process, but moved from a craft to a more scientific activity that required manipulation
- but, it still treated the city system as passive and responsive to the planning system
- political system as largely benign
Tasks of urban planners
- zoning
- comprehensive planning
- community feedback
****Era of the speculator
1921 - through the depression
- what changed between
Suburbs
areas within metropolitan regions but not legally part of the central city
What were suburbs like in the 1800s?
- cultural factors: desirable segregation of commercial from residential and of disadvantaged from well-off
- characteristics - set of clear municipal priorities; preference for residential over commercial expansion; desire to remain politically independent from the central city
- suburbs were predominantly wealthy in big cities, but predominantly poor in small cities
How did suburbs change post-WWII?
- role of technology - pre-automobiles, horse carts allowed for some commuting; National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956) - 41,000 miles of road, connecting major cities, running straight through downtowns; necessary, but insufficient explanation
- role of culture - desire for personal, face-to-face relationships, escaping impersonal relationships; modern families and safety from “vice” in the city; yards and privacy
Redlining
- the process where the FHA classified certain areas as deserving of loans and other areas as not deserving of loans
- green areas were single family homes far away from industry and harmful consequences
- red lined areas were sometimes single family homes and sometimes multi-family homes but were generally in areas with non-White populations
- it was made illegal in 1968 to deny someone housing based on race
- another law in 1973 about discrimination in loaning
- another law in 1978 about discrimination in loaning based on the racial composition of the neighborhood
- difficulties that result from redlining - there are many, some involve college/education and wealth
Change of the suburbs
- numerically - suburbs outgrew cities in 1950, but this switched in 2010
- racial/ethnic changes - more than 1/2 of immigrants now move directly into suburbs; white families accounted for just 9% of growth in largest 100 metropolitan areas from 2000-2010
- economic changes - 25% of suburbanites are poor; from 2000-2013, poverty increased by 29% overall, but increased by 66% in the suburbs; concentrated poverty (>40% poor) over doubled from 2000-2012 (3x the rate of cities)
- growth is bypassing the older suburban areas that lie between the two poles of urban center and outlying new development
- cultural changes: suburban drug use has increased; “Great Crime Drop” has been 3x faster in cities than in suburbs; American dream of homeownership and “drive til you quality” has changed as transportation costs have increased
- homogeneity is no longer a predominate desire
