SOCIOL Final Flashcards Chapter 15

Question 1

Urban

Answer 1

A geographic area with a high population density ( typically thought of as 1000 individuals per square mile).

Question 2

Population density

Answer 2

the number of people living in a common unit of space, like a square mile or square kilometer.

Question 3

Metropolitan regions

Answer 3

A continuously populated region with several jurisdictions, typically a large central city surrounded by several smaller towns, that are all physically and economically connected to one another.

Question 4

Suburban communities

Answer 4

Defined as cities and towns within metropolitan regions and close to, but not part of, the boundaries of central cities.

Question 5

Rural

Answer 5

Areas that are less dense and not adjacent to an urbanized region

Question 6

Central city

Answer 6

the main city in a metropolitan area

Question 7

Urbanized

Answer 7

The process through which large numbers of people move to cities in search of jobs and opportunities and cities grow in size and complexity.

Question 8

Kingsley Davis

Answer 8

Urbanization follows an S curve

Question 9

Megacities

Answer 9

Cities with populations of over 10million people, like Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Brazil, or Lagos, Nigeria, are another recent phenomenon that has emerged throughout the world.

Question 10

Megaregion

Answer 10

Two or more large cities in geographical proximity are linked together through infrastructure and through economic activity.

Question 11

What three factors facilitated the growth of suburbanization ?

Answer 11

1) Residential developers found that there was a demand for large houses for yards which could be built in the suburbs.
2) Greater investments in highways that allowed an easier commute to the city
3) White flight: The movement of White families out of central cities and into the suburbs.

Question 12

Redlining

Answer 12

The determination by governments and banks that neighborhoods with high percentages of racial minorities were ineligible for mortgage loans. Redlining has been illegal since the 1970s.

Question 13

Racial Covenants

Answer 13

(White) home buyers pledged not to sell their home to non-White buyers.

Question 14

Suburban sprawl

Answer 14

The boundaries of suburbs have stretched further and further away from central cities

Question 15

Edge cities

Answer 15

A concentrated area of business, shopping, and entertainment just outside of the historical urban centers of commerce. Edge cities differ from classic suburbs in having a considerable amount of land devoted to economic activities, not just residences and local businesses.

Question 16

Urban Ecology

Answer 16

An approach to the study of cities, social change, and urban life introduced into sociology by the Chicago School to explain how different social groups within cities compete over scarce resources; how groups cluster themselves in a city.

Question 17

Burgess’s “concentric zone”

Answer 17

Burgess’s circular zones consist of a city center, a transitional area where immigrants and the poor live, a working-class area with single-family tenements, a middle-class family residential area, and, finally, the commuter zone.

Question 18

What did the Burgess model suggest ?

Answer 18

As individuals assimilated or moved upward into the working and middle classes, Burgess’s model suggests that they moved outward into residential areas with higher quality housing and into “commuter zones” for wealthy people, who were willing to pay more for space and separation from urban life.

Question 19

How is the Burgess model constructed ?

Answer 19

Zones:
1) CBD (Central Business District)
2) Factory
3) Zone of transition
4) Working class zone
5) Residential zone
6) Commuter zone

Question 20

Growth Machine

Answer 20

Investors and governments work to increase the size of the city’s population and make it attractive for businesses to locate there to enhance the overall level of economic activity occurring within a city.

Question 21

Gentrification

Answer 21

Occurs when neighborhoods like SoHo undergo a process of change where new investment, new people, and new establishments move into and alter the character of the neighborhood; businesses move in that charge higher prices.

Question 22

Davis research

Answer 22

Documents the way that “growth coalitions” sought to keep poor Black and Latinx populations from spreading into spaces deemed historically important by allocating tax subsidies to favored developers and by excluding groups representing the city’s poor communities from taking part in decision making on urban planning.

Question 23

Klinenberg Studies

Answer 23

Documents remarkable growth in the number of Americans living by themselves—with the highest rates in places like Washington, D.C., Denver, and Minneapolis. In the Manhattan borough of New York City, about half of all housing units are now occupied by a single individual.

Question 24

Social Isolation

Answer 24

Meaning a lack of interpersonal connections and a decline in civic life.

Question 25

Bowling Alone: Robert Putnam

Answer 25

Americans have been spending less time with family, less time in groups like bowling clubs, and less time engaged in civic organizations since the mid-1960s.

Question 26

Wirth studies

Answer 26

Wirth argued that city dwellers interact in largely anonymous, superficial, and transitory ways in their day-to-day exchanges with one another. He attributed this to the unique “specialization” of urban residents into different types of occupations and careers, the “differentiation” of urban individuals by social class, and the “segregation” of urban spaces by race, all of which do not exist to the same degree in smaller, more intimate communities.

Question 27

Simmel: Effects of Urbanism

Answer 27

The anonymity of the city allows individuals the freedom to express themselves in new ways while also escaping the tendency toward conformity in small towns. In the city, individuals find both freedom and isolation.

Question 28

Gans’s view of urbanism

Answer 28

Gans agreed that there are differences between the type of life in nonurban and urban areas but argued that these differences result from factors like the age, race, occupation, and income of residents—not from urbanism per se.

Question 29

Fischer’s view of urbanism

Answer 29

The sheer size and density of urban spaces lead individuals to sort into subcultures with similar interests or occupations. As a result, cities have higher rates of artistic innovation, higher rates of crime, and more “extreme” lifestyles.

Question 30

Jane Jacobs

Answer 30

Argued that vibrant neighborhoods that encourage the use of public spaces can foster social connections, interaction, and public safety; stated that neighborhoods that combine business and residencies foster interaction between neighbors and safety.

Question 31

Community

Answer 31

Thought of as the degree to which individuals connect with, support, and interact with each other.

Question 32

Social ties

Answer 32

The various types of connections that individuals make with other people, no matter where they live.

Question 33

Social Networks

Answer 33

The study of the ties that link people and groups together.

Question 34

Social capital

Answer 34

The resources available to individuals through their relationships and networks

Question 35

Culture of poverty

Answer 35

The idea that the poor hold values and ideas that make them less interested in trying to get ahead than other groups in society.

Question 36

Urban Renewal

Answer 36

The attempt to improve impoverished areas by tearing down existing structures and even whole neighborhoods, replacing them with new structures or uses.

Question 37

Urban Ghetto

Answer 37

A term used to refer to sections of cities characterized by severe racial or ethnic segregation and deep poverty.

Question 38

The Great Migration

Answer 38

The movement of large numbers of Blacks from the South to the North in the first half of the twentieth century.

Question 39

The Truly Disadvantaged: Wilson

Answer 39

The decline in manufacturing jobs led to less stable jobs for minority populations. This contributed to fewer households being supported leading to an increase in the need for welfare and more poverty.

Question 40

Concentration of poverty

Answer 40

When a geographically bounded area experiences extremely high rates of economic disadvantage that often lead to higher rates of social problems in that area.

Question 41

Segregation

Answer 41

The spatial separation of the population based on race or ethnicity.

Question 42

Global neighborhoods

Answer 42

Neighborhoods that contain members of several different racial and ethnic groups

Question 43

Segmented assimilation

Answer 43

The immigrants and their children follow one of several possible pathways of assimilation; upwards or downwards.

Question 44

What are the pathways in Segmented Assimilation ?

Answer 44

1) traditional trajectory of upward mobility and cultural assimilation into the mainstream.
2) Downward economic mobility and lives of urban poverty.
3) Integration into the economic mainstream while sustaining ties to the culture of their original home by continuing to live within residential enclaves.

Question 45

1862 Homestead Act

Answer 45

Offered 160 acres of land to anyone who agreed to live there and develop a plot of land in states with land but few people or farms.

Question 46

Robert Wuthnow

Answer 46

Small towns can be thought of as “moral communities,” by which he means “a place to which and in which people feel an obligation to one another and to uphold the local ways of being that govern their expectations about ordinary life and support their feelings of being at home and doing the right things.

Question 46

Robert Gordon

Answer 46

The introduction of the first mail-order catalogs, which gave rural customers the ability to purchase the same goods as urban residents, was a significant and underestimated factor in transforming rural communities.

Question 47

Shared fate

Answer 47

Shared fate is the belief that what happens to one member of the group happens to all, whatever other differences might exist; small towns.

Question 48

Brain drain

Answer 48

The departure of a significant number of the most educated and skilled citizens, who go to live and work in other regions or countries.

Question 49

Ethnic enclaves

Answer 49

large, stable sections of cities where the local labor market, residential market, and culture are dominated by a specific ethnic group.

Question 50

Remittances

Answer 50

Money sent from migrant workers to family and friends at home

Question 51

Global City

Answer 51

A particular kind of city, in which the headquarters of international firms that create and control the ­cross-border flow of information and commerce are located.

Question 52

Global elite

Answer 52

Those who control international commerce

Question 53

Global service class

Answer 53

Those who cater to the global elite

Question 54

urban glamour zones

Answer 54

Where a global elite (locals and visitors) shop and eat, often isolated from poor people or even ordinary middle-class residents of the city.

Question 55

1968 Fair Housing Act

Answer 55

Made racial covenants illegal; prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as amended) handicap and family status.

Question 56

Transition Zone

Answer 56

The Transition Zone is characterized as industrial and typically dominated by manufacturing facilities. It surrounds the mainly commercial city center and is surrounded by working-class residential housing, maximizing access to markets to sell manufactured goods and housing for factory workers.

Question 57

Commuter Zone

Answer 57

The outermost ring of the Concentric Zone Model is commuter-residential and consists mainly of low-density, estate-style housing, usually comprised of high-income professionals. Urban overcrowding is typically unappealing to people, so property values for low-density and spacious estates will be at a higher premium than higher-density urban properties.

Question 58

According to the Burgess Concentric Zone model, which zone are low-income residents most likely to inhabit and why?

Answer 58

The Transition Zone, because of its close proximity to industrial and manufacturing jobs in the Central Business District