Urban Sociology Flashcards
What are some aspects of a city?
- Social problems and inequalities
- Strangers
- Human diversity
- Support for institutional life
- A particular form of social organisation and relations
Why are cities sociological?
They are a social and spatial contect that have impacts on how we interact. Economically, culturally, governance, gender.
What is the difference between a place and a space?
Place is geographical (a unique spot), material form with dimensions, structures, objects and climate. As well as having meaning and value.
Space however is just:
Geometries detached from material and cultural interpretation. It was what occurs when meaning and things are removed from a place.
What are some things which a place can do/represent?
Prison: discipline
Wall: divide
Arena: unite (sports)
What are the origins/characteristics of the first cities?
The premodern city was seen around 3500 BC in the Nile , Euphrates (Iraq) and Indus (Pakistan).
Ancient rome have ~300,000 people.
High walls, temple, segregated residential areas by occupation.
Trade rather than production concerns.
What are characteristics of the modern city?
Industrial revolution/Mass production and factories
Labour saving technology in agriculture/Rural peasantry to industrial labour.
Abundant Raw Materials
More freedom
Social relationships formalized and specialized
Sites of poverty, pollution, crime, disease, child labour etc.
Anomie (Durkheim),
Alienation (Marx),
Rationalisation/disenchantment (Weber)
What did Ferdinand Tonnies propose cities did?
Eroded gemeinschaft/community with strong social roles and unreflexive bonds and a common purpose in community.
Cities generated gesellschaft/association with more individualisation, particular purposes and privacy over communalism.
What did Georg Simmel comment?
He said we are ‘the Stranger.’ The stranger has an
category rather than identity.
Allowed people to be close spatially but still strangers.
Mainly due to specialisation of labour.
What did Simmel say about the metropolis?
It is constantly changing
Unrelenting hardness
Heightened stimulus of senses
Rational intellect suited to the money economy.
What does the metropolis entail?
Time Rationalisation (watches)
Detached quantitative relationships.
Blase attitude.
Unprecedented freedom.
No real community.
What are the three realms of the city?
The private realm (home)
The parochial realm (Cafe, neighbours)
The public (Streets Shops) - Public realm is unique to cities.
What drives/is the Australian suburb?
Created due to housing demands.
Within reach of city and environmental benefits (best of both worlds).
Accelerated with public and private transport.
Quite egalitarian
Less of an escape from inner city poverty.
Neighbourly bonds and lack of conflict/care
What is gentrification?
A process of renovating deteriorated urban neighbourhoods by means of the influx of more affluent residents.
Changes racial and ethnic composition of a neighbourhood
What defines a megacity?
A city with a population of greater than 10 million
Most megacities are located in the developing world
Uncontrolled urban sprawl
Slums, homelessness,
Poverty, disease, massive
Economic inequality
Why are people drawn to Megacities?
Take part in economic opportunities
Urban poverty, environmental degradation, war and terror
Huge informal economy - unregulated, untaxed
Despite the hardships - opportunity beckons
