Urban Theory Flashcards
How did Murray Bookchin describe urbanisation?
Urbanisation AGAINST cities
(Bookchin 1992)
When did Henri Lefebvre publish the urban revolution?
1970
Hypotheses a “completely urbanised” society
Who has recently built on Levebvre’s ‘complete urbanisation’?
Brenner 2013
Reconsiders complete urbanisation with Castells’ (1977) urban question
What took place during the 19th century?
British society became urbanised (Williams 1973)
- Also demographic changes
Who considered changes to urban sprawl in the 20th century?
Gottmann 1961
(Also Jane Jacobs 1961)
What do all the Marxist (and adjacent) writers consider the city to be?
The city as a process, not a thing
Harvey, Bookchin, Jacobs (1961), Brenner (2013)
Why is saying “we live in an urban age” misleading?
Planetary urbanisation might suggest that we have always lived in an urban age…
Just as the Anthropocene makes it sound like environmental destruction is the exception, not the rule
In what ways might there be “discrete urban units” (Castells 1977) on economic grounds?
- Cocktails more expensive in cities (living wage differences)
How has Young 2021 imagined a fictitious future urban society? What’s the problem with it?
“Planet city”
- 10 billion people confined to one city
- Rewilding outside
- BUT what about disconnect from nature and not trying to rewild all space (link to PE of conservation)
Who first considered cities “off the map”?
Robinson 2002
- Urban theory confined to the North, not enough engagement with the South
What does Robinson 2022 suggest?
- More connection between theory and ontology (spaces) in urban theory
- “Urban parochialism” in the North
- Need to consider differences between cities as idiosyncratic entities
.
What is an important question to consider about urban space?
“who does the city belong to?”
Simone 2004
What links does Simone 2004 highlight in “The city yet to come”?
That any future plans must necessarily deal with colonialism and post-colonial realities
What is modernity?
The experience of modernisation (Berman 1982)
What is modernisation?
Processual changes of advanced capitalism
- e.g., infrastructures
What is modernism?
Cultural forms associated with modernity
What does Harvey’s “consciousness and the urban experience” (1985) contend with?
- Capitalist urbanisation
- The changes to everyday life (quite humanist of Harvey!)
- The “urbanisation of consciousness”
- A focus on 2nd empire Paris
Harvey 1985
How can theories be applied?
Specifically (to cities/ parts of cities) and generically
Who said we are living in an “urban age”?
UN Habitat 1996
What does the urban question ask us?
What, ontologically, is the urban
What did Amin + Thrift say about cities from a non-representational perspective?
“The city is everywhere and in everything”
Amin and Thrift 2002
Who has suggested that urban areas can be studied despite Castells’ urban question?
Saunders 1981
- Sociology of settlements (Gans 2009)
- Loses spatial aspects
Although planetary urbanisation could be considered synonymous with capitalism what questions does it raise?
- What is urban?
- Highlights that cities are historically materialistically constructed in rural areas
What is a problem with Brenner’s discussion of “urban effects exist within an intensely variegated landscape”?
What are “urban effects” - does not describe these (Scott and Storper 2015 critique)
Brenner (2013) asks - are there urban processes
What is the urban fabric?
Extension of urban space into the countryside (Gandy 2011)
Who has critiqued Rem Koolhaas on Lagos (2004)?
Gandy 2005
Romanticised informality and structural inequalities as the epitome of capitalism (asymptotes)
How does Ong (2006) describe cities in the South?
As “zones of exception” (Ong 2006)
What two authors have criticised Robert Moses’ approach to planning in NYC (1930s-50s)?
Jacobs 1961 - The life and death of great American cities
Boyer 1983 - Dreaming of the rational city
What art exhibition detailed the slum clearances in NYC in the 1950s?
Shapolsky et al 1971
Was too radical - closed down by trustees
What is important to consider about art exhibitions about cities of difference?
- Who curates?
- Who sees?
- Clientele
Where has Robert Moses been portrayed in the arts?
“Straight-line crazy” (2022)
- Set designed to show Moses’ God-like attitude and perspective of cities
What publication combined capital and culture in explaining gentrification?
- Smith 1978 rent gap
- Zukin 1982 ‘Loft living’
Who inspired Robert Moses?
Hausmann in 19th century 2nd empire Paris
See Harvey 1985
What happened in Detroit?
White Flight since the 1980s