URBN 0210 MASTER Study Guide

(9/2/10)

The Bible - G-d

Sets up anti-urban bias that persists until today in Western society
Garden of Eden - idyllic, pasoral, and pure, compared to Sodom - infectious, evil
city
Tower of Babel Story - building a tower to G-d (skyscrapers) leads to their downfall

(9/7/10) - Where do cities come from?

3 Models - Cultural/Social [Mumford], Materialist [Childe/Engel], and Political
[Kitto/Weber] - are all possible based on architectural record

What is a City – Louis Mumford

-stressed cultural and social factors of city
-cities grow from a concept of “place” - sacred, meaningful locations around
which people gather - cemetaries/burial grounds
-they also are a result of labor specialization, allowing for the creation of priests
and other careers of thought
-cities are home to literacy and intelligence
-city as THEATER OF SOCIAL ACTION - everything else is secondary
-city creates drama – social disharmony and conflict – “urban drama” - the city as
a stage
-social needs are more important than the physical organization of the city, the
industries and markets, communication and traffic, etc.
-planning to limit the size, density, and area of the city to encourage
effective interaction
-city cannot function as a well-knit unit if the area has too much density of people
-“polynucleated city” – cluster of communities, adequately spaced and bounded
= good
-dissociation and decentralization of cities likely to increase w/ technology and
transportation

Urbanism as a Way of Life - Louis Wirth

-diversity, size, and density --> social interaction --> mixing of classes -->
toleration, cosmopolitanism, impersonality, BLASE PSYCHOLOGY
-three important characteristics of city: large population size, social heterogeneity,
population density
-also talks about city as a ”theater of social action”
-cities allow subcultures to come into existence due to density - like people can
find each other
-elites are scared of urban disorder - destabilizing to their regime
-“urban personality” = more socially tolerant; more impersonal; less friendly –
-loss of community in large cities
The Urban Revolution - V. Gordon Childe
-stressed materialist factors in the city –
-Marxist leanings - views cities as production sites and technology hubs - where
raw materials become products
-revolution of technology (irrigation, food storage) led to urbanization and
industrialization
- urban population replies on agricultural surpluses to allow for the social division
of labor on which cities rely
-essential to city: wheel, writing, plow, currency, weapons - generally: technology
-some physical locations give cities natural advantages: harbors, citadels,
nearby raw materials...
-disagrees w/ Mumford’s “social theater” view – controversial
-shift from neolithic to urban = total break from the past
-POET - population, organization, environment, and technology - is what makes up
a city

The Polis – H.D.F Kitto

-focus on the political aspects of the city
-cities aren’t just material response to technological growth - they arise from
desire to protect and govern
-Ancient Greek Polis = city-state, self-governing community
-Politics requires the existence of cities
-Greeks emphasized PUBLIC SPACES - public temples, stadiums, agora
(combined marketplace and public forum), theaters
-polis = citizens realize their spiritual, moral, intellectual capacities – living
community, extended family, social institutions - what’s good for the whole
-citizenship is limited: women and slaves not permitted, maybe only small
homogenous decision-making group really went and actively participated
-This “root of democracy” relied on an underclass to function - slaves,
uneducated people.
-Aristotle’s ideal city = each citizen should know all others by sight
-towns form larger units based on economy, geography, and character
-Polis = “the whole communal life of the people – political, cultural, moral, and
economic”

(9/14/10) - The Industrial City in the US and Europe

The Great Towns – Friedrich Engels (Marx’s buddy)

-anti-urban description of Manchester, UK working-class conditions
-dirty, unsanitary, crowded, impersonal, unhealthy, dark, disgusting, no sewage
-no zoning – labyrinth, like a maze, no rational form
-isolated – nobody acknowledges each other – dehumanizing
-density – no privacy – tightly packed, crowded
-sickness – yellow fever, venereal diseases (from prostitution), etc.
-result of movement of capital
(9/16/10) - Elites rationalize the city - parks, public works, housing reform, coercive
moralism, zoning

Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns – Frederick Law Olmsted

-the father of landscape architecture in America!
-response to America’s increasingly industrialized, trade-focused, dirty cities
-sought to bring the country into the city to beautify it - City Beautiful
movement
-parks = most valuable public places - better air, more light, reduced congestion
-parks include both active/exertive and passive/receptive uses
-need to plan for parks from the start, can’t do it little by little – secure land for
parks
-need to combat urban vice and social degeneration, particularly among children of
urban poor - parks promote social mixing to show lower class how to behave
-need to advance cause of civilization by providing urban amenities that would be
democratically available to all
-also advocated widened streets and tree-lined boulevards - the street as a park.
-also supported new Housing Codes in NYC (Tenement Laws) to reform cramped,
unsanitary living conditions
-goal: rationalize the city

The Growth of a City: An Introduction to a Research Project – Ernest W.

Burgess (Chicago School)
-“process of distribution” – the way in which a city sorts and relocates
individuals and group based on residence and occupation
-modeled on the CONCENTRIC ZONE THEORY – From in to out: Central business
district --> area in transition being invaded by business and light manufacture
(deteriorating) – immigrants, etc. --> workers in industries who have escaped from
area of deterioration but who don’t want long commute --> “residential area” –
high class apartments and exculsive “restricted” districts of single-family dwellings
--> commuters zone – suburban areas, satellite cities
-”black belt” goes through several zones
-zoning comes out of this idea of keeping uses separate
-zones are subject to expansion, succession, and mobilization
-cities as a “social ecology”
-assimilation and mobility - goal of new immigrants is to make it from the inner
rings to the outer rings, replacing older upwardly-mobile immigrant groups
-Subscribes to the POET model
-new polynucleated metro areas/regional economies: agglomeration, high-tech
districts, synergies as a result of new transportation tools

(9/21/10) - Urban Disorder

The Public Realm: Anti-Urbanism and the War on the Public Realm – Lyn
Lofland
-Anti-urbanism sees the city as
profane, unholy, unwashed sphere (vs. the pastoral)
mixing the unmixable (vs. proper places for everyone)
sacrilegious play and frivolity (vs. sobriety)
anarchy, disorder, corruption, the “mob” (vs. rationality/control)
-This stems from anti-public realm attitudes

(9/23/10) - Public/Private

Locating Public Space – Zachary Neal

-public space = areas that should be open and accessible to all members of
the public in a society
-”accessible” and “open” have limits - public spaces have rules
-Classic Public Spaces: The Agora, Medeival Public Space: The Commons,
Rennaisance Public Space: The Plaza, Enlightenment Public Space: The
Coffeehouse
-vs. private space - out of view, intimate
-different visions:
public space as civil order - democratic perspective
public space as arena for conflict - dystopic image (see Fortress LA) -
contested space
public space as celebratory stage - pro-urban cultural vision - where we
define our identities

The Character of Third Places – Ray Oldenburg

-aspects of personal world in public-feeling locations
-hang-outs – cafes, restaurants – different from public realm
-first place = home, second place = workplace
-third place – should be free or inexpensive, offer food or drink, be highly
accessible, have in the proximity of many, and involve regulars

Robert Putnam “Bowling Alone”

○ No one chats in public spaces anymore
○ Decline of civil engagement since 1970s linked with technology
because people are secluding themselves for example watching
television
○ Decrease in bonds in families

Mike Davis “Fortress LA”

○ Neo-military architecture, policing, anti-pedestrian design in LA
destroy public space
○ Cities are fortified cells that keep lower class contained and leaves
streets to criminals
 ○ Contested space - if we can’t get rid of undesireables, retreat to
private space --> loss of the Polis
○ Private spaces that look public: malls - look like streets, but 1st
amendment doesn’t apply

(9/28/10) - Urban Disorder/Providence

James Q. Wilson and George Kelling “Broken Windows”

○ Signs of disorder encourage more crime
■ No one wants to live there
■ Lack of neighborliness --> leaving streets to criminals
■ Ex. Graffiti, trash, broken windows
■ Results in zero-tolerance policing under Nixon

Bernard Harcourt “Illusion of Order”

○ Disprove broken windows theory
■ Counter argument: cause and effect are switched
■ Fear of crime and actual crime rates are not correlated - people
fear what they do not know.
○ No correlation between increase in law enforcement and decrease in
amount of crime
○ Crime fell in NY because of economic situation, not tougher policing

Francis Leazes “Providence: The Renaissance City”

○ How providence is becoming a renaissance city
■ physical changes - rerouting rivers and trains
■ population changes - “creative class” and middle class returning
○ Still growing and will change in the future

“Buddy” - Film and Class Notes on Urban Politics

○ The Machine vs. The Reformers
■ Buddy ran as Republican REFORMER, then built his own political
machine
■ Urban Succession: are Hispanics taking over the machine in PVD?
○ Who governs? Models: Pluralism (coalitions) v. Elite (machine always
wins) v. Regime (practical private/public partners)
■ In PVD - Garbage Can (right place, right time, right idea)

James Bryce “Rings and Bosses”

○ Machine: wants to maintain control
■ Gradually extends range of influence
■ Acquiring influence by neighborhood voters
○ Boss: Head of ring, commander
■ Avoids publicity, prefers power

(9/30/10) - Homelessness

Alex Vitale “City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign

Transformed NY Politics”
○ Quality of Life Campaign was preventative action against
homeless
○ Separation between normal people and homeless
■ Homeless seen as dangerous
○ Making order to the city by putting these people away in jail
○ Seeing the underclass as pathological

Barrett Lee and Chad Farrell “Buddy Can you Spare A Dime?”
○ Panhandling by homeless people
■ Seen as a nuisance, but not a threat
■ People want to avoid it - 60% have been panhandled
■ Strategic locations - stoplights, parks
○ Most homeless do NOT panhandle - only the most desperate

Duneier and Molotch “Talking City Trouble: Interactional Vandalism,

Social Inequality, and the “Urban Interaction Problem.”
○ What “goes wrong” when strangers approach
○ Homeless violate unspoken rules of behavior and acceptability
■ Betray the usual ethics of social interaction
■ Undermines “urbanism as a way of life”
■ “Interactional vandalism”

David Snow and Leon Anderson - “Street People”

○ The streets are home to numerous “informal economic activities”
○ This shadow work takes place at intersections and in parks

(10/5/10 and 10/7/10) - The Ghetto

W.E.B. Du Bois “the Negro Problems of Philadelphia” - 1899

 ○ African Americans have trouble finding work and experience harsh
living conditions, so form their own communities - “city within a
city”
○ Even in North (tradition of “Free Blacks”), there is segregation and few
jobs - color prejudice
○ The Black middle class tries to avoid the lower class
■ BUT as Black professionals can only serve Blacks - traps them in
the Black Ghetto

William Julius Wilson “ From Institutional to Jobless Ghettos”

○ Not a demand for unskilled workers means more unemployment within
unskilled ghetto communities
○ The ghetto can serve as a support structure
■ Successful Blacks who stay in Ghetto serve as role model
○ Exodus of Black middle class --> decline of Ghetto.
■ Civil Rights only help those with marketable skills - rest are left
behind

Bruce Haynes and Ray Hutchinson “The Ghetto: Origins, History,

Discourse”
○ Original ghettos were Jewish communities, formed in response to
being exiled by Spain
○ Now refers to informally racially segregated communities (mostly
Black)

(10/12/10) Housing Crisis and South Side’s Struggle

Film: “Southside: The Fall and Rise of an Inner-City Neighborhood”

● South Side has had its own Renaissance
○ Rebirth of housing stock, fighting against vacant land
○ Community development as “savior”
○ Land values way up - fear of gentrification!
● Challenges
○ Gangs: mostly Latin and Asian based
○ Financial Resources - very few banks
● Diversity - proud of their ethnic variation

Manual Aalbers “The Sociology and Geography of Mortage Markets:

Reflections on the Financial Crisis”
○ Causes of the housing crisis
■ 1. De/Re-regulation of insurance system
● Loans being made to those who shouldn’t get them
○ Sub-prime mortgages
■ 2. Financialization/globalization
● Mortgage-backed securities - connection lost between loan
and client
■ 3. Bubbles and Wrong Incentives
● Lenders at street level want to make as many loans as
possible
● Borrowers can’t pay them back
● Bubble bursts

Gotham “Creating Liquidity out of Spatial Fixity: The Secondary Circuit of

Capital and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis”
○ Investigates the institutional and political roots of the sub prime
mortgage crisis
○ Bla bla bla BORING I realy doubt this will be tested.

(10/14/10)

Ali Madanpour, “Social Exclusion and Space”

○ Cities are heterogeneous
■ They can celebrate their diversity or impose order
(modernism)
○ Spatial organization of cities today
■ Manifestation of economic, political, and cultural exclusions
■ Private communities ruin a city’s heterogeneity
■ Exclusion through physical and social control means (codes, rules,
zoning, signs, customs...)
○ Solutions
■ Mixed zoning can provide diversity

Kenneth Jackson, “The Drive-in Culture of Contemporary America”

○ The automobile has had negative effects on social society
■ Ruins social interaction - “drive-thrus”
■ Creates more privacy: Backyards not frontyards

Edward Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder “Putting Up the Gates”

○ Private communities restrict public space - even sidewalks and
parks are privately owned
 ○ Three types of Gated Communities
■ Lifestyle - Retirement, country club
■ Prestiege - Less amenities, but gates mark destinction and status
■ Security - Crime and traffic lead neighborhoods to close
themselves off

Fishman, “Beyond Suburbia: The Rise of the Technoburb”

○ The suburbs can now combine work and home
■ Company headquarters --> suburbs
■ Creation of Edge Cities/Technoburbs - clusters of multiple
functions
■ No need to go downtown for sophisticated urban needs
○ Lack of Downtown means
■ Less public space
■ Less social mixing

Murphy, “The Suburban Ghetto: The Legacy of Herbert Gans in

Understanding the Experience of Poverty in Recently Impoverished
American Suburbs”
○ Decline in cities, starting in the 90s, has affected the suburbs as well
○ Lower-middle class suburbs exist!
■ Bad schools, gangs, drugs, everything
○ Focuses on Herbert Gans’ Work

Setha Low “The Politics of Fear: Strategies of Exclusion in Gated

Communities”
○ People move to gated communities out of fear of crime and “changes”
(read: other ethnic group)
○ Consequences:
■ No evidence that gated communities reduces crime - false sense
of security
■ Can have effects on how gated children see the outside world

(10/19/10) - How to Experience a City

The Arcade Project, Walter Benjamin

● Experiencing the urban environment by watching - the flaneur
○ Strolling on boulevards - bourgeois, but open to all classes
● The street as a spectacle - one is both observer and observed
● Nostalgic view of city social space - repositories of the past
● Arcades: huge part of the city life of Paris,
 ○ An iron/glass covered street
○ Mirrors - reflect light, allow you to look at yourself and others

The Practice of Everyday Life: ”Spatial Practices: Walking in the City,” Michel De
Certeau
● “The city” is generated from the top-down - governments, corps, and other
institutional bodies define what the city is
● Vantage point: View from a skyscraper makes the city a unified whole - Panopticon
● Contrasting view: The walker at street level can subvert it!
○ His path is never fully determined by the institutional planners
○ Can take short cuts, despite the plan of the city grid
● Moral: Everyday life is a process of using the rules of the institutions without being
fully determined by them

Visions of a New Realty: The City and Emergence of Modern Visual Culture,
Frederic Stout
● Freedom of expression and the rise of the free press
○ Something all urban dwellers share - from consuming dailies to producing
penny press rags
● City public spaces are part of the “realm of imagination”
● See LeGates pp. 141

(10/26/10) - Public Sphere

The Uses Of Sidewalks: Safety, Jane Jacobs

● Good streets must have
○ 1. clear line between public and private space
○ 2. eyes on the street
○ 3. constant users to induce people into buildings on street
● Stores, bars, restaurants all aid in sidewalk safety and :
○ 1. give people reasons to use the sidewalks
○ 2. draw people along sidewalks
○ 3. store keepers and businessman act as proponents to peace and order on
street
○ 4. activity generated by people on errands
○ 5. sight of people attract others
● The bedrock attribute of a successful city district is that a person must feel
personally safe and secure on the street among all the strangers
● Sidewalk and street peace kept by people themselves, not the police
● Jane Jacobs fought against Robert Moses, urban renewal, and superblock
housing

The City Image and its Elements, Kevin Lynch

● 5 Elements of Urban Design
 1. Paths--> usually entrails pedestrian movement--freeway
2. Edges-->effective barrier between two points--gentrified Broadway--
interchange seen across boundary traffic across edge
3. Districts-->contained areas/neighborhoods
4. Nodes-->”hot spots” (olneyville sq)--points of density where you can
move through
5. Landmarks-->unique or distinctive reference point--blue room

The Design of Spaces, William Whyte

● Observes different uses of space in NYC, searching for elements that create
successful public spaces
○ Key to success is being able to watch people
○ Factors:
■ Sittable Space - sitting height, benches, chairs
■ Aesthetics - Water, trees, sun
■ Commercial activity (vendors) and people/objects you interact with
■ Relationship to street
○ Also helps if place functions as part of plaza or square
○ Street corners are very important

Revisiting the Enclave Hypothesis: Miami 25 years Later, Alejandro Portes and
Steven Shafer
● Are Ethnic Enclaves mobility traps or economic opportunities for ethnics?
● Some ethnic groups better at responding to economic pressures than others
● Example - Cubans in Miami soar ahead thanks to tight business networks.
○ Their success allows children to get higher education.
○ People who own the business and shop at the business are same
○ Later Cuban immigrants have less luck as these exile networks have
diminished
● Crowding in labor forces drives wages down...employees don’t benefit, but helps
ethnic employers
● MORAL: Carving a business enclave has been essential to the success and
integration of many immigrant communities - immigrants in enclave do better
than those outside

The Ethnic Enclave Debate Revisited, Roger Waldinger

● Rejects the value of ethnic supply lines
● Instead, ethnic businesses merely fill a niche market
● Look beyond the “enclave” terminology to considering entire ethnic
experience

From Civil Relations to Racial Conflict: Merchant-Customer Interactions in Urban

America, Jennifer Lee
 ● Images of violence and conflict often go hand-in-hand with life in Black, urban
communities - an association buttressed by the sensational media accounts that
highlight crime, firebombings and riots.
● Owners of businesses in ethnic communities are often from other neighborhoods
○ i.e. Korean grocers in Black neighborhoods.
○ Locals can serve as “buffers” with community
○ There is actually civility in merchant-customer relations
● Past scholarly research also depicts interethnic relations in Black neighborhoods as
conflict ridden, with immigrant merchants pitted against Black customers
● Argues that previous research has been biased towards conflict and controversy
and does not reflect the full range of life in Black communities

(11/4/10) - Gentrification

Japonica Brown-Saracino - The Gentrification Debates

● Defining gentrification
● Why?
○ Cities struggling to maintain tax base.
■ when people move out of cities they take $ with them
■ we want to bring people back to city esp with money...improve tax base
and better public services
○ Improve houses
○ bring back social diversity
● Where?
○ Former industrial spaces
○ Places that have “authenticity”
■ Ex. Soho - large, light, big windows, cheap work space
● Who?
○ Artists/”bohemians” come in first - in search of authenticity
○ These pioneer gentrifiers are replaced by 2nd generation - Starbucks!
■ Real estate agents learn how to “sell” the neighborhood
● “diverse”, “authentic,” “convenient.”
○ Neighborhood stability disrupted, community displaced, social fabric changes
○ Undermines the authenticity/diversity originally sought out.
○ Different actors in gentrification view the process wildly differently
● But what’s the alternative? How else do you “save” neighborhoods? Urban
renewal?

(11/11/10) Urban Economies

The Deindustrialization of America, Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison

● As factories close, real estate market shrivels
● Alcoholism, drug use, domestic violence are ancillary costs
● Impact greater in less diversified “company towns”
 ○ dependent a single company b/c so many of its residents are employed there
○ crush unions; social institutions destroyed

The CIty as a Distorted Price System, Wilbur Thompson

● Providing public goods are part of a good public realm - nobody is excluded
● in public economies, 3 kinds of goods are unclear
○ 1. public goods--collectively consumed, provided free by government
○ 2. merit goods--free because in public interest for everyone to consume
(public education, immunizations)
○ 3. redistribution of income - the uses of taxes, tolls, fees, and other prices to
help allocate scarce resources among competing ends

The Competitive Advantage of the Inner-City, Michael Porter

● Inner-city urban economies have competitive advantage
● Identifies comparative advantages of dense high-volume inner-city, despite
low income markets:
○ 1. strategic location-->close to markets and infrastructure and suppliers
○ 2. local market demand-->businesses joined to create regional economy
○ 3. potential integration with regional job clusters
○ 4. industrial labor force eager to work
■ government should work with these free market forces, instead of
using artificial inducements
● inner city neighborhoods do not have lower real estate or labor costs

The Urban Future, Joel Kotkin

● The “animating role of commerce” and “ability to provide security and project
power” constitute the “critical factors” of the urban experience
● Basic security, whether from local crime or international terrorism, has become
tenuous for many urban residents
● Environmental pollution leaves many others without access to clean air and
water
● Regardless, in the end, sacred functions of the city will prevail
● Cities will always generate a “consciousness that unites their people in a shared
identity” and be places where “humanity’s future will be shaped for centuries to
come”

Cities and the Creative Class, Richard Florida

● The Creative Class: attract people, not firms
● Which cities are attractive to the creative class? 3 T’s Technology, Talent, Tolerance
● High tech and creative industries
● Human Capital, higher education, in creative occupations- Bohemian
Index
● Gay index, immigration, diversity
Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival, Paul Grogan and
Tony Grogan
● Retailers return to inner-city
● They believe it is easier to revitalize city neighborhoods than most people think
● They do not favor gentrification
○ Drives out poor and brings in young and trendy

(11/16/10) - The Power of Place

A Place for Space in Sociology, Thomas Gieryn

● How do places become distinctive? How do places matter for special practices
and historical change?
● Physical environment is invested with personal and collective meaning
● Place has 3 necessary and sufficient features:
○ geographic location ( a unique spot, with finite, but nested and elastic
boundaries - can be identified by many)
○ material form - must be physical
○ investment with meaning and value
● Places are endlessly made - from the top down and the bottom up (planners and
people on the ground)
● “Emplacement” as a term - giving meaning to a physical thing
● History of a place is something which you cannot remove

Making Character Concrete, Krista Paulsen

● Empirical Strategies for Studying Place Distinction
● How material can be tied to the symbolic
● Places influence local activity and meaning, producing special customs, habits,
tendency
● 4 strategies to reveal how city character influences local interaction, who and what
is attracted to the place:
1. -making use of local accounts
2. -design variables to measure character
3. -comparison: strategically matched pairs (santa Barbara vs Venture)
4. -examine responses to external forces

The Power of Place:Urban Landscapes as Public History, Dolores Hayden

● PLACE is ordinary urban landscape that has the power to nurture citizens’
public memory, encompass shared time in the form of shared territory
● the city as a “theater of memory”:
○ identity from memory, but selective - preservation is political
○ memory from shared time in shared place - emotions, psychological
attachment
● Public Space creates socially inclusive identities
Symbolizing a Place: Journalistic Narratives of the City, P. Parisi and P. Holcomb
● Newspaper narratives of the city: create a local culture across various urban
fragments by allowing different groups and neighborhoods to learn about each
other
○ “Human interest stories”
● “Populist” claim to represent the public interest against corrupt politicians and
influential interest
● Advertisements in media also serve as source of information

The Location of Culture: The Urban Culturalist Perspective, Michael Ian Borer
● Urbanism sees cities as places of and for local sentiment, personal and
collective identity construction, and community building
● The other 3 schools (Chicago, Political Economic, and Postmodern LA) see the
culture of cities as a response to larger economic forces and economic competition,
and consider the social and geographic landscape as fragmented
● Culturalists see shared meaning systems that give rise to diverse social
interactions and situations
● Urban culture accounts for distinctions among places and how places and symbolize
entire cities
● People use places as part of their cultural repertoires or “tool kits”
● Shared meanings create connections among individuals and groups
● A sense of place makes a city less anonymous and less chaotic
● Culture and place were separated:
○ Culture=way people make sense of the world and the symbolic and material
products that express that way of life
○ Place=a unique geographic area

(11/23/10) - Fighting over Place

The Naked City, Sharon Zukin

● Two different views of the city are discussed
1. Jane Jacobs
○ Favors old city fabric - tries to retain the origins and historical uses and
original residents of city
○ Favors neighborhoods where people don’t have to leave--> loves urban
village
○ Urban village that she imagined was changeless/timeless/authentic
2. Robert Moses
○ stands for a focus on progress; elimination of old and favor of the new when
he views NYC
○ wide range of modernist change; rational city; orderly
○ contemporary planner; redeveloping of cites
● Local character vs. big box chain
○ Ex. IKEA v. local furniture store, Starbucks v. local coffee shop
 ○ People yearn for connections to unique places
● Zukin talks about 3 types of people who make claims in cities
○ 1. Elites - people whose ancestors have grown up there and want to preserve
historical things - “our place, our families”--history from origins
○ 2. Social Preservationists
■ authenticity of preservationists? way to keep people and way of life there
○ 3.People that want their own coffee shops, favor 2nd hand clothes--real deal
■ *particular groups claim moral superiority for their aesthetic sense
■ rise of distinctiveness--makes these neighborhoods “hip”

Tourism Gentrification: The Case of New Orleans, Kevin Fox Gotham

● Cities seek to market themselves to tourists
○ The commodification of place and its values
○ Tourism entrepreneurs: try to market locations as a commodity-->
“dumbed down” (authenticity/grit eased) for tourists
● Ex- The branding of New Orleans
○ French Quarter is VERY gentrified, but well preserved aesthetically
○ Dilemma: aesthetic value vs societal value
○ Marketing spectacle to consumers - Mardi Gras

Marketing the Past: Historic Preservation in Providence, Briann Greenfield

● History of preservation ideologies and action in Providence
● Rise of “liberal” preservation - not just preserving rich white homes

Taking Los Angeles Apart: Towards a Postmodern Geography, Edward Soja

● Specificity and uniqueness of LA’s restless geographical landscape
○ circumspection, outspaces: 60 mile radius>>5 counties, 12 million people,
132 incorporated cities - polycentric nodes
○ federal/military bases at circumference, turns industrial city inside out(turns
logic of Chicago School ecological model inside out)
● Hollywood: Basic industry of LA is ”image making” - NOT focused on assembly
line
● Civic center with centripetal power (other cities) vs centrifugal decentralization (LA),
sprawl, private security: control and freedom
● Downtown has 3rd world immigrant labor
● Specialized economic enclaves (e.g. Koreatown) --LA has one of the largest Asian
immigrant popluations in US

The New York and Los Angelos Schools, David Halle

● LA, NY and CHicago schools share pro-urbanism, but NY loves central city
● LA favors sprawl-very car oriented (in contrast to Chicago and NYC)
○ NY sprawls, just outside the state! (in Jersey)
● NYC and LA share:
○ demographic dispersal and decentralization
 ○ immigration, art galleries, culture, ethnicity, race (creative capital)
● BIG difference in LA/NYC crime/policing
○ LA-->high tech policing
○ NYC--> public policing
● NYC vs Chicago
○ Manhattanization(extreme density)
○ metropolitan school systems: more money for all, less segregation
● NY handles transit on a massive scale - regional authority

Obama’s Metro Presidency, Bruce Katz

● Need for overhaul in the way Federal government handles cities
● Obama understands how massive cities work - could be first Metro President
○ Cannot just focus on central cities - need to focus on the entire massive
metro area.
○ Sustainability issues - current sprawl simply cannot continue

(11/30/10) - Global Cities

The Impact of the New Technologies and Globalization on Cities, Saskia Sassen
● World Cities vs Global cities
○ places specialized in command and control
○ many important headquarters are location in global cities
● What globalization is about?
○ increasing importance of Finance and Services
○ speed of transactions(ability to send money from one bank act to another in
2 diff countries within minutes)
○ intensity, complexity, global span
● The Global City
○ the paradox: spatial dispersal and concentration - we are freed from
space, and yet concentrate in one place - face-to-face still valued
○ coordination, command points
○ complexity and innovation - very specific skills are available
○ Boomerang Effect - going global to get local help
● Dispersion of Old-style production (manufacture)
○ Used to be: materials from South --> plants in North
○ Now production happens in the South as well
○ global cities produce connections and specialized services

When Local Housing Becomes an Electronic Instrument: The Global Circulation

of Mortgages, Saskia Sassen
● the securitizing of mortgages has brought a new channel for extracting household
income-- bundling it up with other types of debt and selling it to financial investors
● extending this concept to modest-income households opens up a global potential
market comprising billions of households
European Cities, the Information Society and the Global Economy, Manuel
Castells
● Technological revolution changing all spheres of life
● global economy: an economy at a planetary scale
● Allows dislocation of space and time
● informational society: centrality of information and knowledge -
production of information > production of material
● World cities are losing their distinct place-ness - global cities are
converging towards a single identity - e.g. all airports are the same
○ Post-modern architecture
● Information is not in one place - it’s a flow
● Coordinated global movements are a result: environmental and
feminist
● Due to networks and flows, increasing blurriness in what is North and
South

The Politics of Urban Exclusion and Violence in the Global South, Kees Koonings
and Dirk Kruijt
● 3rd World: developing countries not aligned with 1st world (capitalists) and 2nd
world (communists) in the Cold War
● Cities of the South were formed through colonialism --rapid urbanization
● ”primate” mega cities - excess of 10 million people - by far the largest in country
● Labor
○ outsourcing of routine activities by international companies to avoid low
wage labor and unions
● slums appear with very poor living conditions, but are rarely recognized
○ build houses out of anything they can find
○ slum clearance-->people shipped out of to country land and their houses will
be knocked down and built on
● businesses in city - a lot is in the informal economy - activity without state
approval
● Crime
○ Police themselves can become part of the problem - e.g. brutality in Rio

Terms
3rd Space: Place that is semi-private realm (ex. Bar where you are aregular, coffee
shop, etc.)
Aesthetic Power: (discernment) to determine what
 is authentic (ex. Hip neighbourhoods that make claims to authenticity, to
grunginess, able to discriminate against “uncool”) – Can’t buy way into cool,
must be created
Anti-Urbanism: Area of thought that is critical/fearful of urban life as a
social structure (sees cities as dirty/lawless/place of mixing of the
unmixable, disorder, corruption)
Boomerang Effect: People start locally, go global for help, all in order to
get help on a local level
Broken Windows Theory: Theory that monitoring/maintaining an urban
area will prevent further crime/vandalism
Capitalism: Economic system wherein means of capital (finance) are
privitized
Chicago Worlds Fair 1893: Displayed design/engineering
feats/inventions, lauded as “beginning of urban planning”(designed by
Burnham, Olmstead)
“City Beautiful”: Improvement of public spaces, part of gentrification
movements (Olmstead)
City Divisions: “Paths” (Place of movement between 2 points); “Edges”
(Physical barriers between 2 points); “Districts” (Amount of
homogeneity within district, contained); “Nodes” (Hotspots of people
[NOT barriers… Points of density]… Can pass through it); “Landmarks”
(Places/things that distinguish a place, unique reference point… Can’t
pass through it)
Civic Virtue: where citizens think about where they can work for the
whole community, not the individual.
Civil Service Reform: “deliberate action to improve the efficiency,
effectiveness, professionalism, representativity and democratic
character of a civil service, with a view to promoting better delivery of
public goods and services, with increased accountability.”
Community Redevelopment Act (CRA): Made it possible to pressure
lenders to invest in any neighborhood where they accepted deposits
Concentric Zone Theory: (a.k.a. Burgess Model – Ernest Burgess)
Theoretical model to explain urban social structures… Based on
 human ecology theories done by Burgess and applied to Chicago

Core and Periphery Cities: Theory of dependency… Core = North (big

industrial cities, NYC, London/Manchester, Berlin, Paris); Periphery =
South (small cities in Latin America or West Asia… Where industrial
materials sourced from)
Culturalism: values embedded into built environments (Bohrer)… Culture
is a moving force in how cities change
(images/representations/collective memories/myths/sentiments)
Cultural Power: Power over a space to influence taste (usually
modern/popular taste)… “Disneyification”
Disneyification: Turning a place into a facsimile (dumbed-down)
version of its self – a “theme park of a city”
Ethnic Enclaves: Part of city/neighbourhood inhabited by mostly a single
ethnic group… Centred around small businesses (ex. Markets,
Restaurants, etc.) that cater to that group, interest-related community
organizations (ex. Churches)… Often times, new immigrants move into
ethnic enclaves (closer to “home”).
Ethnomethodology: Breaking of unspoken rules to see what it’s like, in
order to understand behavioural norms >> Codes of public space
Eyes on the Street: The more people who are out on the streets, the larger
the “citizen crime prevention force” [shop owners/workers, the
homeless, average citizens] (Jane Jacobs)
Fair Housing Act: (a.k.a. Civil Rights Act of 1968) Prohibits discrimination
in housing (sale, rental, financing based upon race, gender, disability)
Flaneur: (French: “Wanderer”) … Someone who strolls/wanders around
the city
Gay Enclave: Neighbourhood in the city where there is a large Gay
community (spatial vs. economic separation)
Gentrification: A back to the city movement, fuelled by capital. Middle
class moving back into the city, on the hunt for authenticity and
history. Closes ret gap.
Global City: MAJORS= NYC/London/Tokyo… Both spatial dispersal and
concentration. Hubs of business/commerce – Can get anything you
want/need in a Global City.
Ground rent: Lowest possible rent/sale price. Price of land.
Housing and Redevelopment Acts (1949, 1954): True start of urban

renewal in the U.S. … Demolition and re-building of public housing.

Industrialization: Organization/re-structuring of an economy/city for the
purpose of manufacturing
Informal Economies: Small businesses, such as street vendors, who’s
source of income is technically illegal, although is not overall harmful.
Informal economic activity.
Informal Slums: Communities of squatters… Mostly seen in mega-cities of
the global south. Shanty-towns built on the edge of the city. Rapid
urbanization leads to informal slums.
Informational Cities: Cores or Nodes of production of information or
high-technology. CBDs.
Interactional Vandalism: Yelling at, unwanted interactions (“Hey
baby…”) >> Shame people for not responding… Unwanted
openings and closings (Unmediated openings: Babies, pets, etc) >>
Homelessness
Land speculation: When people buy land outside the city at a low price,
in the hopes that when the city grows (urban sprawl), they can sell it at
a much higher price >> Same with neighborhoods that have yet to be
gentrified
Machine Politics: disciplined political organization in which an
authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of
supporters and businesses (usually campaign workers), who receive
rewards for their efforts. (Tamanny Hall) (Cianci)
Manhattanization: Extreme density in a single city
Megacities: Massive/major global cities… Centres of production. Over 10
 million people in population.
Migrant Workers: Men and women brought in to help with construction,
then expected to leave
Pastiche: “Imitation” (or, incorporates pieces/works from others)
Place: Area that is bounded, “specialized space”, place takes time, we
invest ourselves in places (places have memory).
P.O.E.T: Population/Organizations/Environment/Transportation &
Technology
Polis: City/City-State (Based on ancient Greek model – Self-governing)
Primate Mega-Cities: Cities that are astronomically larger than all other

cities in the nation, due to rapid urbanization

Public Authority: Mandate to build and maintain infrastructure across
municipal boundaries (Robert Moses)
Public Space: Areas open and accessible to all members of the public in a
society, in principle though not necessarily in practice. * Rules make a
public space private.
“Rationalizing the City”: City beautiful, housing codes (tenement laws),
public health services, hydraulics, infrastructure
Rent Gap: Difference between land use at it’s maximum potential,
and what it’s actually being used for (actual and potential rent value).
Rolling Inertia: Place undergoes continuous flux, but connected to what
it was before – Inertia in the sense that you will always know where
you are, even if some things have changed
Settlement House Movement: Homes for wayward youth… Jane Addams’s
Hull House
Shadow Work: Work that earns some sort of income, but is wholly
unconventional/informal (ex. Panhandling, trash picking, etc.)
>> Preformed on the streets, in areas that have high pedestrian
traffic.
Skid Row: Area of the city designed for boarding houses/flop houses
Space: “Exists between 2 points of reference,” must be constructed (social

terms), we are shaped by space, can be “filled”.

Spoils System: System within a government (usually local, small-scale,
where people in power operate on basis of favours/rewards (Tammany
Hall)
Streetcar City: Cities in the 19th centuries who introduced public
transportation (Streetcars) as a general practice.
Systems of Governance: Pluralism (power over) vs. Elite (power over) vs.
Regimes (power to)
 Sub-Prime Lending: When loads are made to people who have a history of
bad finances
Technoburb: Different from classic suburb… hybrid of city/country, home
of office parks (Robert Fishman), no town centre/lack of cummunity
Tenement Laws: Housing codes that gave guideline for proper low-income
housing (NYC)
Third World = Developing Nation = Global South: Cities in the “Global
South” are sourcing points for labour/resources for cities in the Global
North
Tourist Gentrification: Rituals recreated or advertised in an attempt to
create authenticity/bring in tourists/add historical value (Ex. Mardi Gras
in New Orleans)
Undervaluation: What developers take advantage of (start of new
construction, renovation) – Low cost
Urbanization: Development/growth/new construction of cities
Urban Evolution: adaptive relationship of natural and built environment;
natural selection in competition
Urban Reform: Parks, “City Beautiful”, improvement of public spaces
(Olmstead)
Urban Villages: 2 block radius that is a community – residents hardly have
to leave), Old City (original residents, uses of city), short blocks (Jane
Jacobs)
Wesley Skogan’s Disorder and Decline: Visual disorder signals lack of
social control… Lack of eyes on the street, breakdown of community.

Appendix - Sample Essays

POSSIBLE ESSAY TOPICS:

How is a gay enclave different from an ethnic enclave?

--similarities--both want sense of community for comfort
-- economics differ
--which area of country --differs....white gays reign over and blacks keep to
themselves
-spatial and economic concentration
--residents share identity linked to that place
--more than just race in enclaves--sexuality(cross dressers, bisexual, transexual)
-public life can be lived openly and physically---”come out”
-expression of identity
-Stonewall incident--gay militants fought back for the first time
-affluent- well educated and have been active in creating activities in city
-pioneers in urban frontier--gays
--San Fran-home of gay life on west coast

Gated “Communities”: How are they related to the readings on disorder

and crime?
Exclusion: via physical access or social control/codes/signs
Edward Blakely and Mary Gail Synder, <<Putting up the Gates>> Shelterforce
(May/June 1997): 12-13
restrict access so space normally “public” are privatized
Types of Gated communities:
● lifestyle
● prestige
● security zones

END.