Social Animals
Humans are social, they live in groups. Enlightenment Social Contract theoriests say that individuals bonded together to form a society.CONTRAST--George Mead says that the individual develops out of society through the interaction with significant others. (people develop personalities from those around us)
Humans vs Nature
Natural disasters still have power over humans despite our technology (see Japan/Haiti/New Orleans). The biggest threat is flooding due to climate change.Also concern with food/water/shelter/predators/disease...
Cities
7000 to 10,000 years old. Comes from Latin for 'civilization'.
Urban Century
21st century. In NA, 80% live in urbanized area. In world, over half. By 2030, city inahbitants will be over 5 billion
Modern cities
Different than Medieval cities. They are an instrument for social change and they move society forward. According to Weber's "The City", what makes a city a city is fortification, marketplace, complex legal system, elected body of political administration, community based on association, high degree of individuality, cosmopolitan outlookPlace+Culture+Commerce+Poltiical Entity+ Large Pop
Megaslums
95% of all urban growth is in developing world. In NYC and Tokyo and developing countries
Hypercities
20 million +Megacities= 10 million +---21/26 are in developing countries
Preindustrial Era
No big cities--NAs were nomadic, but Europeans changed this slowly. The settlers were religious and stayed put--see Boston, Charlestown, NYC, Philly
Colonial Cities
Seaports=Big City. Commercial center=big city. Colonial cities allowed expansion, had more men than women, and were for the higher class
North America did not go through Feudalism
Towns were a result of British imperialism..why were don't have cities with walls and castles. City air makes a man free--cities are so big that people are forgotten about and that people do what they want there.Manifest Destiny
NYC and rapid growth
Erie Canal, RR, Immigration, "walking city", urban economy
Industrial City
After Civil War= new middle class because of income distinctions.
Industrialization and Urbanization
Tech--steel frames, elec, telephone, cars (which leads to suburbs)
City= Concentration and Centralization
Workers/immigrants lived in tenements/slumsFactory system increased interdependence and bred impersonality
Massive Immigration (1800-1925)
New Immigrants (Irish, German, Italians, Polish)
Rise of Political Machines
Provided services to immigrants for votes
Anti Immigrants Sentiments
Juvenile Courts--get kid immigrants away and isolate them so they can become Americanized ("benevolent intervention")Fear of Catholics by WASPsProhibition as a way of policing themCowboy is American Hero (freedom)--not immigrants
Urban Problems
Disease (AIDS, Smallpox, TB), Fire, Poverty, Crime, Alcohol/Drugs, Prostitution (because people come together)Immigrants often blamed
Chicago School and Social Disorganization
...
City and Diversity
Diversity=city's hallmark. City has language and cultures. They are more heterogeneous than rural. They have extreme wealth and poverty and another extreme is that it is fastpaced/hectic. (Their own strut--Bowen walk)
Deterministic Theory (Wirth)
Urbanism increases social & personality disorders. Urbanization =/= industrialism. There's something fundamentally different about urban. Definition of City= large, dense, permanent, and heterogeneousMelting pot & heterogenity is a strength--creates new breeds, also everyone becomes American
Urban Dweller
different than rural, they meet multiple stimuli. They become aloof and impersonal. Not as neighborly. Relationships are transitory and segmental--more rational and utilization than lasting. A blase attitude (apathty) (people don't move with threat of bomb on subway).
Urban Dweller (Cont)
Social interaction is based on secondary rather than primary contacts--a state of anomie. City dwellers only care about themselves (see Kitty Genovese and Bystanders) City life leads to a completed vision of labor which fosters competition, specialization, and mutual exploitation..
Compositional Theory
Denies the negative sociopsychological effects of urbanism--urban and rural behavior is different because the people who move there are different--the city doesn't make people a certain wayThe city is a mosaic of social worlds as opposed to a melting pot. There are different social classes based on ethnicityThe closeness of these small social worlds protects them from the rest of the city--they are buffers and make people isolated . (SES and stage of life are important influences on individuals)-- these social attributes shape social and psychological experience
Culture of Poverty
this culture is passed from one group to another
Subcultural Theory (Fischer)
Combines Wirthian and Comp theory...Urbanism produces deviants-- (see boldness of buying porn). Urbanism promotes and helps invents diverse subcultures through critical mass & intensified multiple group contact. The city hosts subcultures
Diverse Lifestyles in the City
Cosmopolites: live for cultural faciltiies and conviniencesUnmarried/ Childless: Yuppies. Young adults who move to city for job and rent apartments. Get married, and then move to suburbs to raise families.Ethnic Villagers: Ethnic groups who retain their traditional ways and live in tight communities.--New ethnic groups help revitalize American cities.--Children treated like adults--Working class ethics--Homes are functional--not really used for social status----Relatively clean, despite rough exteriors
Social Env of the City (Fischer)
Strangers are either: outsiders/visitors, unfamiliar (one the observer doesn't know personally), or unusual odd. Strangers viewed as danger. STRANGER DANGER.Neighbors: only happens in crisis situation
Social Env. Suburbs
Neighbors:When a family raises children and has activies (soccer), the children's parents meet.Older people settle there and are nosy and retiredSuburbs are more homogeneous so people get along betterPeople stay in suburbs longer and are more likely to be neighborly
World of Strangers
Categoric Knowing: info based on status (teeth/speech) and roles.Personal Knowing: Refers to knowledge not only about status and roles but biography too...City life made possible by an "ordering" of the urban population in terms of appearance and spatiallocation such that those within could know a great deal about another by simply looking. Does a person look like they belong in the neighborhood???? What a person wears vs where a person stands...
Social Factors of Homelessness
Caused by deindustrialization of the economy: deindustrialization of the mentally ill (their gov. funded houses burned down by people who don't want those homes in their neighborhoods), and their urban welfare system is/was broken down.Also, wave of immigration increases competition for lower income housing
Personal Factors of Homelessness
Substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, veteran status, no work skills or history.To be homeless you have to prove that you have no place to go
Public Tolerance of Homeless
Someone arrested for feeding homeless (Florida), park benches with extra arms), panhandling and loitering illegal, homeless are harassed by police, homeless are given bus tickets out of town
Loss of Civility
People are forgetting how to be civil because of :Decriminalization of minor offenses... (crack gangs / mules)There's markets, squeegee men, homeless, prostitutes, and drug dealers
Ways of the Badass
Criminals are attracted to crime--how they get thrills. Being tough, having a walk and a name
Past Gangs vs Modern Gangs
Honor in fight vs drivebys
Broken Windows Strategy
Socially disorganized neighborhoods are breeding grounds for more serious crime.--Grafitti (Corngirl in Philly)--When buildings become abandoned rocks get thrown at windows of buildings even still functioning--Even heroin addicts don't like the crackheads--Go after quality of life beaters (like turnstile jumpers), leads to less serious crimes (these people tend to have drugs or warrants)Drugs and Violent Crime--Systemic violence aroudn dealing ( battle for turf)--Junkies steal/rob to support their habit--Drug addicts make easy victims
Tonnies, Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft
Tonnies: All social relationships are created by human willGeMEINschaft: Community based on blood and personal relationships. (a clan)GeSELLschaft: Association based on SES and impersonal reltaionships. (a corporation)
Durkheim: Organic vs Mechanical Society
Mechanical Society: homogeneousOrganic Society: interdependence, specialization leads to differentation, the group comes ahead of the individual, crime is seen as a fault against moral rights
Redfield Folk Society
Small collectivity. Only exists to the point where people stop knowing eachother. Isolated, homogenous, and strong sense of solidarity. Simple techonology and little division of labor except by sex. Opposite of urban society
Urbanization
Countryside to city. The more people in a location--the more urban
Urbanization in LDCS
LDCs urbanizing much faster that more developing countries. Instead of drawing people to the city like a magnet (like it does in richer countries), it draws people in because it is less worse than the disease infested and over populated countryside (though the city is also overpopulated and has high unemployment)
Advantages/Disadvantages City Life
Social mobility, privacy, diversity, education, creativityCrowded, anonymous, impersonal, dirty, lonely, stressful, deviance, crime
Myth of Small Town
PersonalismIndependenceHomogeneity --gives pressure to conform
Development of Cities
Around natural resources, farming came up, then specialist, now informationCatayl Huk first cityTheories on developmentAgriculture (Surplus/Parasitical)Trade (Nexus/Mutual Cooperation)Religion (Mumford)
Preindustrial Cities (Sjoberg)
Strict caste system, gov/religious center,
Industrial Cities (Wirth)
Complex, statuses are achieved, tech is advanced, heterogenous
Functions of the Public Realm (Lofland)
Environment for learning Enjoy entertainmentCommunication /exchange of ideasAllows practice of politics and like minded peopleAllows for social events like ralliesCreation of cosmopolitans which respect diversity and civility
First Place / 2nd/ 3rd
Home/Work/StarbucksCommunity life is dependent on the strength of the 3rd places
Defended Neighborhood vs Contrived Community
Defended= Self identification by residents Contrived= Business develops the identity
Chicago School (Ecological approach)
Apply animal/plant ecology to human communities. Lays out the city and sees how this affects the experience of the city dwellersConcentrates on the relationship between parts. The innovator deviant is the free urban man--not the monk
Ecological Theory Zones
CBD, Zone of Transition (higher rate of crime), Zone of Workers Home (working class), Zone of Better Residence (lower middle class), Commuter Zone (upper middle class)
Ecological Theory Purpose of Zones
Analyze growth. Helps explain ethnic cohesion (the higher one is on the ladder, the more they lose ethnic cohesion and gain class cohesion)
Criticisism of Ecological Zone Theory
Sees human behavior as a function of space, doesn't take politics as an independent variable, only really fits Chicago...
Sector Theory (Hoyt)
CBD in middle. Factories develop along RR and rivers. Lowerclass housing develops near factories to save commuting costs. Higherclass housing is upwind from factories / CBD A modification of Chicago School. Based on Philly
Multiple Nuclei (Harris/ Ullman)
There is a CBD but also strong areas of wholesale and an outlying business district. Factories are not necessarily concentrated and there may be an outlying production zone
Multiple Nuclei (Cont)
Some activities require different usage of land and that's why different nuclei form. IE retail needs high accessibility and industry needs lots of land and RRs.Some activities benefit from eachother and thats why they clump and some will stay separate.
Model Criticisms
No general model is completely accurate. Models are time and place bound. They don't respect culture--only economics
Marxist/Neo-Marxists and New Urban Sociology
Social Conflict. Struggle for control over land, community, social, economic resources. Capitalism increases inequality between rich and poor (SEE 1 %)The havenots suffer at the hands of the corporations. Even at a world level (Africa is exploited by rich nations for cheap labor)CRITICIZED FOR BEING TOO ONE DIMENSIONAL
LA School of Urbanism
Opposite of Chicago school. Theorizes on restructuring-- deindustrialization and reindustrialization and the birth of the information economy, decline of nation-states, emergence of new nationalisms, and the rise of the Pacific RimLA is a city that doesn't have a center. Also, no single ethnic group or way of life. A global metropolisAddresses globalization and world cities would be the command, network society, social polarization (very rich and everyone else), hybridization (mixing of ethnicities and cultures), sustainablityCRITICIZED FOR: being mostly hype. questionable empirical methos and academic boosterism