CSWEs Core Competencies and Practice Behavior Examples in the Text vii

Case Notes for Macionis, Parrillo Cities and Urban Life Sixth Edition 1 / 4

© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.v Contents CSWE’s Core Competencies and Practice Behavior Examples in the Text vii Sample Syllabus xi Chapter 1 Exploring the City 1 Chapter 2 The Origins and Development of the World’s Cities 1 Chapter 3 The Development of North American Cities 1 Chapter 4 Today’s Cities and Suburbs 1

Chapter 5 Urban Sociology: Classic and Modern Statements 1

Chapter 6 Spatial Perspectives: Making Sense of Space 1

Chapter 7 Critical Urban Sociology: The City and Capitalism 1

Chapter 8 Social Psychology: The Urban Experience 1

Chapter 9 Comparative Urbanism: The City and Culture 1

Chapter 10 Stratification and Social Class: Urban and Suburban Lifestyles 1

Chapter 11 Race, Ethnicity, and Gender: Urban Diversity 1

Chapter 12 Housing, Education, Crime: Confronting Urban Problems 1

Chapter 13 Cities in the Developing World 1 Chapter 14 Planning the Urban Environment 1 Answer Key to Practice Tests in Text A-1 2 / 4

CHAPTER 1: EXPLORING THE CITY

Summary

Why Study the City?

The authors argue that due to rapid urbanization, urban life is now the norm for most residing in Western society and is quickly becoming so in the rest of the world. The loci of unprecedented population growth, cities harbor the best and the worst of human existence. Consequently, to understand the city is to understand ourselves, our culture, the impact of a global economy and the world -- in short -- contemporary existence.

Deciding what is “Urban”

Most people interpret the term urban as being characteristic of, or pertaining to the city. Despite this seemingly simple definition, the 195 countries with urban areas use a range of criteria, including administrative function, economic characteristics, functional nature, and population size and density to define these areas. Difficulties with cross-national comparisons aside, the world’s urban population is increasing everywhere and estimates indicate that by 2050 two-thirds of the world’s population will reside in urban areas. Urbanization trends reveal that the while urban growth rates have dropped significantly in more industrialized areas, they have increased in the developing world.

Whether urbanization is planned and deliberate, or unplanned and spontaneous, it transforms land use (from rural to urban economic activities), the nature of land (from porous to nonporous through construction), and patterns of social life. The case of San Francisco depicts the impact of urbanization as the city was transformed from a sleepy village to feverish city by the gold rush and 70 years later, to a sophisticated and laid back city. The authors offer a range of concepts to assist our understanding of the complexity and scale of urbanization including the metropolitan area, the megalopolis, the megacity and the global city.

Urbanism, the culture or way of life of city dwellers results from the process of urbanization and depicts the interactive nature between human behavior and the environment. The range of lifestyles within the city, and citizens’ ability to achieve their goals and shape events is impacted by the unequal distribution of urban resources and their position within the city’s social hierarchy. Concepts such social power, social structure and social stratification are central to this discussion.

The Complexity of the City: Various Perspectives

Although Cities and Urban Life is fundamentally sociological in orientation, cities are complex human creations and require a historical and multidisciplinary investigation. Given that cities did not begin to appear until 8000 B.C.E., did not become relatively numerous until 2000 B.C.E., and did not become the principal type of settlement until the late 18 th century, they are very new in human history. Not surprisingly, although historians have studied cities for centuries, sociologists did not until the late 19 th century. While early sociologists primarily saw the city as a 3 / 4

dangerous socioeconomic byproduct of emerging industrial capitalism, more recent scholars have questioned this, and suggest that any existing danger is not essentially “urban,” but rather a byproduct of larger political and economic forces. Thus, today the city is viewed more as a neutral phenomenon and is studied with the guidance of four disciplinary orientations. Urban Geography and Ecology investigates the significance of the city’s location relative to natural resources and how people occupy the city spatially; Urban Political Economy highlights the influence of global rather than local political and economic decision making on the economic, political, social, and physical character of a city; Social Psychology emphasizes how the social environment of the city stimulates people; and Comparative Urbanism demonstrates the role that cultural beliefs play in shaping city life.

These four orientations, combined with those of the Historical Origins and Development of Cities and The Classic Statements of Urban Sociology, provide the basic analytical framework for a detailed analysis of cities in the contemporary world.

The Anatomy of Modern North American Cities

Although North American urban population growth has slowed, there has been substantial population movement to Sunbelt (southern and western) cities and the growth of “exurbs” (smaller cities or areas outside central cities and surrounding suburbs). This migration is mostly driven by an aging, relatively wealthy cohort, desirous of a less costly and more comfortable environment, and by younger labor force participants seeking jobs and less congestion. The result of diminishing urban population size in certain cities is lost federal representation and funding, and consequently, fewer resources for meeting the needs of elderly and poor persons.Understanding the anatomy of the city requires an investigation of its social structure.

The City in World Perspective

The greatest urban growth is occurring in developing countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In these areas urbanization has not resulted in anticipated quality of life improvements as cities have not kept up with the rapid increase in population. The results include poverty, malnutrition and disease for many.

Urban Sociology and the Quality of City Life

Although people come to the city in search of what Aristotle called “the good life,” millions do not find it. The heightened importance of the city to the future of human civilization and the fact that the quality of life in cities varies tremendously beckons a need to understand the range of conditions that contribute to a more stimulating and fulfilling urban life. The question remains, are we simply idle spectators to the rage and competition that sometimes characterize cities, or can shape them into the ideal they are sometimes said to be?

Suggestions

Readings and Websites

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