Cities as Sites of Integration and Division

A set of flashcards designed to review key concepts about urban geography, integration and division in cities, and various urban theories.

Are cities dominated by division?

Cities are associated with both division and integration; negative narratives often dominate.

Why do cities matter in understanding integration and division?

Cities can cause, intensify, and concentrate wider social, economic, and political processes.

What makes it hard to separate the 'good' and 'bad' aspects of cities?

Urban processes are complex, evolutionary, and have unequal impacts on different groups

Why is a long-term historical approach important in urban studies?

Because current urban divisions are shaped by past economic, political, and spatial processes.

Why is Belfast an important example of urban division?

It is a post-conflict city where segregation is built into the landscape and actively maintained.

What factors shape urban division in Belfast?

Religious, economic, social, and spatial forces, alongside political conflict.

What is agglomeration?

The concentration of people, industries, businesses, and supply chains in cities.

What is densification in cities?

Increasing population and housing density, as well as political and economic influence.

What is meant by concentration in urban geography?

The clustering of services, infrastructure, transport networks, and cultural assets.

What is a 'shock city'?

A city where rapid industrialisation and urbanisation occur first and most intensely.

Why is Manchester considered a shock city?

It was central to the Industrial Revolution, experiencing rapid growth, innovation, and severe inequality.

Why is Chicago described as a shock city?

Rapid industrialisation and migration transformed the city and led to the emergence of urban sociology.

What factors contributed to early urban integration success ‘worked’ according to Hall (1998)?

Industrial culture, available capital, entrepreneurial opportunities, and technical education = cities grew rapidly, diversify population, built transport and education systems

What social consequences accompanied early industrial urban growth?

Extreme inequality, poor living conditions, and environmental degradation

What did Engels observe in industrial cities?

Appalling working-class living conditions and the emergence of class divisions.

Cities were seen as:

• chaotic

• unhealthy

• exploitative

Engels contribution - Urban inequality is structural, not incidental.

What was the aim of the Chicago School?

To formalise and simplify urban processes using spatial models.

What is Burgess’ concentric zone model?

A model where land use is organised in rings around the CBD based on the bid-rent curve (which shows how land value decreases with distance from the city center)

What is Hoyt model?

This model complicated the concentric zone approach by accounting for tendency for different land uses following urban trajectories e.g., rivers or railway lines - growth follows these lines

What is a major limitation of Chicago School models?

They ignore power, capitalism, and racism, treating inequality as 'natural'.

How does urban life relate to freedom according to Wirth (1938)?

Cities offer anonymity and freedom, but can also create isolation and loss of community.

" A loss of the sense of participation that comes from living in an integrated society’ (wirth, 1938)

How do infrastructure and planning govern cities?

They enable freedom of movement while allowing surveillance and control.

Why are maps considered forms of power according to Foucault?

Mapping populations enables planning, governance, and discipline.

What was redlining?

A government policy that denied mortgages to Black and lower-income neighbourhoods - occured in 1930s + black neighbourhoods labelled as ‘dangerous’

Why is redlining important in urban geography?

It deliberately created racial and economic ghettos through policy = racial division in urban areas

What is meant by 'urban crisis'?

The combination of deindustrialisation, segregation, capital flight, and stigma.

Why is Detroit a classic example of urban crisis and disintegration?

Deindustrialisation, population loss, racial segregation, and economic collapse

Disintegration occured through active ghettoisation

How do Marxist theorists view cities?

As spaces shaped by capitalism to serve profit and power rather than human needs.

• Cities are built to serve the needs of capital, profit, power and politics

Marxist theory rejects the Chicago school theory which suggests cities grow ‘naturally’ – burgess and hoyt suggest that cities are like ecosystem which grow through competition of space, population migration and land use

For Marxist, it’s not accidental that it results in urban inequality – it is the product of capitalism

What is the 'growth machine' according to Molotch?

A coalition of politicians, developers, banks, and elites who shape cities for profit - His idea that Urban elites (political + business) form a “growth machine” (Moloch, 1976)

What is Lefebvre’s 'Right to the City'?

The idea that cities should serve human needs, not capital accumulation.

What contributed to UK urban disintegration after WWII?

Housing shortages, deindustrialisation, racialised settlement, and failed redevelopment.

Why did slum clearance often worsen segregation?

It displaced communities and pushed working-class and minority groups out of inner cities.

What is territorial stigma according to Wacquant?

Negative reputations attached to places that stigmatise residents.

What are the effects of territorial stigma?

Postcode discrimination, weak community cohesion, and justification for redevelopment.

What does feminist urbanism critique?

The neglect of gender, care work, and everyday life in urban theory.

Why is care work important in cities?

It sustains the workforce but is often unpaid and done by women.

What was Jane Jacobs’ contribution to urban studies?

Emphasised mixed-use neighbourhoods, street life, and community-based safety.

What is postcolonial urbanism?

An approach that challenges Western cities as universal models.

What is 'asymmetrical ignorance' according to Robinson?

Knowing Global North cities well but neglecting Global South cities.

Why is Dharavi (Mumbai) significant?

It has a highly organised informal economy but is labelled a 'slum' to justify redevelopment.

How is poverty treated as an 'urban asset' in Dharavi?

Informal settlements attract global investment and gentrification.

What is a global city according to Sassen?

A city that concentrates control over global finance, trade, and information.

What are key impacts of global city status?

Inequality, gentrification, and polarised labour markets.

What is gentrification according to Ruth Glass?

The class transformation of working-class neighbourhoods.

What is the rent gap according to Smith?

The gap between current land value and potential value after redevelopment.

Name one form of displacement caused by gentrification.

Direct eviction, exclusionary displacement, or displacement pressure.

Summarise cities as sites of integration and division.

Cities are shaped by intertwined processes of integration and division driven by capital, migration, governance, and inequality over time.