Urban 1

Cityness

the quality, state, or essence of being or resembling a city

• social interaction, movement of capital

• Simone (reading)

urbanization

• The physical environment and demographics

Processes of multi-scalar centralized population and infrastructure

growth that enhances urban characteristics and connectivity.

• expansion of infrastructure, housing, roads, and the conversion of natural or agricultural land into built-up cities

urbanism

Way of life with distinctive values, attitudes 

The social, cultural, and behavioral way of life experienced within an urban environment

• The people and relations that are created in an urban environment

Lots of contradictions (kin yet foes) = Louis Wirth

• population = relations but competitions and segregation

• Density = social structure + community but comp for space

heterogeneity

Differentiation, social mobility , breakdown of rigid caste and class structures that leads to diverse social and cultural interactions.

modernity / modernism / modernization

Def: different aspects of how the world shifted from traditional, agrarian ways of life into the contemporary era (modern)

3 phases 

• Early, classical, contemporary

• Spatial re/de contruction

It is paradoxical = it inspires hope buy also threatens to destory everything

• Modernity something we experiences = berman 

• Where and built form of modernity = Lefebvre 

all that is solid melts into air

• Bermans Book on cultural and social experience of modernity

“To be modern is to find ourselves in an enviro~ment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world-and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are""

• need hope, but also threatens to destroy everything

• Look at the past to see the future

• the effect everyone - “unite all mankind”

• it is paradoxical unity = “a unity of disunity”

Haussman's Paris transformation

Massive urban renewal that modernized a medieval Paris to capitalistic metropolis

• creative destruction = destroy small streets = wider

• parks and green spaces

• sewers = decreased cholera

• all had the same style Haussmannuan facades

• The buildings had a hierarchy from rich up to poor

• Massive displacement with increased in rent and demolitions = moved to more working outer quarters

production of space

Def: space is not a neutral, passive container, it is an actively produced and continually shaped by social, political, and economic relations

• Lefebvre 

  • social/concrete (everyday life) vs abstract space (physical/built form of consumerism) 

• Socio-spacial processes through flow and movement 

  • Method of reasoning = dialectical thinking 

• Space = shapes/limit activity, produced by social

representations of space

• Physical or mental contractions of space

  • Maps

material / spatial practices

• Physical day to day life of how space is used

  • how you walk across the street, the social norms,

spaces of representation

Applied meanings, area with emotional or cultural meaning doesn’t have to be physical

concrete space / abstract space

social/concrete (everyday life) vs abstract space (physical/built form of consumerism)

• Abstract = limit how the audience can see = commodified and designed for commerce and profit

  • ex) shopping malls and plazas

• Concrete = Lived and experienced by and for the people

  • messy, diverse, human expiernces

    • community garden or a public square for people

Lefebvre's conceptual triad

• Conceived, perceived, and lived = triad of flow

  • Spatial practice 

    • Physical day to day life of how space is used

  • Rep of Space

    • Created maps of space

  • Space of Representation/Representational space

    • Applied meanings 

boosterism

Logan paper

• The idea that do something just to help the city better/ often excessive promotion of a town

  • ex) When cities like Cape Town or global counterparts spend millions campaigning and painting an idealized picture of their infrastructure just to host the Olympic Games or World's Fair

use value / exchange value

Use value = what the consumer gains from it

• House = A shelter and space to live

Exchange value =

• House = money/rent

urban political economy

studies cities, towns, and other built-up areas + Shift from describe to understanding 

• Spatial structures, economic functions, and social dynamics of urban environments.

• Gentrification, housing crises, transportation, urban sprawl, segregation, and climate resilience.

historical materialism

the physical structure, layout, and social divisions of a city are directly shaped by its economic system (the mode of production) and the need for capital accumulation

• Built environment, class struggles, capitalism

the built environment as a physical manifestation of class struggle, capital accumulation, and historical change

It is for the capital not the people

ex) When industrial capitalism required faster circulation of goods and a way to move suburban workers to white-collar downtown jobs, post-WWII governments built massive highway systems. These highways physically tore through low-income, minority urban neighborhoods (which lacked political and economic power) to protect corporate downtown interests. The physical geography of the city was violently rewritten to serve the flow of capital.

mode of production

How we built or create a good - the social relations, the way of organizing,

• Means +(distinction between) Social relations = mode

means of production

What we need to built or create a good = the resources

• The owners VS Those who do not own resources

  • SURPLUS

    • Exploitation 

primitive accumulation

the historical and ongoing process of separating workers from the means of production create a class of wage laborers

• Enclosing common land => private 

labour and surplus value (waged labor)

• Waged Labour = capacity to work for a wage

  • Labour 

    • The act

  • Labour power

    • Collective commodity 

• Surpluse Value

  • the difference between total exon value a worker creates and how much wage they are provided

    • wage must be less than what the product is worth

    • wage much be wage must be high enough for them to take part of the market

commodity fetishism

Appear as an object but is not seen as the full value and system of labour

ex) a tomato in a store

reproduction of labor power / social reproduction

Def: the “behind the scenes” of the labors daily and relations to sustain human life and promote the capitalistic processes

ex) transportation going to work

the built form

the physical elements, structures, and human-made arrangements that make up the tangible architecture of a city or settlement

capital switching (first circuit / second circuit / tertiary circuit)

the redirection of surplus capital from one sphere of the economy (or geographic location) to another to prevent or resolve crises of overaccumulation

Circuits of Capital

1. First Circuit 

   1. Production process (the production line)

2. Second Circuit 

   1. Reinvestment into the build environment = fixed

3. Third Circuit

   1. labour/state

overaccumulation

there is to much capital relative to the opportunities available to reinvest in it

• to fix = gotta change circus

• 
  

suburbanization

The outward movement of people and capital into the outskirts of the city

• type of spatial fix

• Diversity, older houses, educated middle class values

loss of urban core ity = urban decay or econ polar

• Suburbs 

  • Political and geo independent = dependent on cities econ 

frequently enforced racial and economic segregation, leaving minority and lower-income populations concentrated in underfunded central cities

spatial fix

Harvey

capitalism solves its economic crises and overaccump. by expanding into new geographical spaces and restructuring physical space

creative destruction

Capital must be fixed, but them becoming fixed (immobile, long lived) become a barrier for further accumulation = paradox 

So you end up destorying it to recreate capital or leave for decay

fordism (as it relates to suburbanization)

Taylorism and Fordism =

• Factory and manufacturing systems 

• New forms of disciplining and management for accumulation sake

  • Regime of accumulation 

  • Effective demand (labours must be able to participate in market)

    • Reduce price = higher consumption

    • Social hierarchy within the production 

• Car production, decentralized industry,

• Post WW11 = more subs

• fordism (as it relates to suburbanization)

• frequently enforced racial and economic segregation, leaving minority and lower-income populations concentrated in underfunded central cities

neoliberalism / neoliberalization

Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that favors free-market capitalism, privatization, deregulation, free trade, and reduced government spending

• individuality = competition

neoliberal urbanism

Instead of treating cities as places to provide public services and social support, neoliberal urbanism treats cities as competitive business entities and command centers for global capital accumulation

• An area built for competitive business and global capital accumulation

managerialism / entrepreneurialism

a foundational shift in how cities are governed, conceptualized, and managed under capitalism in Neoliberal

managerialism = City managers and bureaucrats act as service providers (WW2)

entrepreneurialism= (Harvey) market-oriented economic development, place promotion, and public-private partnerships (70s)