Studied by 31 people
Content from midterm until end of semester
Urban political economy perspective
emerged in the late 1960s
emphasized investment shifts by banks, insurance companies, and international corporations that shaped cities by transferring the ownership and uses of land from one class to another
less concerned with problems related to social integration → viewed existing order as a cover for class interests → threats to community come not from density or anonymity of city life, but from capitalist interests and profit motive
Escape from the city thesis
moving to the suburbs was a means of escaping the waves of southern Blacks and Hispanics
Urban renewal
Also known as slum clearance; intended to clean up blighted parts of the city
good intentions (replacing slums with decent low-income housing) but soon morphed into attempts to clear the inner cities for offices and shopping centers
Urban growth machine
Concept that the city is a machine controlled by business, political, and professional elites
share a common assumption that the best interests of the city and its residents are served by continuous economic growth and development
settlements emerged not just because they were in convenient places, but because they were backed by powerful individuals
Bilbao effect
The imagined economic boost that will ensue for cities that build their own versions of successful tourist attractions
correlation between the amount of cultural elites and urban development (economic growth)
named after the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain → designed by world-famous architect, had a profound impact on local economy
The Right to the City
written by David Harvey
capital surplus drives urban development
the right to the city is increasingly falling into the hands of private interests
the right to the city should be claimed by the inhabitants and not dictated by capitalist interests
Human ecological approach
Emphasized natural processes, focused on social order, believed everyone was striving for the same goals → increasingly seemed misguided by the 1960s & 70s
What was the context surrounding the rise of the political economy perspective?
urban unrest in the 1960s - civil rights movement
post-war suburbanization
racial segregation - white flight
urban renewal project
rise of social justice concerns
Urban growth ideology → what are the benefits of the urban growth theory?
strengthens local tax base, creates jobs, provides resources to solve existing problems, meets the housing needs, and allows the market to service public housing rates
Growth has a trickle-down effect that helps everyone
Neighborhood use value
Neighborhood has use value as focal points for daily duties - food, shopping, schooling, childcare → proximity to amenities important
informal social support, sense of trust and security, identity
Pursuit of economic growth might jeopardize use-value
What are some negative consequences of the urban growth machine?
Pursuit of exchange value can jeopardize use-value through..
gentrification
urban renewal
location of devalued projections in marginalized neighborhoods (ex. sewage plants, jails, halfway homes)
overpopulation
can exacerbate inequality
Urbanization and capitalist growth
Capitalism requires dynamic market that can absorb surplus product → if market becomes stagnant, capitalist class risks crisis
according to Harvey, one way to overcome stagnation is through financing projects of urbanization
new development absorb surplus capital, and create new lifestyles → ex. suburban life built on automobiles, large homes
Crisis of accumulation
real estate developers tend to over-invest in areas because they appear profitable - soon the market is flooded, and a decline in profit occurs, leaving the original site facing economic difficulties
Urban social justice
To mobilize movements that assert democratic control over urban development and prioritize use value of urban space over and above exchange value
Cities and the Creative Class
Written by Richard Florida
Posits that creative people are drawn to places that are inclusive and diverse, and that the key to regional growth is attracting these highly educated and creative people
Creative class
Florida’s terms for highly educated, talented people; includes scientists, engineers, uni profs, poets, novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, architects, high-tech sectors
The Neighborhood in Cultural Production
Written by Richard Lloyd
Argues that although career upside is more limited in Chicago compared to NY or LA, it is easier to get started there → lower stakes
Post-industrial restructuring of the city
early 1970s, fiscal crisis - stagnation in economic growth
the departure of manufacturing industries required restricting the political economy
businesses that had been prominent in Detroit, Cleveland, moved to China, India → became the rust belt
cities tasked with luring outside investment and tourism
Attracting the creative class
Creative class prefers loose networks that afford greater freedoms, instead of traditional tight-knit communities
want cities with culturally vibrant neighborhoods, beautiful neighborhoods, walkability, public arts
The Cumulative Texture of Local Urban Cultures
Written by Suttles
Cities have a rich tapestry of local collective representations, which are the cultural, historical, and architectural elements that define a city’s identity
Includes landmarks, symbols, or songs
History Repeats Itself, But How?
Explores the very different characters of place that have emerged for Santa Barbara and Ventura
Argues that these two places, although fairly indistinguishable from one another, can develop very different place reputations
Oil was discovered earlier in Ventura → embraced
By contrast, Santa Barbara residents already had some place attachment to coastline as a natural amenity
shaped the resistance to the freeway in Santa Barbara and lack of resistance in Ventura
Sources of collective representations
community founders - consecrated into official cultural ex. Dusable
notable entrepreneurs and politicians - Al Capone, Obama
Catch phrases, songs, artifacts, goods - “Go cubs go”, fly the W, the L
Place reputation
not artificial - an accumulation of history
actively shaped by initiatives of local actors
Assimilation myth
Dominant assumption that immigrants assimilate, adapt, and overcome to become economically successful is a myth → immigrants are consistently lower-paid that their Canadian-born counterparts
Place stratification perspective
Locations are usually associated with resources, prestige, and status
The who live in desirable locations with more resources, greater prestige, and higher status are likely to maintain the status quo and safeguard their neighborhoods from change → some groups are less likely to move into these neighborhoods
Manhattan’s Koreatown
The landscape of ethnic transclaves has shifted from a space of residents relying on a coethnic labor force to a space of ethnically themed leisure, consumptions and entertainment for travel
disproves the idea of a “zone in transition” → not all immigrants are going to assimilate into larger culture
Koreatown has become a platform for the Korean government and small Korean cooperations to market the nation and its brand for economic and political gains
Transclave
A commercialized ethnic space that exists exclusively for consumption, and entertainment for locals and tourists
Spatial assimilation perspective
ethnic settlement shaped by socio-economic resources and duration in country
economic integration comes with longer duration in host country
the longer you stay in the country, you gain more resources and eventually move out → might take generations to move
Critiques of assimilation theory
Did not resonate with visible minorities the way it did for immigrants from Asia, Middle East, Africa
Ignores the fact that host societies are reshaped by immigrant populations, not just the other way around
Commodification of ethnic communities
Ethnic enclaves increasingly decoupled from places of residence
Ethnic symbolism used for place branding and profit in industrial city
Even as the number of immigrants in an area in decreasing, the number of ethnic-themed businesses increases
Maintaining an urban Native community
Although Indigenous people may disagree on what makes someone native, they all felt that a native cultural identity is something that needs to be actively encouraged
Some emphasize the land-based process of traditions, while urban-based natives feel that it matters that they practice the traditions their ancestors had
Settler colonialism
Inflicted generational trauma
by displacing cultural traditions, it upended moral order and produced anomie in the community (ex. suicide, substance abuse, crime)
Because of this, understandings of native identity have been couched in terms of primordiality, a state in contradiction to modernity
Aboriginal peoples in urban areas
Urban proportion of Indigenous people has grown tremendously since the second half of the 20th century
challenges in maintaining native communities in cities
Neo-liberal urbanization
Characterized by an emphasis on economic growth, entrepreneurialism, smaller government, and the inclusion of market actors in governance
Neoliberalism proposes that human wellbeing can be best advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms → private property rights, free markets, and free trade
How do urban spaces exclude women?
The increased decentralization and reliance on private automobiles for transport excludes low-income women in city centers and old suburbs
inequalities arose from the assumption that caring work is a woman’s responsibility
transit policies ignore the gendered realities of transit use in cities
How mixed-blood natives renegotiate their identities in urban environments
challenges of continuing land-based rituals in urban settings
economic pressures of assimilation
inactivity of settler colonialism
urban traditionalism as a way of achieving continuity through change
Private-public divide
feminist scholars argue that public-private divide is important source of gender inequality
men historically in public space (workplace, politics)
women assigned to private sphere (home, family → labor undervalued)
The Post-WWII City
gendered separation of spheres exacerbated by suburbanization
gender norms promoted by government-subsidized suburbanizations
gendered relations created points of alienation
Women and gentrification
Many women benefitted from the rise of the post-industrial economy
rise of condos attractive to female one-person households
women both agents and victims of gentrification
Changing cityscapes within a social construction of gender
Strict private public separation challenged in contemporary metropolis, but gendered separation of spaces still persists
women’s centers, credit unions, bookstores, created by and for women
Sex and the City during “closeted era”
persecution of LGBT meant there wasn’t a concentrated gay neighborhood, mostly scattered spaces
homosexuality pushed to margins; dependent on discrete urban spaces
Post-WWII and coming out era
stonewall riots 1969 formative for gay liberation movement
formal gay neighborhoods (gayborhoods) emerged soon after
gayborhoods form when businesses that cater primarily to LGBT people open up in the same area and nurture “institutional completeness” of a quasi-ethnic community
Explanations for gayborhoods
greater discretionary income allows for supporting more vibrant community in inner city
gayborhoods as a safe space from bigotry
provides solidarity congruent with lifestyle
Post-gay era (?)
characterized not by a proud sense of difference but by a rapid assimilation of gay people into the mainstream
public opinion became more supportive of gay relations
government policy increasingly favorable (legalizing same-sex marriage)
Shift from gayborhoods to archipelago (group of islands)
Ghaziani argues that we should shift from seeing singular gayborhoods to a cultural archipelago that sees spatial expressions of sexuality as more diverse
consider variation among lesbians, transgender, radicalized concentrations
ex. trans people might feel unsafe in a typical gay neighborhood, same-sex black couples rather live near other black people than with members of LGBT community
What are the five harms associated with gentrification
residential displacement
exclusion
transformation of public, social, and commercial space
polarization
homogenization
Gentrification
the process by which poor and working-class neighborhoods in the inner city are refurbished by an influx of private capital and middle-class home buyers and renters
Rent-gap
describes the disparity between the current rental income of a property and the potentially achievable rental income
ultimately renders poor neighborhoods potentially profitable sites of reinvestment
Bad price luck
Refers to poor people who wish to remain in their gentrifying neighborhoods
cannot be reasonably held responsible for the expensiveness of their taste
they moved into a low-cost area and developed an attachment, and subsequently the area became expensive
What is the most serious harm of gentrification?
Residential displacement → it distributes the cost of neighborhood transition to people who are not responsible for the change
“Safety Activists” and gentrification
In Chicago, white safety activists would use shootings and other serious incidents as justification for displacing low-income African Americans from Northside neighborhoods
Positive loitering
Groups would stand on street corners to deter crime
strategic performance of racial neutralization → sat hi to black people, emphasized how black residents have thanked them
racially unaware → if a group of black people were standing on a corner, the safety activists might call the police, but when white people did it, it raised no red flags
Demographic reasons for gentrification
changing household structure
fewer children and growing proportion of dual-earning households
more suited to city, where concentration of amenities and services preferred over large suburban lots that require a lot of maintenance
Cultural explanations for gentrification
gentrification related to changing cultural preferences of population
pro-urban ethos that perceived inauthenticity and sterility of suburbs in favor of “character neighborhoods”
grit as glamor
3 waves of gentrification
initial wave of bohemains/artists, who have a high cultural capital but low economic capital, and are risk-takers
second wave of middle class bourgeois-bohemains → drawn to vibrancy of bubbling artistic scene, prices still low
neighborhood becomes attractive to developers, real-estate agencies, investors, and upper-middle class professionals
Public policy as explanation for gentrification
concerted effort by municipalities to refurbish inner city
related to entrepreneurial mode of governance and fiscal crisis after deindustrialization
revitalizing inner city seen as source of economic growth
collective efficacy
Sampson’s theory that one antidote to break the cycle of poverty is forming a sense of social cohesion combined with shared expectations for social control
Regent Park
Toronto’s oldest and largest social housing project built in the late 1940s
for decades, it was the poorest area in Toronto and the site of high crime rates
Strong Neighborhoods Strategy (SNS)
response to concentrated poverty and crime in post-war suburbs in Toronto particularly after highly publicized gun murders in summer 2003
proposal for package of initiatives that would improve public safety and build the community through a blend of programs and services for youth living in at-risk neighborhoods
Why did the Regent Park revitalization plan succeed while the SNS initiative failed?
The structure of urban political economies systematically privileges the politics of property development → revitalization more successful when joined with market appeal, like in Regent Park
SNS initiative was primarily focused on community safety and did not emphasize property redevelopment
Collective Action frames
Articulates issues, values, and concerns in ways that foster shared identity and call for engagement → required to overcome apathy and division
Three tasks of framing
motivational framing - defines the community that acts collectively and urges them to act
Diagnostic framing - specifies a problem and its cause
prognostic framing - proposing the solution that involves collective action
Place-based collective identity and collective agents for change
Neighborhoods rely on creating a place-based identity (ex. Frogtown) that energized residents to feel pride and take responsibility and action in their neighborhood → makes the neighborhood a collective agent for change (bottom-up instead of top-down)
Populism
A political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups
populisms succeeds when it transforms the candidate into a collective representation → ex. Trumpism is separate from the Republican Party
Ford populism
Ford framed downtown elites and city government as above ordinary people in suburbs → taking advantage of blue collar workers, recent immigrants
deviated from typical right-wing populism emphasis on ethnicity and defined insider vs. outsider according to suburban vs. urban
What is the key fault-line in the political divide?
Density → Trump support concentrated with lower-density, lower income, lower education
Clinton and Biden both pulled in areas with large metro size, greater density, high levels of income and education, high concentration of immigrants, gay and lesbians
Cultural dimensions of geographies of discontent
progressive outlooks correlate with “density divide” → greater tolerance for ethnic, cultural, and sexual diversity
low density areas tend to be more committed to traditional norms around gender, sexuality and the family, more religious
Socialization hypothesis
exposure to others may promote progressive values
freedom to explore alternative lifestyles that are supported by urban critical mass
Selection hypothesis - “the big sort”
People are segregating and sorting themselves into places that fit with and reinforce their identities and values
Birds of a feather flock together
The unintended consequence of sorting according to residential preferences is deepening polarization
Top-down vs. bottom-up sources of urban change
Top-down → government policies/planning, large-scale infrastructure projects, economic initiatives
bottom-up → community activism, small-scale initiatives
The Metropolis and Mental Life
By George Simmel; posits that urbanites numb themselves to things that are happening in the city so you aren’t overwhelmed → emotional life results in different outward behaviors
urbanite are more free than rural inhabitants, but can also feel more alone
Blase attitude
Simmel’s idea in “The Metropolis and Mental Life” that people in the city must have a blasé attitude because the city is so busy and distracting that they must develop a lack of reaction, or else face constant overstimulation
Urbanism as a Way of Life
By Louis Wirth; there are so many people and so much is happening that compared to rural areas, cities have no tight kinship bonds, thus leading to the alienation of individuals → crime/deviance because there aren’t strong connection to the environment/stronger individualist mindset
Gemeinschaft (community) vs. Gesellschaft (society)
While community involves traditional bonds around kinship within a village or town, society is based on impersonal associations → society transitioned from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft during the Industrial Revolution
