Cities in Society Quiz 2

Engels critiques of capitalism

1. Capitalism has a tendency of double concentration (of investment and labor) into specific cities or parts of cities

2. Capitalism moves investment away from the developed center of a city and extends out the periphery

3. Capitalism and its exploitation of workers create social problems (poverty, alcoholism, orphans)

4. Capitalism leads to the physical and social segregation of rich and poor

Marx viewed society through the lens of...

conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoise

Lefebvre's 1st circuit of capital

Use of money to hire workers, production within factories, and selling of goods and services. money is made by selling products at the highest price and by reducing costs

Lefebvre's 2nd circuit of capital

real estate investment. An investor purchases land, which they hold on to or develop and sells at a higher price. Profits from real estate are reinvested into more real estate. This circuit is more attractive because profits associated with land are more consistent and can be more easily manipulated.

Difference between the 1st and 2nd circuits

1st is more interested in areas in cities where production of goods is the cheapest and 2nd is interested in areas where potential profits on land are highest

Uneven development

1. urban areas develop because of investment of capital which create profit, jobs, and tax revenue

2. tax revenue used to improve quality of section of city which will attract more investment

3. low wage workers live in low wage/investment areas and vice versa

4. capital and government look to invest in areas with highest return on investment

5. private and public investments become fundamentally unequal across the city

Critiques of Marxist Approaches

1. Try to explain everything via economic exploitation (what about environment, ethnicity, gender, religion?)

2. Ignores social push and pull factors (technological or demographic changes)

3. Assumes that capital class is a well-oiled machine and that government will always heed to capitalist interests

4. Brushes over the fact that individual homeowners (laborers) often invest in a property (home) for long-term financial gain (retirement savings)

5. Uneven development and racial segregation go hand in hand in the US

The Philadelphia Negro

WED Dubois

1. ethnographic study of philadelphia's 7th ward

2. notion that black people were inherently unhealthy and criminal

3. lots of poverty, crime, and high childhood mortality

4. documented the social and health problems of the neighborhood

5. life expectancy so low because: 87% had no access to indoor toilets, almost none had hot water, overcrowded (as many as ten people to a single room), landlords charged higher rents to black residents

6. proved that the system was rigged to shorten black lives