cities as sities of integration and division

What is meant by the urban paradox?

Cities are sites of integration (opportunity, diversity, innovation) and division (inequality, segregation, stigma) that coexist and evolve unevenly.

Why are cities important in shaping integration and division?

Cities can cause social and economic divisions .e.g., Berlin - split into West and East because of the cold war -

West is more affluent; market led-development, capitalist, consumjer culture.

East is urban planned developments, socialist and intensify wider processes, and are where inequality is most visible and performed.

What are ‘shock cities’ and why are they important?

Cities like Manchester and Chicago experienced rapid industrialisation causing upheaval, revealing how urbanisation transforms society.

What did the Chicago School contribute to urban theory?

Viewed cities as social laboratories; introduced models like Burgess's concentric zone model and Hoyt's sector model.

How did governance shape urban integration?

Mapping, policing, and infrastructure created order and control, enabling mobility and civic freedom while regulating populations.

What caused the Western ‘urban crisis’ (rapid decline in all parts of cities) e.g., EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA.?

Combination of deindustrialisation (manufacturing and heavy industry), white flight (Middle-class (mainly white) populations moved to suburbs, driving racial segregation), redlining (Created racial ghettos by policy design, Govt maps labelled Black neighbourhoods as “dangerous”, denied mortgages)       tax base collapse and stigma.

How do Marxists explain urban inequality?

Marxist approaches: cities are shaped/controlled by capitalist interests.

Moloch: ‘saw the city as a growth machine’ 1976

The growth machine includes elites, state, and developers.

The Marxist theory rejects the Chicago school theory which suggests cities grow ‘naturally’ – early urban models by burgess and hoyt suggest that cities are like ecosystem which grow through competition of space, population migration and land use - Marxist is it result of capitalism

What characterised UK urban decline?

Failures in slum clearance, racialised housing patterns, riots, and territorial stigma.

How do alternative theories challenge Western urban models?

Feminist urbanism, postcolonial urbanism, and understanding informal economies challenge traditional perspectives.

How do global cities produce new divisions?

Global cities concentrate control and capital, leading to rising inequality, housing crises, and gentrification.