Geography 8 Urban Morphology the social geography of

Geography 8 Urban Morphology: the social geography of cities

• • • • • • Keywords Anomie Bid-rent competition Chicago school Communitiy Deviance Enclave Gemeinschaft vs Gesellschaft Human ecology Jane Jacobs & sidewalks as public space Los Angeles School Postmodern Shock city Spatial entrapment Urban morphology/morphogenesis Concentric zone model (Burgess) Ecology of fear (Davis) Keno capitalism (Dear & Flusty) Multiple nuclei model (Harris & Ullman) Sector model (Hoyt) Urban mosaic (Murdie) Urban villagers Urbanism

• Describing and defining the “urban experience, ” the “urban way of life” – Modern, culturally advanced, cosmopolitan excitement, diversity – Fragmented, decadent, socially polarized, alienating, lacking community

• Louis Wirth—American sociologist, early 20 th. Cenutry, Chicago – Observed new arrivals to the city (many immigrants from rural areas of other countries) – He asked how is it they adapt in this very new social environment – He observed that the large size and diversity of the city means lots of daily interactions between very different people • These interactions are shallow and short • They reinforce a sense of social and cultural difference, not feelings of shared humanity • His evidence is the spatial clustering of immigrant groups by nationality in urban neighborhoods—people will seek out “their own kind. ” • So…. many uprooted individuals will fail to adapt to the new social norms and this leads to deviance and disorder

Lost Community: German School the modern industrial city is a fundamentally new form of human community • Old Community— Gemeinschaft – Family based – Deep, mutually dependent – Informal discipline • New Community— Gesellschaft – More relationships, but shallow and limited – World of strangers – Need formal rules, laws, contracts, regulations and institutions to enforce and punish those who deviate – Up-hill battle • anomie

• Other perspectives on urbanism. Alternatives to community lost – Herbert Gans • There is authentic community within cities • Looked at “urban villages” in Boston in the 1950 s. These were multi-generational and inner-city immigrant neighborhoods. • Even within suburbs (are they areas of alienation and modern angst) or is there a pioneering spirit, the sense of building a new community together—Levittown, NJ – Jane Jacobs • Vigorously challenged the community lost fears • Active city sidewalks, the busy-ness of cities, the interactions among strangers in public was as effective in fighting anomie as traditional village communal bonds • City streets are kept safe by everyone’s casual observation of each other—creates an everyday sacredness, a feeling of attachment to each other.

• The influential Chicago School – Chicago saw a meteoric rise in the late 1800 s, became a global industrial powerhouse, the “second city” to NYC. – Chicago came to represent the profound changes in American society – Similarly, Manchester, UK was the focus of Marx & Engels years earlier. – Chicago School: sociologists at the U of Chicago in 1920 s/30 s – Saw Chicago as the quintessential shock city: represented American industrial urbanism

• Themes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Social deviance Technology transforming geographic connections Human ecology—humans adapting to new environment; engaged in invasion and succession. Used empirical methodologies as well as detailed ethnographies (see maps). Urban morphology—the shape of cities. Chicago ethnicities. Near Jane Addams’ Hull House, west side.

• Urban Morphology: the study of shape of cities – This was a focus of the Chicago School—how is a city divided into distinctive zones, districts, neighborhoods? – How is geographic variety expressed politically, demographically, economically? – City spaces seem to sort themselves out even without formal zoning. – But these morphologies are dynamic, constantly evolving The older 20 th Century model. A single center, organized around a CBD, converging rail lines, possibly a port nearby. The evolving model of the latter 20 th Century. Multi-centered, spider’s web connected by freeways/cars, pockets of specialized activities. Sprawling metropolis.

• Burgess Model: a single-center model Ring 1: a dominant and dense CBD, modern, tall skyscrapers, specialized office activities. Ring 2: Zone of Transition. Small factories, warehouses, the oldest housing. Ring 3: Working class residential, modestly sized homes. Ring 4: Lower-density residential, newer and larger homes, middle and upper-middle class. Two concepts inform Burgess’s Model: 1. Invasion and Succession 2. Bid-Rent Curve newer immigrants move in as older immigrants move out as they assimilate land costs most at the center (there is less of it), farther from center more land, costs less. Those who can afford, to pay will and price others out

• Homer Hoyt’s Sector Model, 1930 s – Distinct radial corridors that cut across Burgess’s sectors • Industrialized zone along railway • Working class housing near employment rich area • Upper-class housing on opposite end, usually along a prestigious commercial corridor (think of Wilshire Blvd’s “Miracle Mile” in LA or 5 th Ave in NYC, Michigan Ave in Chicago) • Harris and Ullman’s Multiple Nuclei Model, 1940 s – Saw the rise of the automobile and decline of rail change the city’s structure, no longer a single center • No longer a gradient of high-intensity land usage near center and low-intensity land use at edge. • Now multiple centers, each with clustered activities based on patterns of agglomeration economies

• Murdie’s Urban Mosaic (1970 s) – Argued cities have several shapes—this results in a complex mosaic that may look like a disordered mess but has some patterns • Economic status tends to be sectoral • Family status tends to be concentric • Ethnic-racial status tends to be clustered • The Galactic Metropolis – London’s sprawl Today’s city sprawls, creating a complicated web with many centers of activity—each its own selfcontained urban center while being woven into the metropolitan whole.

• Critical Theory and Urban Geography – Challenge old assumptions, narratives, models – Challenge the idea of a “single story”: postmodernism – Challenge the idea that modernity has meant progress for all, instead focus on the inequalities maintained or created in urban societies – Incorporation of multiple viewpoints: gender, urban culture, class, postcolonial relationships – Focus on Spatial Entrapment --modern life celebrates mobility, yet many groups remain geographically stuck. --What groups remain “stuck? ” Power on the Landscape --islands of wealth and poverty don’t necessarily have a logical spatial arrangement --Mike Davis: urban core a “homeless containment zone” --rich in fortifeid edge cities. --Keno Capitalism: (Dear and Flusty) cities are center-less grids; chaotic; random assortment of ethnoburbs, citadels, “street warfare” areas, reflect chaotic outcomes of history, not some logical spatial process.

• The Los Angeles School – Argue against the old modeling and monocentric view – Los Angeles the 21 st Century’s “Shock City” • Within cities newly industrializing areas or tech- or knowledge-intensive economies challenge the core and dominance of the CBD, part of the global economy • Suburbs, hinterlands organize the metropolitan area • Creates a new urban morphology – Celebrates Los Angeles’s pluralism • Dynamic center of immigration that characterizes the “global metropolis of the future” (p. 22) – Culture of fear, “carceral city” • Obsession with security amongst the affluent • Poor displaced by gentrification, wealthy retreat to gated communities • Increasingly privatized, secured public spaces – Entrepreneurial city • Slashed government budgets, privatization • No longer a “redistributional city” of the 20 th Century that created social safety nets through progressive taxation and a wide array of public services. – New architectures and landscapes • Imagined sense of place • No longer the generic, form-follows-function of modernism

The tract house of the 1950 s. Generic, non-decorative, mass produced. The tract house of the postmodern era. Neo-traditionalism, an attempt to foster a distinctive sense of place. But a “real” or “imagined” sense of place?

• Postmodern Design – “An effort to revive historic looks and practices, often in a restless, disjoined, pluralistic, even playful way. ” – Reaction to the clean, simple, generic lines of modern architecture – “Modernism is a great blight of Dullness”—Jane Jacobs – Edward Relph—modernist architecture creates a sense of placelessness. Most modernist buildings “are almost indistinguishable one from another. ” San Francisco skyscraper. Hat on top evokes a historic French look. At base of tower is a columned arcade, looks fashionably European. 1990 s.

• Has postmodern design made cities more livable? Is a genuine sense of place being evoked? Whose past is being evoked? Often, not a local one. Landscapes that seem very contrived—emphasize symbolism These are ‘dreamscapes’—think Las Vegas! The modernist vision was progressive and inclusive, despite its own forms of elitism, to use public money and state of the art design to make the city better for all. – Postmodern vision is capital driven, chasing profits, a “new alliance of taste and capital” to cater to the “tastes of a cultural avant-garde – – –