Introduction to Cities
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Xiangming Chen is the founding Dean and Director of the Center for Urban and Global Studies and Paul Raether Distinguished Professor of Global Urban Studies and Sociology at Trinity College, Hartford, and a guest professor in the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Anthony M. Orum is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. He was the founding editor of the journal City & Community.
Krista E. Paulsen is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Florida, USA.
Content
List of illustrations xi
List of tables xvii
List of boxes xviii
About the authors xx
Preface to the second edition xxi
Acknowledgments xxii
Walk-through tour xxiv
Part I The Foundations 1
1 Cities as places and spaces 2
Cities as places 5
Exploring further 1.1 8
Identity, community, and security 10
Places as the site of our identity 10
Places as the site of community 11
Places as sites of security 13
Studying the city 1.1 14
Human beings make and remake places 15
Place and space 17
Studying the city 1.2 18
Making the city better 1.1 21
Cities shape the fates of human beings 22
Cities and people 24
2 Social theories of urban space and place: The early perspectives 26
The social and theoretical roots of modern urban theory 27
Studying the city 2.1 29
Ferdinand Tönnies: Community and society 30
Georg Simmel: The metropolis and mental life 31
Tönnies and Simmel: Further reflections 33
The Chicago School of Sociology 33
The city as social space 34
The city as concentric zones 36
The city, social change, and social order 38
Studying the city 2.2 40
Life in the city as a way of life 41
Making the city better 2.1 43
Early social theories of urban life 44
3 Social theories of urban space and place: Perspectives in the post-World War II era 47
Theoretical descendants of Marx 48
Manuel Castells and the urban question 48
David Harvey: Injustice and inequality in the city 49
John Logan and Harvey Molotch: The city as a growth machine 51
Making the city better 3.1 52
Making the city better 3.2 54
Further reflections: Marx and the critique of modern cities 55
The return to place and the turn to culture 56
Jane Jacobs and the discovery of community in the modern metropolis 56
Studying the city 3.1 57
Sharon Zukin and the turn to culture 59
Exploring further 3.1 61
Going global 64
The 1980s and the creation of the global city 64
Power, politics, and ordinary lives 67
Evaluating theories of the city 68
4 Methods and rules for the study of cities 71
First rules for doing a social science of cities 73
The rule of validity 73
The rule of reliability 75
Exploring further 4.1 76
Cities and the question of numbers 78
Studying the city 4.1 79
The city as a case study 79
The city as the typical case 81
The city as a prototypical case 83
Ethnographic and historical case studies 86
Ethnographic case studies 86
Studying the city 4.2 87
Historical case studies 89
From one to multiple cases 90
Studying the city 4.3 92
A last but very important rule on doing a good social science of cities: Fitting good theory to good methods 94
And what about insight? 95
Part II The Changing Metropolis 99
5 The metropolis and its expansion: Early insights and basic principles 100
Metropolitan growth: Basic features 102
Studying the city 5.1 104
The mobility of people and groups in the metropolis 105
Social differences and migration in the metropolis 106
Migration and the expansion of the metropolis 108
The metropolitan center and its links to the hinterlands 110
Studying the city 5.2 112
Human agents and social institutions in the expansion of the metropolis 112
Making the city better 5.1 115
Planning and metropolitan development 116
Exploring further 5.1 121
Urban growth, institutions, and human agents 124
6 The origins and development of suburbs 126
What is a suburb? Definitions and variations 128
Alternative suburban forms 130
A brief history of suburban development 132
The original suburbs 132
Culture and the demand for suburban living 134
Making the city better 6.1 135
Exploring further 6.1 136
Early suburban diversity 138
Transportation technologies and suburban expansion 138
Making the city better 6.2 140
The role of policy in suburban expansion 141
The mass production of US suburbs 144
Changes and challenges in contemporary suburbs 145
Privatization and gated communities 146
The varied fates of older suburbs 148
Suburbs as places 151
Studying the city 6.1 150
7 Changing metropolitan landscapes after World War II 154
Los Angeles: The prototype of the postwar metropolis 156
Exploring further 7.1 160
The changing metropolitan order 162
The decline of older industrial cities 162
The rise of the postindustrial/postmodern metropolitan regions 163
The importance of transportation, again 164
The remaking of places and spaces: The profound human and political consequences 165
Making the city better 7.1 167
The emerging global economy: A brief overview 168
Studying the city 7.1 172
People, place, and space in a global world 174
Part III Social Inequalities and Power in the Metropolis 179
8 The early metropolis as a place of inequality 180
Colonial cities as unequal places 182
Early urban diversity 184
Gender in the early metropolis 185
Cities of immigrants 187
Immigrant lives: New York's Five Points 187
Studying the city 8.1 191
The Five Points case in context 193
Early reform and intervention efforts 195
Making the American ghetto 196
Integrated beginnings 196
Making the city better 8.1 197
New neighbours, new tensions 198
The perpetuation and implications of black ghettos 199
Studying the city 8.2 200
Exploring further 8.1 201
The significance of urban diversity and inequality 203
9 Inequality and diversity in the post - World War II metropolis 206
Inequality and the metropolis 207
Poverty and race 207
Exploring further 9.1 209
Poverty and homelessness 210
Making the city better 9.1 212
Gentrification and the remaking of the metropolis 214
Exploring further 9.2 215
Social diversity and the transformed metropolis 218
The new immigration and the transformation of the metropolis 218
Europe 218
Studying the city 9.1 221
The United States and Canada 222
Reconstructing the contemporary metropolis 225
New ethnic enclaves 225
LGBT neighbourhoods 228
Studying the city 9.2 231
The Western metropolis in flux 232
10 Power, authority, and cities as contested spaces 236
States and markets 237
The changing global economy 238
Cities today as contested spaces 240
The nature of local governance and politics 241
Local authorities and marginalized peoples 243
African Americans and local authorities 244
The homeless and local authorities 245
The very poor and local authorities 246
Contesting mistreatment by local authorities: Resistance and aid 246
Making the city better 10.1 247
Exploring further 10.1 249
Major contests over deep meanings and spaces in the metropolis 250
Jerusalem: The quintessential contested city 250
The contested spaces of Berlin 252
Conclusion 254
Part IV The Metropolis in the Developing World 257
11 Urbanization and cities in developing countries 258
Urbanization: The basic path and its impact on place 259
Developing-country cities in historical perspective 261
Studying the city 11.1 262
The basic dimensions of urbanization 263
Urban hierarchy 264
Urban primacy 265
Over-urbanization versus under-urbanization 265
Studying the city 11.2 267
Natural increase and in-migration 268
From process and system to place 269
A profile with multiple wrinkles 269
Megacities as places: Opportunities and challenges 271
Size and density 271
Creating wealth and sustaining poverty 272
Exploring further 11.1 274
Making the city better 11.1 276
The developing megacity as a lived place 277
Making the city better 11.2 279
Governing the megacities 280
Studying the city 11.3 281
Reassessing the developing-country city 283
12 Cities in the global economy 286
Cities in a globalizing world: Theoretical background 287
Emerging cities in the global economy 288
Yiwu, China 288
Rajarhat, India 290
Further reflections on Yiwu 291
Re-emerging cities in the global economy 292
Berlin, Germany: A once-prosperous, then challenged, and now re-emerging local culture 292
Shanghai, China: Local change in a global renaissance city 294
Deeper into the global economy 297
Dongguan, China: A place transformed from a rural township into a global factory-city 297
Studying the city 12.1 300
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: From desert to urban miracle to mirage 301
Cities in a fully networked global economy 303
The regional dimension and mediation of cities 303
Becoming globally networked 305
Exploring further 12.1 306
Interdependence between cities and the global economy 308
Studying the city 12.2 309
Systematic constraint and individual flexibility 310
The global restructuring of cities 310
Making the city better 12.1 312
Part V Challenges of Today and The Metropolis of the Future 315
13 Urban environments and sustainability 316
Making use of nature 317
Natural attributes and urban development 317
Interpreting and manipulating nature 318
Studying the city 13.1 321
Inviting "disaster" 322
Why rebuild? 323
Urban environments 326
Local environmental concerns 327
Making the city better 13.1 329
Environment and inequality 329
Making the city better 13.2 331
Global environmental concerns 332
Urbanization's environmental impacts 333
Cities and climate change 333
Addressing environmental issues: Toward sustainability 336
Exploring further 13.1 337
14 The remaking and future of cities 341
Between place and space: Reinforcing a theoretical vision 342
Remaking cities at critical moments 344
The crisis of Detroit 344
The remaking of Detroit 345
Making the city better 14.1 346
Place-remaking on a larger scale 348
Daily place-remaking from below 349
Remaking neighbourhoods and communities 350
The remaking of Brooklyn, New York 350
From Detroit and New York to China and Shanghai - again 350
Studying the city 14.1 352
Remaking cities for the future 354
Scaling up and looking forward 354
The China and India scenarios and their wider implications 354
Cities of the future and the future of cities 358
Making the city better 14.2 359
A detour back to planning regarding its role in shaping future cities 360
The foundational attributes of future cities 361
Exploring further 14.1 364
A final look at the twenty-first-century city 365
Glossary 368
References 376
Index 393
CHAPTER 1
Cities as places and spaces
Contents
Identity, community, and security
Human beings make and remake places
Cities shape the fates of human beings
KEY TOPICS
- The definitions of place and space as applied to cities.
- The role of place attachment in imbuing places with meanings and significance.
- The importance of place in providing identity, community, and security for human beings.
- The ways that human beings shape cities, and are in turn shaped by them.
- Familiarity with the features of the text, including informative boxes on "Studying the city" and "Making the city better"; boxes that provide opportunities to delve into topics and concepts, called "Exploring further"; definitions of keywords; and critical thinking questions that will help you to continue to consider the issues raised in each chapter.
This is a book about cities, a topic that seems familiar enough but that most of us have not considered in any great depth. There are plenty of reasons why we should. We can estimate statistically that most of you live or have lived in a city or metropolitan area; more than half of the world's population now lives in cities (see Figure 1.1). Cities are also the centers of the world's economy. They are not only sites of production, where industries cluster, but also the central nodes in service and distribution networks and the command points from which economic decisions are made. Across the globe, wealth is already overwhelmingly generated, and spent, in cities (see Table 1.1). But cities are also the locus of profound environmental challenges (they consume two-thirds of the world's energy, especially through the heating and cooling of buildings, and are home to many toxic industries and waste sites), and social problems ranging from pronounced poverty and uneven access to the most basic of human necessities, to crime, violence, and even warfare. Without a doubt, cities deserve our attention now more than ever.
Figure 1.1 Percentage of population in urban areas by world and region, 1950-2050. Source: Developed by David Boston from data from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects 2009.
Table 1.1 Select cities' share of national population and share of national GDP. Cities are increasingly the centers of economic production, with higher per capita contributionsto GDP than rural areas or smaller towns. This is particularly pronounced in many developing world cities.
City Share of nationalpopulation
(Percentage) Share of
national GDP
(Percentage) Ratio of GDP
share to
population share Auckland 31.8 47.5 1.49 Buenos Aires 32.5 63.2 1.94 Dhaka 8.7 35.5 4.08 Helsinki 21.1 30.1 1.43 Kabul 10.3 64.3 6.24 Lima 1.9 5.5 2.89 London 20.3 25.4 1.25 Manila 20.0 46.9 2.35 Mumbai 2.0 6.3 3.15 Nairobi 9.0 20.0 2.22 New York City 7.2 9.7 1.35 Paris 16.2 26.5 1.64 Sao Paulo 10.5 19.5 1.86 Shanghai 1.4 2.9 2.07 Tokyo 28.6 34.1 1.19 Toronto 17.2 19.5 1.13
Source: Developed by authors; Based on data from CIA World Factbook, Field Listing: GDP - Composition by Sector.
We would like to draw greater attention, at the very outset, to the much faster pace of urbanization and much larger scale of cities in developing countries, which account for the overwhelming shares of the world's urban growth, energy consumption, and needed social services. While some scholars now prefer to use the Global South instead of developing countries when referring to their cities, we will stick to the more familiar label by devoting a whole chapter to urbanization and cities in developing countries (Chapter 11) that better suit our readers.
While cities, in both developed and developing countries, are important for these reasons, we argue that cities are also particularly important kinds of places. So what do we mean by places? Places are specific sites, whether entire cities or smaller locations within cities, that are shaped by human beings and shape the lives of human beings. Places include large metropolitan areas as well as individual homes, workplaces, playgrounds, schools, and street corners. They are all those specific and rich sites to which we feel attached, that become a part of us. As places, cities are distinct and meaningful sites in which people live out their lives. These meanings derive from the histories of places, whether the formal history found in books or the informal history that is created by individuals as they go about their daily routines. In turn, these histories reflect the uses to which places are put: who has lived in a place and how, the businesses and industries that thrived or failed there, and conflicts over just what should occur where. Histories, uses, and experiences imbue places with memories and meanings that distinguish one place from another. Places are thus inherently social creations.
places Specific sites that are shaped by, and shape, the lives of human beings. Sites of human identity, security, and community.
Attending to the histories of places draws our eyes to the important work that individuals and groups do to make and remake places. That places are the result of human efforts may seem obvious enough, but all too often we take places as givens, assuming that they just are the way they are; that they are somehow immutable and unchanging. This is particularly common when we compare two places - two very different cities or neighborhoods, for example. An impoverished ghetto area is drastically different from a wealthy gated suburb, and these differences may appear almost natural. But, as we explain in this book, places come to be different from one another through human efforts, whether the work of individuals building their own homes on the outskirts of growing cities or the policies of nations that seek to industrialize their lagging regional economies. Culture, power, nature, resources - these and other factors affect the ways that places become what they are, and human beings are always at the helm.
Places are not only created through social processes but also fulfill an important array of social needs. Among these needs we single out three for special attention: identity, community, and security. As we explain in this chapter, places provide us with a sense of who we are, and we may attach the meanings associated with a place to ourselves. Telling someone where we are from becomes an important way of announcing who we are - our identity. Places are also the cradles of community. Though some communities exist and even thrive in virtual spaces (groups on Facebook and other internet networks are prime examples), the places where we live, work, and play often link us to groups that care about and share our fates. Significantly, these groups may exclude as well as include individuals, and constrain as well as support them. Identity and community are actually key constitutive elements of our third dimension of place - security. When we identify with a place and feel connected to groups there, we often feel the most secure. But security extends beyond the psychological and emotional to the material. Some places provide the kinds of environments in which humans thrive...
