Urbanism and community; segregation and concentrated poverty
Some basic details about cities and urbanization
Understanding the processes of urbanization (the creation and increasing prevelance of cities) is increasingly important, if for no other reason, because we live in an era where – for the first time in human history – over half the population lives in cities.
Megacities: cities with over 10 million inhabitants (Tokyo leads the way with ~40 million inhabitants)
Megaregions: chains of heavily populated areas connected through dense communication and transportation networks (for example, the Northeast corridor running from Boston to DC)
With globalization a network of global cities is equally well connected, even though they are not necessarily in close proximity with one another
Urbanism and the erosion of “community”
Sociologists have debated for a long time over the question of how cities change us.
Early theorists – such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel, and Louis Wirth – argued that the past paced life in densly populated settlements undermined the close-knit nature of community life characterstic of the villages and towns of yesteryear. In contrast to the intimate, personal relations that inhabitants maintained with one another in tight-knit communties, they believed that urbanism leads to more distant, anonymous relations among people in different roles and the adoption of a blasé attitude in response to the hustle and bustle of urban life.
A more positive view of the impact of urbanism
Other theorists – from Claude Fischer to Jane Jacobs – generated more positive readings of urbanism, suggesting that urban life did not necessarily lead to the erosion of “community.” Fischer identifies, for example, how the concentration of people in cities makes space for a wide variety of subcultures to emerge and thrive. It is no coincidence, for example, that the first “gayborhoods” in the United States emerged in the major cities of New York, San Francisco, and Boston and not in suburban or rural areas.
The urban growth machine
One major take-away from urban and community sociology is that the city and its patterns of growth and decline are anything but natural.
From this perspective, patterns of (dis)investment and community change are the result of political and economic decisions made by political leaders, stakeholders, and residents of cities. One influential account of urban change and development identifies the prominence of real estate investors, business leaders, media representatives, and political officials gathered together in an urban growth machine aiming to maximize property values and tax revenues in the city. Their decisions lead to the selective investment in some places and not others.
Gentrification
The effects of the urban growth machine politics is described through the example of the waterfront development in Pittsburgh over recent decades. This large project rehabilitated a largely industrial area of the city, but also led to the gentrification of central city neighborhoods and the displacement of its previous residents who had long experienced the effects of urban decay and disinvestment.
Residential segregation
Our cities are highly segregated in terms of both income and race/ethnicity.
In recent decades “economic segregation, defined as the degree to which the poor live apart from the rich, has risen steadily.” The percentage of US families living in neighborhoods that are either extremely affluent or extremely poor has now reached 34%, up from just 12% in 1970.
Segregation by race
As demonstrated in this racial dot map (slightly different than the one found on page 515 of our textbook), the Washington, DC metro area shows a significant degree of residential segregation by race.
- how do sociologists, such as Massey and Denton, explain these forms of residential segregation?
Concentrated poverty
William Julius Wilson provided an influential account of the concentration of poverty in inner-cities as a result of economic restructuring beginning the 1960s and 70s.
What factors led to the increasing concentration of poverty in inner-city neighborhoods, according the Wilson?
Is there anything that we can and should do about this?
Social networks and community
Finally, recent theorists of “social networks” have emphasized the ways in which community, rather than facing erosion has actually been “liberated” in recent years, particularly due to the proliferation of internet-based communication technologies. These allow people to establish connection and community with far flung others; in essence, these technologies have led to the creation of what scholars have termed “community without propinquity.”