Urban Sociology Course Outline

Topic 1	Topic 6
Topic 2	Topic 7
Topic 3	Topic 8
Topic 4	Topic 9
Topic 5	Topic 10

Topic 1: An Introduction to Urban Sociology

Definitions and perspectives: What is distinctive about the city as a built environment?
Positioning the city in the metropolitan region and in the global system
Factors that "shape" urban settlements: wealth creation, politics, and systems of transportation
The meaningful character of the "built environment": inscribing identity and life-styles in "urban space"

Read:

Marshall, "The Sex of Cities" and "The End of Place"
Hutchinson, "Introduction to the Constrcution of Urban Space".

Internet:

Yahoo Urban Studies, http://www.yahoo.com/social_science/urban_studies/
(A good place to start for an orientation to urban sociology on the web with useful links).
The Mena Rees library at the CUNY Graduate Center is an excellent (and homegrown) resource for research on the web: http://library.gc.cuny.edu this site includes a tutorial on Internet research.

Topic 2: The Economy of Urban Places

Historical shifts. the decline of manufacturing and the preeminence of an economy based on services and information
Suburbanization and the "multi-centered region"
Globilization
The "symbolic economy": culture and commerce

Read:

Marshall, "Jackson Heights"
Sassen, "Cities and Communities in the Global Economy"
Zukin, "Whose Culure? Whose City?, "High Culture and Wild Commerece in New York City", and "Artists and Immigrants in New York City Restaurants"
Kasinitz, "Red Hook"
Hoffman, "Tourism and the Revitalization of Harlem"

Internet:

Social Science Statistical Data (900 sites world wide), http://odwin.uscd.edu/1data/
The State of the Nation's Cities A Comprehensive Database on American Cities and Suburbs,
http://policy.rutgers.edu/cupr/sonc.htm

Video:

New York (PBS documentary, Parts 6 and 7)

Topic 3: Urban Politics

Structure of urban power; the impact of major players on the urban landscape
Contesting space and other major urban resources
Government policy and private interests: Robert Moses as the master urban builder

Read:

Marshall, "The Master Hand" and "Getting There: Building Cities"
Zukin, "The Mystique of Popular Culture".

Internet:

Housing and Urban Development (Federal Government agency), www.hud.gov
The Urban Institute, http://www.urban.org/
New York City Planning Commission, http://nycity.gov

Video:

New York (Parts 6 and 7).

Topic 4: The Suburbs and the Metropolitan Region

The demographic dimension of the "multi-centered region"
Economic, political, cultural forces promoting suburanization
The changing relationship between city and suburb: the "technoburb"
Sprawl, congestion, and suburban cultural crises

Read:

Marshall. "Trading Places" and "The Deconstructed City"
Fishman, "Beyond Suburbia: The Rise of the Technoburb"

Internet:

Professional Planner's Association: www.plannersweb.com/sprawl/home.html
Cyburbia (topics related to built environment, with forums and newsgroups): http://www.cyburbia.org

Video:

New York (Part 7)

Topic 5: Spatial Arrangements of Urban Popluations

Indentifying urban populations in terms of key demographic features
Patterns of ethnic concentration, movement, and succession
Racial segregation; the concentration of poverty; gentrification
Transportation and residential patterns

Read:

Marshall, "The End of Place" and "Jackson Heights"
Tricarico, "The South Village in Transition" (Greenwich Village)

Internet:

U.S. Census (2000 Census data), http://factfinder.census.gov ("American Communal Survey")
Federal government site, www.fedstats.gov
Queens College sociologist Andrew Beveridge has mapped tract-level NYC census data, http://comet.soc.qc.edu/Newyork/090.htm

Topic 6: Urban Public Realm

Public vis-a-vis parochial and private realms
Interactional norms in public spaces; urbanism
Cultural "strangers" as the consummate public actor
"counter-locales": inhibiting public realm interaction ("mailing" the city)
The suburban public realm: "moral minimalism"

Read:

Lofland, "Toward a Geography and History of the Public Realm" and "The Normative of 'Legal' System"
Dijkstra, "Public Spaces"
Oldenburg, "The Problem of Place in America" (The Great Good Place)
Marshall, "The End of Place" and "A Tale of Two Towns"
Baumgartner, "The Moral Order of Friendships and Neighborhoods" and "The Moral Order of Strangers"

Internet:

Urban webcams

Video:

"The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces" by W. H. Whyte

Topic 7: Neighborhoods and Community

Locality as a basis for community, identity, and "sense of place"
Neighborhood social organization and culture
"Urban villages", "defended neighborhoods" and other enclaves
Local interests and agendas
"Community discourses"
Eclipsing local communities/place

Read:

Marshall, "The End of Place" and "No Place Called Home"
Tricarico, "The Italians of Greenwich Village"

Internet:

Infoshare Online, http://www.infoshare.org (data on the neighborhoods of NYC during the last decade)

Video:

New York (Part 7)

Topic 8: Urban Subcultures

Creating "parochial" orders
Life style scenes
Urban youth subcultures
Street "codes"

Read:

Irwin, "Scenes"
Tricarico, "Guido: Fashioning an Italian American Youth Style"
Anderson, "Decent and Street Families" and "Campaigning for Respect" (Code of the Street)

Internet:

Urban subcultures have a presence on the web, including chat rooms and newsgroups (e.g. see dance clubs and youth subcultures more generally)

Topic 9: Urban Culture

An "urban way of life"?
The possibility of "shared public culture": Responses to 9/11
Competing urban cultures
Culture as an economic base of cities
Representations/images of the city: "Whose Culture? Whose City?"

Read:

Zukin, "The Mystique of Public Culture" and "Learning from Disneyworld"
Holt, "Distinguishing Metropolises: The Production of Urban Imagery"
Rozhon, "Casting Civic Pride in a Utopian Mold"
Tricarico, "Read All About It! Representations of Italian Americans in the Print Media in Response to the Bensonhurst Racial Killing"

Internet:

Official city web sites (e.g. www.nyc.com); city guides (e.g. www.citysearch.com)

Video:

Local Cable TV systems that carry Metro Channel offer outstanding documentaries of New York City, with depictions of a local vernacular culture like elevator etiquette, riding the subway, and the vicissitudes of the Gowanus Canal.

Topic 10: Reinventing Urban Life

"New urbanism" (Celebration, Fla.)
Community Gardens and community building
Cohousing
Urban design strategies and institutions in response to 9/11

Read:

Marshall, "A Tale of Two Towns" and "Getting There: Building Healthy Cities"
Kunstler, "Home From Nowhere"

Internet:

New York, New Visions (a coalition of architecture, design, and planning groups with proposals for rebuilding Lower Manhattan), http://nynv.aiga.org
The Cohousing Network (organization promoting collaborative housing and "nonalientated communities"), http://www.cohousing.org/
Habitat for Humanity, www.habitat-nyc.org

Video:

New York (Part 7)