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)