Throughout the semester Professor Beck covered an array of topics that dealt with the history and evolution of urban space in a sociological perspective. One of the first topics that was covered in class was the topic of human ecology. Human ecology is the study of human relations in their natural, social and built environments. Human ecology has particular relevance to this course because urban space has been a part of human life since the day humans started to roam the earth.
The city has been evolving for the better since the times of widespread disease and famine that once hit “urbanized cities” during the industrial revolution. During the 1800’s diseases like typhoid, cholera and tuberculosis impacted people in a way where it was expected
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The shift from rural life to metropolitan life leaves a person being bombarded with new external and internal stimuli; since there is a constant shift in the city a person develops a “protective organ” or a buffer to protect him or herself from the constant changing city life. The concept of the protective buffer is incased in a cold-mindset where the person refers to reason and logic instead of concern for emotional significance; this is where the blasé outlook comes from because a person develops an apathetic outlook on their environment. The numbing to the metropolitan environment leaves the person incapable to react to such stimuli and that leaves them without the required energy to try to form close relationships with others like in a rural community. Simmel states that the economy of money created a mental dullness to people because they develop relationships on the value of money. The blasé outlook is illustrated in the text by explaining how the uniqueness and incomparability is lost because it is looked at the monetary value instead of a personal one where the commodity has deeper meaning, like in a simple economy. The blasé attitude is also affiliated with the wealthy because the activities they partake in, items they purchase and people they surround themselves with devalues their personality. The personality the wealthy form is surrounded by a quantity of expensive belongings in an expensive lifestyle. Saying this Simmel was not complaining or condoning the blasé outlook but trying to understand it because he understood that environments shape the social structure of human
In 1894, the lack of cleanliness and sanitation in the tenements was starting to affect the health of tenants. The Tenement House Commission defined the tenements as unsafe and hazardous for health reasons. With no running water and piles of garbage all over the streets, it made it very hard for tenants to keep their selves clean and be able to wash clothes. Soon, many people became ill with diseases like cholera, typhoid, smallpox, and tuberculosis that spread throughout the tenement like a wild fire. Within one year, twenty cases of typhoid were reported from just one tenement. Many babies died and tenements started to be known as “infant slaughterhouses.”
The book, The Ghost Map, tells the story of the cholera outbreak that took place in England during the medieval era. During this time, London became popular, causing it to become one of the most populous urban cities in England. However, it suffered from overcrowding, a large lower class, and little health regulations. As a result, living conditions and water supply were not the cleanest, and many died from the disease cholera. Though this epidemic led to many deaths/illnesses during it’s time, it has proven to be helpful and important to public health today. Some public health advancements that have occurred as a result include healthier, cleaner, and longer lives lived.
When thinking of human society, what comes to mind as the most classically “human” aspect? Would it be emotions, community, or urban development? The animal kingdom exemplifies two of these characteristics: there are many different types of animal communities who have complex forms of organization with hierarchical structures and the bonds they share with each other are an example of the emotions they can exhibit. Similarly, many plant species are seen growing together by region; their own forms of community. The complicating evidence in this scenario is the idea of development: animals or plants have not created their own types of materials, which defined in the context of being human produced are called “man-made,” and nature does not have
Pamela K. Gilbert, “’Scarcely to be Described’: Urban Extremes as Real Spaces and Mythic Places in the London Cholera Epidemic of 1854,” Nineteenth Century Studies 14 (2000): 149-72.
The significance in this scene can be defined by the different dynamic happening in the psyches of Freder. Unlike Maria, who goes from having a balanced mind to a mechanical mind, Freder goes from only paying attention to the id, to actually rationalizing with the id and the ego, and realizing that his society has been mistreating those in the working class. J.P. Tellote argues that “The sequence in which Freder takes the worker's place, for example, only displays the horrors of being chained to a mechanism, reduced to a function of a machine, after first illustrating the seductive power that helps keep the classes separated, each in its place” (Telotte 53). Further on in the movie, in minute 40:52 Freder yells in an exhausted manner “Father-! Father-! Will ten hours never-end--??!!”, finally empathizing with the hardships the working class has to endure in the current stratification of their society, the ego and the id finally coming to consensus.
During the last half of the 1800’s and the early part of the 1900’s urban population in western Europe made enormous increases. During this period France’s overall population living in cities increased twenty percent, and in Germany the increase was almost thirty percent. This great flow of people into cities created many problems in resource demands and patterns of urban life. These demands created a revolution in sanitation and medicine. Part of this revolution was the redesigning of cities. G.E. Baron Von Haussmann was the genius behind the new plans for the city of Paris.
It is my opinion that the main character moves from dislike of social divide, and a dislike of her elevated status, to complacency, and finally gratitude; and that these changes are brought on due to her own experiences of hardship. Throughout this essay I will attempt to demonstrate and rationalize this belief.
By the 1840’s high rates of disease were ascribed to the housing many of New York’s poverty-stricken immigrants lived in. Fear spread that while disease was rooted in the polluted living conditions of New York’s poorer communities, disease could easily spread to the more well off citizens too. Public health officials realized that the city’s soiled streets and polluted sewers were a health risk to all New Yorkers. In the mid-nineteenth century, New York possessed a primitive sewage system. Poorly planned sewers spanned the city, but most citizens’ homes did not connect to these pipes. Instead, most New Yorkers relied on outdoor outhouses and privies. Because of the high levels of unmanaged waste, epidemics of infectious diseases were commonplace in New York. The city battled outbreaks of smallpox, typhoid, malaria, yellow fever, cholera, and tuberculosis. In 1849, a rash of cholera struck the city, killing more than five thousand people. A wave of typhoid in the mid-1860’s resulted in a similar amount of deaths. Port cities and transportation hubs, like New York, were especially prone to outbursts of infectious diseases because of the high volume of travelers that passed through the city. Americans realized that they were contracting and dying from infectious diseases at an alarming rate, but weren’t entirely sure of why or how. (Web, par. 17,
City life changed in many ways in the 1800s. One thing that happened was the increase in quality of life and medicine. "The rapid growth was not due to larger families"; it was "because the death rate fell." (249). Because the germ theory was finally recognized as legitimate, better hygiene was pushed in all places. Not only was there better hygiene in the home where people bathed and changed more often, but in the hospital as well, where finding clean tools would be a rare sight. Another effect of the germ theory being accepted was that scientists were then able to find cures for common diseases with the missing link between actions and diseases found. Another thing that changed in the 1800s was landscape of the cities themselves. Reportedly,
Upon reading more closely, the story is revealed to present a tragic journey of a man who has lost his sanity but seeks solace in the materialistic comforts of his old life. The story succeeds in making a number of statements about human nature: that wealth is the most powerful measure of social status and anyone without it will face ostracization; that denial of one 's mistakes and unfortunate circumstances only leads to more pain; that even the most optimistic people can hold dark secrets and emotional turmoil inside them. All of these themes compel the reader to ponder their real-life implications long after the story is
Discoveries in mmedicine and the environment improved nutrition as well as reduced unsanitary urban environments which carried diseases, poor water quality, and unproper removals of sewage. Urbanization is the term used to described the boom in population during this time in urban areas. Sanitary reforms stepped up during this time and developed ways to sanitize the most filthy parts of Europe.
Even in the first sentence Simmel takes note of our greatest problem as individuals to illuminate and cultivate our personalities: ‘The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life.’ Simmel’s argumentation here is supported by Michael and Deena Weinstein, co-authors of the book ‘Postmodern(ised) Simmel.’ They offer the supportive argument that one’s mental imagination of the metropolis is a device adopted by people to maintain their identity. They write: ‘The mental life of the metropolis is a series of compensations for the inadequacy of the objective culture to the individuals subjective demand for an integral personality.’ Thus, adopting traits like carelessness and disregard, rationality and skepticism are methods in which ones uses to embrace one’s individualism, detaching themselves from others in an ever-increasing objective culture found in a
During the peak of the industrial revolution, with all the new technological advances little to no attention was paid to the visual elements of urban cites. Smoke billowed from factories, dirt sooted the buildings, and the streets were merely symbols of progress. Many problems arose in cities as a result of the industrial revolution . The tenement houses of the time were a substandard multi family dwelling. Usually old and occupied by the poor. With poor sanitation, air and sewage system all contributed to the problems of urban living. These neighborhoods were not only extremely crowded but also dangerous. According to Riis Jr, (1970) “Bodies of young children show up on the rivers, who no one seems to know anything about.” These tenements became a prime location for crime and the alleys became extremely dangerous. The influx of immigrants filled these tenements as many traveled to the United States for work. City planners quickly designed these structures to house them. Cramming entire families into one room apartments and sharing a single bathroom with other families on the floor. These living conditions were described as disgusting and vile and what city Beautiful planners would eventually plan to eliminate.The city Beautiful movement emerged at a time in United States history when the country's urban population
Again, this section will give a working definition of the “urban question’. To fully compare the political economy and ecological perspectives a description of the “urban question” allows the reader to better understand the divergent schools of thought. For Social Science scholars, from a variety of disciplines, the “urban question” asks how space and the urban or city are related (The City Reader, 2009). The perspective that guides the ecological and the social spatial-dialect schools of thought asks the “urban question” in separate distinct terminology. Respected scholars from the ecological mode of thinking, like Burgess, Wirth and others view society and space from the rationale that geographical scope determines society (The City Reader, 2009). The “urban question” that results from the ecological paradigm sees the relationship between the city (space) as influencing the behaviors of individuals or society in the city. On the other hand...
Adams, W. M. (1999). Sustainability. In P. Cloke., P. Crang & M. Goodwin (Eds.), Introducing human geographies (pp. 125-130). London: Arnold.