Unit 7 Journal
Title: The Natural History of Urbanization
Author: Lewis Mumford
As Discussed by
Johnson Ojo
Introduction.
First, let me briefly introduce this great, “ American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic, Lewis Mumford, (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990)” (Wikipedia, 2017, p.1). He was born in Flushing, Queens, New York and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1912. “Studied at the City College of New York and The New School for Social Research, but became ill with tuberculosis and never finished his degree,” (Wikipedia, 2017, p.2). One thing that interested me about the life of this sociologist is his sense of optimism. He was not part of the collections of the mono- socialistic
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Technological heritage.
He emphasized that technological advancement has help man to emancipate himself to a new urban form. This is a fulfilment of prophecy, made by ‘Prophet’ Mumford that, “human race would use electricity and mass communication to build a better world for all humankind,” (Wikipedia, 2017, p.2).
4. Urban displacement of nature. In this section, he explained how the technology catalysis the process of deforestation and urban displacement of nature. Today heavy industrial demand for wood are all factors that contributed to the urban displacement of nature.
5. Modern Forces of Expansion:
In this section, he explained that urbanization happened in two stages. First stage cities were confined and limited to the valleys and food plains, like the Nile, the Fertile Crescent, the Indus and Hwang Ho. The second stage is the urban dominance, where cities are in full expansion, performance and influence. He concluded that population growth and technical improvement are factors of this change.
6. The suburban
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Sociologist … explained that open pattern of suburb is because of seeking environment free noise, dirt and overcrowding that are in the centre of cities. He gave examples of these cities as St. John’s wood, Richmond, Hampstead in London. Chestnut Hill and Germantown in Philadelphia. He added that suburban are only for the rich and high class. This plays into the hands of the critical perspectives that, “Cities are not so much the product of a quasi-natural “ecological” unfolding of social differentiation and succession, but of a dynamic of capital investment and disinvestment. City space is acted on primarily as a commodity that is bought and sold for profit, “(Little & McGivern, 2013, p.616).
Conclusion.
In my conclusion, I will align with sociologist Feagin and Parker suggested understanding that political and economic leaders control urban growth. Here in my country. The urban mayors, and leading business class has hijack the land allocation. “economic and political leaders work alongside each other to effect change in urban growth and decline, determining where money flows and how land use is regulated,” (Little & McGivern, 2013, p.622).
Reference
Little, W. and McGivern, R. (2013). Introduction to sociology, 1st Canadian Edition. Retrieved from
Several works we have read thus far have criticized the prosperity of American suburbia. Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus, and an excerpt from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem "A Coney Island of the Mind" all pass judgement on the denizens of the middle-class and the materialism in which they surround themselves. However, each work does not make the same analysis, as the stories are told from different viewpoints.
In the book The Great Inversion, author Alan Ehrenhalt reveals the changes that are happing in urban and suburban areas. Alan Ehrenhalt the former editor of Governing Magazine leads us to acknowledge that there is a shift in urban and suburban areas. This revelation comes as the poorer, diverse, city dwellers opt for the cookie cutter, shanty towns at the periphery of American cities known as the suburbs. In similar fashion the suburbanites, whom are socioeconomic advantaged, are looking to migrate into the concrete jungles, of America, to live an urban lifestyle. Also, there is a comparison drawn that recognizes the similarities of cities and their newer, more affluent, residents, and those cities of Europe a century ago and their residents. In essence this book is about the demographic shifts in Urban and Suburban areas and how these changes are occurring.
Another noteworthy urban sociologist that’s invested significant research and time into gentrification is Saskia Sassen, among other topical analysis including globalization. “Gentrification was initially understood as the rehabilitation of decaying and low-income housing by middle-class outsiders in central cities. In the late 1970s a broader conceptualization of the process began to emerge, and by the early 1980s new scholarship had developed a far broader meaning of gentrification, linking it with processes of spatial, economic and social restructuring.” (Sassen 1991: 255). This account is an extract from an influential book that extended beyond the field of gentrification and summarizes its basis proficiently. In more recent and localized media, the release the documentary-film ‘In Jackson Heights’ portrayed the devastation that gentrification is causing as it plagues through Jackson Heights, Queens. One of the local businessmen interviewed is shop owner Don Tobon, stating "We live in a
“The Deeper Problems We Miss When We Attack ‘Gentrification’”exhibit their opinion on the positives of gentrification and the potential of “revitalization” in low-income urban communities. Badger argues that gentrification brings nothing more than further opportunities for urban communities while integrating citizens of different social classes.Furthermore , she continues to question if gentrification is in fact the monster that brings the prior expressions against gentrification where she says “If poor neighborhoods have historically suffered from dire disinvestment, how can the remedy to that evil — outside money finally flowing in — be the problem, too?”(Badger) Stating that the funds generated from sources external that are brought into these communities can’t be problematic. This concept is further elaborated in the article “Does Gentrification Harm the Poor” where Vigdoor list the potential positive enhancements gentrification can have on an urban area in America ,stating that gentrification can
A common definition of a suburb is a community in an outlying section of a city or, more commonly, a nearby, politically separate municipality with social and economic ties to the central city. In the 20th cent., particularly in the United States, population growth in urban areas has spilled increasingly outside the city limits and concentrated there, resulting in large metropolitan areas where the populations of the suburbs taken together exceed that of the central city. As growth of the suburbs continues, cost of labor for common suburban housing
“Could suburbs prosper independently of central cities? Probably. But would they prosper even more if they were a part of a better-integrated metropolis? The answer is almost certainly yes.” (p. 66)
The modern story of developed areas is a move from the inner city to the suburbs. This decentralization of metropolitan areas has left urban areas neglected. Such a transformation has had negative consequences, because it has inherently meant the abandonment of those left behind in urban centers. Furthermore, the issue is complicated by the fact that the distinction between those moving to the suburbs and those left behind has been defined largely by race. As Kain notes,
Kotkin, Joel. “Suburban Development.” Wall Street Journal. 23 Nov. 2007. N.p. Web. 3 May. 2010.
Beginning in the 1960s, middle and upper class populations began moving out of the suburbs and back into urban areas. At first, this revitalization of urban areas was 'treated as a 'back to the city' movement of suburbanites, but recent research has shown it to be a much more complicated phenomenon' (Schwirian 96). This phenomenon was coined 'gentrification' by researcher Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe the residential movement of middle-class people into low-income areas of London (Zukin 131). More specifically, gentrification is the renovation of previously poor urban dwellings, typically into condominiums, aimed at upper and middle class professionals. Since the 1960s, gentrification has appeared in large cities such as Washington D.C., San Francisco, and New York. This trend among typically young, white, upper-middle class working professionals back into the city has caused much controversy (Schwirian 96). The arguments for and against gentrification will be examined in this paper.
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...
One reason that urbanization was necessary for us to expand was its role-play in better education. Education is the foundation of all past and future nations and it is what makes us strong. In rural areas education was limited and it was very hard to access seeing as there was not much transportation and everything was spread out and far away. In the city when people began the transfer to urbanization they learned that schools and similar places were nearby and they were easy to access. Thus education was higher in urban areas then in rural areas. Also people could share similar ideas more and that led to research teams and new discoveries.
...population distribution designed to reduce the rate of rural-urban migration appears to have had limited success in many developing countries. Policies must be directed at altering the rural economy in order to slow the rate of urban sprawl. Broad land use planning and changing of planning standards and governmental procedures would go a long way to reduce many of the problems that face urban populations in the developing areas, especially Africa. Urbanization can cause a lot of problems for a city or even a country. It can cause cities to become overpopulated which are known as mega-cites, and cause problems with living arrangements and finding a job. Urbanization can also cause health problems. Urbanization is supposed to be good for developing countries on the rise but with this rapid growth in Africa, these problems can become a major concern in the future.
In Ernest W. Burgess’s “The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project,” (1925), the author delves deep into the processes that go into the construction of a modern city or urban environment. Burgess lists its following qualities: skyscrapers, the department store, the newspaper, shopping malls, etc. (p. 154). Burgess also includes social work as being part of a modern urban environment. This is supported by his construction model based on concentric circles that divided Chicago into five zones. The first was called a center loop meant for a business district. Secondly, there was an area for business and light manufacture. Third, there was a “zone for working men’s homes” (p. 156). The fourth is the residential area of high-class apartment buildings. The fifth is where suburban houses are located.
Urbanization is the process of becoming a city or intensification of urban elements. Since modernization, the meaning of urbanization mostly became the transformation that a majority of population living in rural areas in the past changes to a majority living in urban areas. However, urbanization differs between the developed and developing world in terms of its cause and the level of its negative outcomes. Korea, as one of the developing countries, experienced what is called ‘ overurbanization,’ and it experienced a number of negative consequences of it, although it could achieve a great economic development by it. This paper examines how urbanization differs between the West and the rest of the world, the characteristics and process of urbanization in Korea, problems sprung from its extreme urbanization, and government policies coping with population distribution.
has been related to the process of urbanization which is encouraged by economic growth and