Type:
Solution Manual
Resource:
Cities and Urban Life
Edition:
7th Edition
Author(s):
John J. Macionis Vincent N. Parrillo
CHAPTER 1: EXPLORING THE CITY Summary Why Study the City? LO 1.1: Recognize how most people are captivated by cities. The authors argue that due to rapid urbanization, urban life is now the norm for most residing in Western society and is quickly becoming so in the rest of the world. The loci of unprecedented population growth, cities harbor the best and the worst of human existence. Consequently, to understand the city is to understand ourselves, our culture, the impact of a global economy, and the world—in short, contemporary existence. Deciding What is “Urban” LO 1.2: Examine the four criteria for defining an urban area Most people interpret the term “urban” as being characteristic of, or pertaining to, the city. Despite this seemingly simple definition, the 195 countries with urban areas use a range of criteria, including administrative function, economic characteristics, functional nature, and population size and density to define these areas. Difficulties with cross-national comparisons aside, the world’s urban population is increasing everywhere, and estimates indicate that by 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will reside in urban areas. Urbanization trends reveal that the while urban growth rates have dropped significantly in more industrialized areas, they have increased in the developing world. The Urban Transformation LO 1.3a: Investigate the factors that lead to urban growth and development 1.3b: Evaluate the characteristics of the urban way of life Whether urbanization is planned and deliberate, or unplanned and spontaneous, it transforms land use (from rural to urban economic activities), the nature of land (from porous to nonporous through construction), and patterns of social life. The case of San Francisco depicts the impact of urbanization as the city was transformed from a sleepy village to feverish city by the gold rush, and 70 years later, to a sophisticated and laidback city. The authors offer a range of concepts to assist our understanding of the complexity and scale of urbanization, including the metropolitan area, the megalopolis, the megaregion, the megacity, and the global city. The size of a city has direct links to its well-being, a concept the authors explore via world-systems analysis.
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Urbanism—the culture or way of life of city dwellers—results from the process of urbanization and depicts the interactive nature between human behavior and the environment. The range of lifestyles within the city and citizens’ ability to achieve their goals and shape events are impacted by the unequal distribution of urban resources and their positions within the city’s social hierarchy. Concepts such social power, social structure, and social stratification are central to this discussion. The Complexity of the City: Various Perspectives LO 1.4: Describe the ecological process of invasion–succession as seen in emerging cities Although cities and urban life are fundamentally sociological in orientation, cities are complex human creations and require a historical, multidisciplinary investigation. Given that cities did not begin to appear until 2000 B.C.E. and did not become the principal type of settlement until the late 18th century C.E., they are very new in human history. Not surprisingly, although historians have studied cities for centuries, sociologists did not until the late 19th century. While early sociologists primarily saw the city as a dangerous socioeconomic byproduct of emerging industrial capitalism, more recent scholars have questioned this and suggest that any existing danger is not essentially “urban,” but rather a byproduct of larger political and economic forces. Thus, the city is viewed today more as a neutral phenomenon and is studied with the guidance of four disciplinary orientations. Urban geography and ecology investigate the significance of the city’s location relative to natural resources and how people occupy the city spatially; urban political economy highlights the influence of global rather than local political and economic decision-making on the economic, political, social, and physical character of a city; social psychology emphasizes how the social environment of the city stimulates people; and comparative urbanism demonstrates the role that cultural beliefs play in shaping city life. These four orientations, combined with those of the historical origins and development of cities and the classic statements of urban sociology, provide the basic analytical framework for a detailed analysis of cities in the contemporary world. The Anatomy of Modern North American Cities LO 1.5: Enumerate the population percentage change of the 30 largest U.S. Cities Although North American urban population growth has slowed, there has been substantial population movement to Sunbelt (southern and western) cities and the growth of “exurbs” (smaller cities or areas outside central cities and surrounding suburbs). This migration is mostly driven by an aging, relatively wealthy cohort, desirous of a less costly and more comfortable environment, and by younger labor force participants seeking jobs and less congestion. The result of diminishing urban population size in certain cities is lost federal representation and funding, and consequently, fewer resources for meeting the needs of elderly and poor persons. Understanding the anatomy of the city requires an investigation of its social structure. 2A .