URSI 100--Introduction to the City

Notes on Readings

Governing

Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone” (105-113)

Concept of “social capital”—social networks & contacts

Same activities are occurring (bowling), but in individualized rather than social form (“bowling alone” rather than in bowling leagues)

Reinforces self-interested choice, but also reinforces fragmentation and anomie

John Mollenkopf, “How to Study Urban Political Power” (235-243)

Types of power:

Pluralist (coalitions)

Structuralist (systemic power)

Neo-Marxist (class & regime)

Public choice (self-interest)

John Forester, “Planning in the Face of Power” (375-387)

Strategies:

Regulator (facts)

Negotiator (concerns)

Resource (convener)

Diplomat (probe & advise)

Mediator (advocate)

Split (mediate & negotiate)

Sherry Arnstein, “A Ladder of Citizen Participation” (244-245)

Levels of Participation:

Citizen Power:

Citizen Control

Delegated Power

Partnership

Tokenism:

Placation

Consultation

Informing

Nonparticipation:

Therapy

Manipulation

Paul Davidoff, “Advocacy & Pluralism in Planning” (388-398)

“Appropriate planning action cannot be prescribed from a position of value neutrality, for prescriptions are based on desired objectives.”

Plural planning (advocacy of alternative plans):

Better informs public of alternatives choices that are open, and who their proponents are.

Forces public agencies to compete with other planning groups to win political support.

Forces critics of “establishment” plans to produce superior plans (price of criticism is a better alternative)

Stephen Wheeler, “Planning Sustainable & Livable Cities” (486-496)

Core themes:

1. Concern for long-term perspective

2. Concern for natural environment

3. Recognition of the complex web of interconnections between issues & actors

4. Livability

Implications for urban development:

1. Compact, efficient land use

2. Less automobile use, better access

3. Efficient resource use, less pollution and waste

4. Restoration of natural systems

5. Good housing and living environments

6. A healthy social ecology

7. Sustainable economics

8. Community participation and involvement

9. Preservation of local culture and wisdom

William Mitchell, “The Teleserviced City” (497-503)

Typology of service systems:

· Summoning assistance

· Keeping tabs

· Surveillance and seclusion

· Delivery at a distance

Effect of teleservice:

· Expanding web of indirect relationships

· Telerobotics

· Teleservice paradox (some teleservice will still depend on local providers)

· Electronic fronts, architectural backs

VanderPloeg & Berdahl, “”Urban Finance”

Fiscal crisis caused by

· Rapid population growth

· “Fringe” growth (sprawl)

· Poor revenue growth

Response:

· Focus on core competencies

· Expand user fees & set “correct price” for services

· Adapt alternative service delivery mechanisms (“contract out”)

· Enhance capital financing (“leverage”)

· Innovate in income sources

Garrett Hardin, “Tragedy of the Commons”

Adam Smith’s “Invisible hand”
Tragedy of the Commons—gain to self, cost spread among all, so all pursue action, resulting in collapse (and loss to all)
Morality of action is systems-sensitive (action alone is not determinative)

Appeal to conscience is counter-evolutionary (the conscientious will choose not to breed, and so eventually die out)

Solution: Abandon commons in favor of “mutual coercion mutually agreed on.”

Planning

Kaiser & Godschalk, “Twentieth Century Land Use Planning”

Early influences:

Daniel Burnham’s 1909 plan for Chicago
1928 Standard City Planning Enabling Act (confusion about difference between master plan & zoning ordinance)
Edward Bassett’s 1938 The Master Plan

Midcentury Comprehensive Planning

Section 701 of 1954 Housing Act: Specified contents of comprehensive development plan

Land use plan (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and public purpose)
Plan for circulation facilities
Plan for public utilities
Plan for community facilities

TJ Kent’s Urban General Plan (1964). Should be a complete, comprehensible document suitable for public debate, and should be adopted by the legislative body. Should include:

General physical design for the future
Goals & policies
Summaries of background conditions, trends, issues, problems, and assumptions

F. Stuart Chapin, Jr’s Urban Land Use Planning (1957, 1965)

Statement of objectives
Description of existing conditions & future needs
Mapped proposal for future development of community
Program for implementing plan (zoning, subdivision control, housing code, public works expenditure program, urban renewal program)

Contemporary Plans

Land Use Design plan
Land Classification plan (development priorities planning)
Verbal Policy plan
Development Management plan
Hybrid plan: integrating design, policy, and management

Consistency
Concurrency
Compactness
Economic development
Sustainability

Duany & Plater-Zyberk, “The Neighborhood, the District, and the Corridor”

Neighborhood

Center & edge
¼ mile radius
Balanced mix of activities (dwelling, shopping, working, schooling, worshipping, recreating)
Fine network of interconnecting streets
Priority to public spaces and appropriate location of civic buildings

District

More specialized, approaching single-use

Corridor

Continuous element (not leftover space at edges)
Connects & separates neighborhoods
Visibly continuous

Ebenezer Howard, “Town-Country Magnet”

Town/Country Magnet
Garden City Concept (32,000 people on 1,000 acres of land)

Satellite cities separated by permanent green space and connected by public transportation (rail)
Public core (“Central Park”)
Houses & Gardens
Workshops & factories

LeCorbusier, “A Contemporary City”

3,000,000 people
Industrial City with surrounding Garden Cities
City must be opened up for air
Street as “workshop” and sized for function.
Basic Principles:

De-congest city centers
Augment densities
Increase means for getting about
Increase parks & open space

A city built for speed is a city built for success

Saskia Sassen, “The Impact of the New Technologies and Globalization on Cities”

New forms of centrality

“Center” is no longer a simple link to geographic entity like “downtown”

CBD remains a key form of centrality

BUT—La Defense (Paris) & The Docklands (London)

Grid of nodes of intense business activity (Zurich, Frankfurt)
Formation of transterritorial “center” via telematics & intense economic transactions

Ascendance of finance has devastating impacts on

Other industries
Particular sectors of population
Entire economies

Concentration and Redefinition of the Center

New technologies require

complete redundancy of telecommunications systems
high carrying capacity
often, own private exchange (or T-1 line)

Service Intensity & Globalization

Sharp growth in global economic activity

Raises scale and complexity of transactions
Increases service intensity in organization of all industries
Economic core of banking and service activities replaces older manufacturing-oriented core

Formation of a new production complex

Supports freestanding specialized service sector (“Producer services”)
Locate near producers of key inputs or partners in joint production of complex services

Region in global information age

Regionalization of economic sector has boundaries set by time of reasonable commute to major production complex
Global economic cities have stronger orientation to global markets than to their hinterlands

Manuel Castells, “European Cities, the Informational Society, and the Global Economy”

“The New History”

Technological informational revolution (not determinant, but running through all)
Information handling supersedes material production and service provision
Formation of global economy

Crises of identity

National identity (and retreat to neolibertarianism or neonationalism)
Environmental movement
Women’s movement

Spatial transformation of major cities

Informational global economy driven by national/international business centers
New managerial technocratic political elite (torn between attraction to peaceful comfort of boring suburbs and exciting, but hectic and expensive, urban life)
Urban space differentiated in social terms, while remaining functionally interrelated and physically contiguous (which creates tension)

Informational City

3 simultaneous processes

Reinforcement of metropolitan hierarchy
Decline of old dominant industrial regions that were unable to adapt
Emergence of new regions

Success depends on ability to combine

Informational capacity
Quality of life
Connectivity to network of metropolitan centers

3 “Cities”

“Informational City” (space of flows over space of places)
Global City
Dual City (polarized occupational structure)

Spatially coexisting, socially exclusive groups & functions
Resulting tension leads to “defensive spaces”
Cosmopolitan elites vs. tribal locals tied to community

Challenge of the Future—articulate a globally oriented economic city with a locally rooted society and culture

Local government will be the focus of this process

Rather than mastering the entire complexity of globalism, governments will deal with specific problems in specific local circumstances
To succeed, local governments must

Foster citizen participation
Collaborate and network with each other
Work within their historical as well as future identity

A Great Good Place

V. Gordon Childe, “The Urban Revolution

3 stages—savagery (wild food), barbarism (some cultivated plants), civilization (writing and cities)
Cities characterized by size and density of settlement

Density determined by food supply
Cities require regular production of social surplus (not all labor goes to generating food)
Surplus leads to social division of labor

Cities are distinguished from earlier villages by:

Size & density of population
Composition and function of population
Surplus capital concentrated by king or deity
Monumental public buildings symbolizing concentration of social surplus
Ruling class
Systems for recording information, & exact sciences
Invention of writing
Artistic expression
Importation of raw materials
Social & political community to which craftsmen could belong (craftsmen not itinerant)

HDF Kitto, “The Polis”

Greeks preferred to live in independent town or village, walk out to his work, and spend rather ample leisure time talking in town or village square.
The name for the Greek city-state was “polis.” It meant

Citadel
Town
State
Polity
The people in the city
Way of life

Aristotle wrote, “Man is a creature who lives in a polis.”

Friedrich Engels, “The Great Towns”

“Great Towns” are

Individuals crowded together, within a limited space
Dissolution of mankind into “monads”
Results in “social war”—war of each against all
The “social war” is carried on by means of capital (the control of the means of subsistence and production), which means that the disadvantages of such a system fall mostly on the poor.

The condition of the working class

Working-class quarters are sharply separated from middle-class
Working-class conditions are squalid and unhealthy

Janet Abu-Lughod, “The Islamic City”

Traditional Islamic cities

Population categorized by relation to the umma (community of believers), and thus the state
Neighborhood was crucial building block of city
Islamic gender segregation led to architectural and spatial demands
Property law established pre-existing rights for individuals and collective users of land & real property

Access to entrances takes priority over thoroughfares or public use of land

Frederick Law Olmstead, “Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns”

Large size & density of towns affects health & morals because

Unhealthy air
Tendency to regard others in a guarded way

Remedies

Air is disinfected by sunlight & foliage
Can separate dwellings from commerce (since town walls are no longer required)
Make special provisions on some streets for trees to remain as permanent furniture (perhaps in space in front of house)
Accommodations for recreation to counteract enervating effects of town life

Exertive vs. Receptive recreation (which is further divided into gregarious and neighborly activity)
Numerous small grounds preferable to single large one, if connected by boulevards

“If the great city is laid out little by little and chiefly to suit the views of land-owners, acting only individually…to many [it] will amount to nothing.”
There should also be a large, regional park located near the great towns, connected by Park-ways to various parts of the city.

Camillo Sitte, “Art of Building Cities”

Aristotle: “A city should be built to give its inhabitants security and happiness.”
Public squares in ancient cities were “rooms”--like concert halls without ceilings

The forum was the “principal room of the house”
Today, squares lack the pedestrian circulation they enjoyed in older times
Statues are placed in the middle of squares, rather than decorating the sides

Enclosed Character of Public Squares

Enclosure is necessary for harmonious effect
Only one street at the angle of each square—like turbine arms
Streets enter square at right angles, rather than parallel
Infinite perspective of long street broken by monumental portal or several arcades.

William H. Whyte, “The Design of Spaces”

Best-used plazas

Supply creates demand
Sociable places
Higher than average proportion of women

Factors for success

People’s movements are one of the great spectacles of a plaza
Location is important—must tap a strong flow of pedestrians
Close to bus-stops is good
Sunlight, aesthetics, and shape of the space are important, but not determinative
Seating and relationship to the street are the key factors

Seating

Integral seating
Sitting height—1-3’
Ledges and spaces “two backsides deep” are most attractive
Pedestrian circulation through & within plazas should be encouraged
Benches are not very good for sitting—they tend to be immovable, and people generally sit only on the ends
Chairs are better than benches—movable
Grass is good for sitting, too

Relationship to the street

The street functions as part of the plaza or square
Street corner is the most vital space of all
Do not “wall off” the plaza from the street or sidewalk

Louis Wirth, “Urbanism as a Way of Life”

Cities are characterized by

Large size
Density
Heterogeneity (diversity)

Results in

Substitution of secondary for primary contacts
Declining social significance of the family
Spread of voluntary organizations (people of similar interests organized into groups)
Personal disorganization, crime, and mental disease
Manipulation by symbols & stereotypes managed by unknown others

WEB DuBois, “The Negro Problem”

Slum is noisy and dissipated, but not brutal
When one group of people suffer all these little differences of treatment and discrimination and insults continually, the result is either discouragement, or bitterness, or over-sensitiveness, or recklessness. And a people feeling thus cannot do their best.

James Q. Wilson, “Broken Windows”

Feeling of safety affected by

Crime
Public order (being bothered by disorderly people)

Solution is to elevate public order

Which will discourage crime
“If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.”

Vandalism occurs once communal barriers (sense of mutual regard and obligations of civility) are lowered by actions that signal that “no one cares.”

In response to fear, people avoid one another, weakening controls

Situation has deteriorated since WWII, because

Easier to move away from neighborhood problems
Lack of police authority

Initially, role of police was “watchman”—maintaining order. Solving crimes was a late addition
Essence of police role in maintaining order is to reinforce informal control mechanisms of the community itself
This means police activity should be shaped by neighborhood standards rather than rules of the state

But raises risk of police becoming agents of neighborhood bigotry
But we think of law in individualistic terms, rather than communal

Two traditions of communal involvement in maintaining order

Community watchmen
Vigilantes

Police ought to protect communities as well as individuals; need to measure community losses as well as individual ones.

MSU