IMY Slides

Students:
Here are some of my slides from last Wednesday's lecture. Sorry, but the formatting was lost; I can't upload files to blogger unfortunately.
AC



Alternative Ideals?
Her ideal: “city life as a vision of social relations affirming group difference.” (227)

What benefits does she claim difference offers?


“Liberal” Individualists
How do liberal scholars see the individual?
the self as a “unity,” separated and bounded
“propelled by their own private desires”
a “consumer-oriented conception of human nature”
Politics are “goods instrumental to the achievement of individual desires”
“Liberal social ontology has no place for a concept of social groups” (228)
Who does this remind you of?



Young’s Objections
First, stale conversation:
Although these writers “recognize the totalizing and circular character of this debate…they affirm one or the other “side” of the dichotomy because that dichotomy…is conceived as exhausting all logical positions” (229)
Secondly, the community ideal has real consequences.


Consequences of Community Ideal
Denies difference
“Communitarianism represents an urge to see persons in unity with one another in a shared whole” (229)
“expresses a desire for social wholeness, symmetry, a security and solid identity which is…affirmed by others unambiguously” (232)



Community’s Undesirable Political Consequences
“Myth of community” (234)
Inherently produces exclusion / values homogeneity
Carries racial or ethnic connotations, shared culture
Community-based social movements risk further polarization (235-6)
I.e. feminist movement revealed internal divisions over sexuality, race, etc



City Life as a Normative Ideal I
OK, so what’s city life?
“I mean a form of social relations which I defined as the being together of strangers”
“City life is composed of clusters of people with affinities…and frequently venture beyond such familiar enclaves” (237)
BUT
“Their being together entails some common problems and common interests, but they do not create a community of shared final ends…” (238)



City Life as a Normative Ideal II
What does she mean here?

“A normative ideal of city life must begin with our given experience of cities, and look there for the virtues of this form of social relations. Defining an ideal as unrealized possibilities of the actual, I extrapolate from that experience four such virtues” (238).




Differentiation Without Exclusion
Young agrees with Fischer that cities foster
The creation of new social groups [I.e. subcultures]
Tolerance for others, as compared to rural life (238)
Ideally, difference could occur without Exclusion or Homogeneity
Real world example:
Many city neighborhoods have a distinct ethnic identity, but members of other groups can dwell in them” (239)

The City as Erotic
“take pleasure in being open to and interested in people we experience as different” (239)
Eating at ethnic restaurants
Taking walks through new neighborhoods
The built environment itself as a source of pleasure



Reality Check: Social injustices produced by 3 processes
Cities beholden to larger forces
Competition for “flighty” corporate capital (241)
State and federal governments restrict city politics (242)
Local land use & zoning decisions undemocratic
Dominated by pro-growth machine (244)
Spatial segregation
Within cities (246)
Between cities (247)



Empowerment without Autonomy
Typical response to urban injustices fail
Vision of decentralized power unrealistic
Doesn’t make larger structures go away (249-50)
Retreat to autonomy backfires
Emphasizing privacy enhances exclusion (251)

Empowerment emphasizes “expanding the range of decisions…made through democratic processes” (251)



Real World Solutions

Neighborhood assemblies
Regional governance (252)

WTF--these are not new!
But informed by concepts of scale and difference, they take on new meaning

Final Paper Exemplar

Students:

Here is a fine example of an introduction for the final paper.

As you can see, it is extremely well-written: the language is SIMPLE, although the ideas are COMPLEX. Always strive for that combination.

Secondly, the student succinctly presents the relevant part of each author's argument, and sets up points of agreement as well as disagreement.

Finally, the last two sentences I feel are outstanding examples of what I mean by offering a thesis statement, and setting up an argument to carry through the paper. The students clearly tells me what we gain by comparing these two authors, and why the comparison is significant.

I wish you all the best of luck finishing your papers-- remember to use as FEW quotes as possible, and a shorter paper is better than repeating yourself just to fill 5 pages!

AC

A Comparison of Wirth and Young on Cities and Community

Intro

Two insightful urban theories considering relationships between community and urban society and are those found in Louis Wirth’s (1938) article “Urbanism as a Way of Life” and Iris M. Young’s (1990) chapter “City Life and Difference”. Both Wirth’s article and Young’s chapter explore the differences between interpersonal relationships found in communities and those found in urban society. Wirth and Young agree on many of the differences between the two. However, while Wirth seems to conclude that the issues presented by the new urban way of life would be improved or absent in community-based society (13), Young concludes that the community structure is not a positive solution, and instead suggests a reform of the decision making structures found at the local, city and regional levels (251). An examination of the basic assumptions that underline the two authors’ arguments reveals that while they are both founded on the assumption that individual’s act rationally and that social structures do indeed affect group behavior, they differ in that while Wirth assumes a conflict based model of social order in the city Young assumes a consensus based model. This comparison serves to illustrate how dependent social theory is upon each of the philosophical foundations it presupposes.