Students:
I'll be holding extra office hours after class on Wednesday next week. I've already met with a couple of students about their papers, and these sessions are very helpful toward getting your thoughts organized, and developing a strong thesis.
In the mean time see you tomorrow and have a good long weekend.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sam Lyon - Friedmann response
Sam Lyon: Monday 3PM USP 3
In “The World City Hypothesis” John Friedmann argues that segregation, or spatial polarization, arises from increasing class polarization among workers in cities. This theory of segregation differs from Zorbaugh and Waquant’s theories in its primarily economic nature. Howard Zorbaugh’s theory focuses on social groups. Segregation, he would argue, arises because individuals exercise their freedom to live where they want by choosing to live with others of the same national or cultural background. Zorbaugh’s theory is very social – individuals prefer to live with those similar to them and in fact naturally end up living in ethnic enclaves. Wacquant, similarly focuses on the social aspect of segregation. Wacquant argues that because of the great deal of infamization and stigmatization of low income service industry worker neighborhoods, individuals living in those neighborhoods hold the belief that living there is bad and that the people who live there are bad. Individuals seek to escape the neighborhood the moment they are financially able. This means that it is nearly impossible for this group to unify and take significant action. Friedmann would disagree with both Zorbaugh and Wacquant. Friedmann argues that huge income gaps between managerial elites and low skilled workers, large scale immigration and structural tends in job evolution lead to segregation. While in most cities there is a wage gap between richer and poorer citizens, in semi-peripheral cities richer citizens are likely to make 10 times as much as poor citizens. Furthermore, inflation and unemployment have contributed to the development of a huge low wage employment sector and eradicated the middle wage sector, limiting upward mobility. Waves of immigrants fall into the low wage sector and never move out of it. On the metropolitan level, Friedmann says this results in the spatial segregation of poor to inner city urban ghettos. This could be because, as he argues, poorer idividuals have almost no control of the wealth in the city. They must live here they can afford.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Relevant Article
Students:
This is a tragic story, but one that relates directly to our course topic for last week and this week.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/17/ml-un-disaster-risks-051709/?world
It probably is even more relevant for USP2. For those USP2 vets out there, this article may remind you that
This is a tragic story, but one that relates directly to our course topic for last week and this week.
- I would argue David Harvey has Nairobi slum residents in mind when he says we all have a right to the city, but few can exercise this right. But, as students smartly mentioned on Friday, how would one go about organizing a global social movement that connects the world's poor, who often live in slums?
- I would also argue cities like this somewhat confound the pieces by Friedman and Sassen. How would a city like Nairobi fit into Friedman's schema?
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/17/ml-un-disaster-risks-051709/?world
It probably is even more relevant for USP2. For those USP2 vets out there, this article may remind you that
- "nature" and cities are not separate but highly interconnected
- slums are one of the most pressing global problems we face
- subsaharan Africa is one of the sites of contemporary urbanization and needs major help to address its staggering inequality
UN: Growth of slums boosting natural disaster risk
3:00 a.m. May 17, 2009
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The rampant growth of urban slums around the world and weather extremes linked to climate change have sharply increased the risks from "megadisasters" such as devastating floods and cyclones, a U.N. report said Sunday.
The study – which examines natural disaster trends and strategies to reduce potential catastrophes – also noted that millions of people in rural areas are at higher risk from disasters such as landslides where forests have been stripped away or crippling droughts blamed on shifting rainfall patterns.
Much of nearly 200-page report restates warnings from previous studies about unchecked urban growth and shortsighted rural planning. But it also seeks to sharpen the apparent link between climate change and the severity and frequency of major natural disasters including severe droughts and epic storms.
"Climate change magnifies the interactions between disaster risk and poverty. On the one hand, it magnifies weather-related and climatic hazards. On the other hand, it will decrease the resilience of many poor households and communities to absorb the impact and recover," said the report, which was released in the Gulf nation of Bahrain.
At least 900 million people now live in shantytowns and other makeshift settlements in cities vulnerable to disasters such as cyclones, flooding or earthquakes, the report said. Those populations are growing at a rate of about 25 million a year, it said.
One model predicted many of the more than 19 million people in greater Manila would be swamped by a tsunami hitting the capital of the Philippines.
India, China and other parts of Asia were at a particularly high risk from so-called "megadisasters" such as last year's Cyclone Nargis, which killed an estimated 140,000 people in Myanmar, and the massive quake in China that claimed nearly 90,000 lives and left 5 million people homeless.
"The linkages between disaster risk, poverty and climate change ... form a particularly tightly interlocked group of global challenges," the report said.
The lead author, Andrew Maskrey, acknowledged it was impossible to halt the migration to cities by people seeking work.
"But there are ways to alleviate the conditions of intense poverty if leaders choose to take the steps," he said. "It's all about whether there is the political will."
Maskrey noted initiatives in several cities, including Bogota, Columbia, and Karachi, Pakistan, to try to improve conditions in squatter settlements and shantytowns.
"There are all these factors coming together: urban poverty, climate change, migration to cities from rural areas," he said. "We're saying: This is bringing about a situation of impending catastrophes, but there's also something we can do about it to lower the risks."
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/17/ml-un-disaster-risks-051709/?worldWednesday, May 13, 2009
Harvey Motivated ?
Sam Lyon
Harvey - Right to the City
Harvey cites several examples of a process he calls “accumulation by dispossession”. Harvey has argued by this point that capitalists can succeed and prosper only by continually reinvesting their surplus product. Thus capitalists take measures to ensure that there is a market for that surplus product to be invested in. One such means is the redevelopment of the city, what Harvey calls “urban restructuring” (33). Harvey argues that this process occurs at the expense of the urban poor and working class, who occupy land that, otherwise developed, would be of greater value to capitalists as locations of development and the creation of surplus absorption areas.
Harvey cites the slums in Mumbai as an example of this process. He write that in Mumbai one of the slums, Dharavi, has a speculative value for developers estimated to be 2 billion dollars. Harvey writes that this value brings daily mounting “pressure” for capitalists and the state to “capture” that land and develop it (35). From Harvey’s previous argument, it seems clear that the area would indeed have benefit to developers seeking profit or future investment locales. However, what exactly does Harvey mean by “pressure”? Do the “financial powers” Harvey speaks of see personal incentive in taking the land? The word pressure seems to imply an external force compelling the financial powers to take the land and continue their capital expansion.
If Harvey means pressure as an external force that the capitalist invest/reinvest cycle demands of financials at risk of losing their source of income, then his suggestions later in the paper for greater democratization of surplus control do not really address the main issue, which is that this cycle necessitates dispossession by virtue of its very function. If, instead, by pressure he means that individuals are more likely to act to secure these investment sites the more valuable they are, it would seem democratization of the surplus sources would inhibit the implementation of that urge and prevent dispossession.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thoughts on the Paper
Students:
Someone asked me about a timeline for finishing the paper on time, and here was my reply. I realize many of you work best under pressure/fully plan on procrastinating. So take this as a suggestion.
This week. Pick your authors and outline their arguments.
Next week. Come in to office hours with those outlines and just your
thoughts about why you like these authors. Out line each author in terms
of our weekly theoretical categories. Think about what
assumptions/implications they have in common, and how they differ.
Week 9. If you haven't been to office hours yet definitely come this week. Develop a thesis statement and outline the paper. Run a first draft if possible.
Week 10. Bring a draft to office hours [with your questions about it--I won't read drafts]. Revise and turn in on Friday.
But I encourage all of you to come to my office hours, even if it's just to bounce ideas around. I feel that that part of the process is much more important than the writing. If you sit down to write this paper and haven't thought about it, you're probably going to stare at the screen a while.
Someone asked me about a timeline for finishing the paper on time, and here was my reply. I realize many of you work best under pressure/fully plan on procrastinating. So take this as a suggestion.
This week. Pick your authors and outline their arguments.
Next week. Come in to office hours with those outlines and just your
thoughts about why you like these authors. Out line each author in terms
of our weekly theoretical categories. Think about what
assumptions/implications they have in common, and how they differ.
Week 9. If you haven't been to office hours yet definitely come this week. Develop a thesis statement and outline the paper. Run a first draft if possible.
Week 10. Bring a draft to office hours [with your questions about it--I won't read drafts]. Revise and turn in on Friday.
But I encourage all of you to come to my office hours, even if it's just to bounce ideas around. I feel that that part of the process is much more important than the writing. If you sit down to write this paper and haven't thought about it, you're probably going to stare at the screen a while.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Weeks 7-9 posts
Students:
I apologize for not posting my Weber comments until the last minute, I think they would have been helpful for your assignment. As a result, here are my comments on Weeks 7-9.
You're on your own for Week 10--I know that many of you are already familiar with New Urbanism, so you shouldn't need my help.
WEEK 7
Remember that this week’s readings focus on the relationship between cities and CAPITALISM, or larger economic structures.
Ullman
Vocab: areal does not mean “not real,” but is an adjective meaning, “of or relating to or involving an area”
I
A nice overview of the work that has come before him, and why it’s unsatisfying for the question he wants to answer.
II
Keep in mind Ullman is both relating, and critiquing, Christaller’s theory about the distribution and location of cities.
For those who have taken USP1 or 2, much of the discussion about cites and their surroundings should be review—despite the fancy graphs—because this section emphasizes the relationship between city and “tributary area” or hinterland.
• What is the relationship posed by this theory?
o Where ‘should’ cities be placed in a productive area according to the theory?
o How far apart should cities be?
o What kinds of cities does the theory recognize, and how are their locations theorized?
• What assumptions about land does this theory make? How does it presume the economy works?
• Can you think of cities that do & do not meet these assumptions? Where does the author suggest this theory is accurate to actual urban locations? Why might this be true for THOSE places?
III
How is ‘centrality’ measured by Christaller? What alternatives does Ullman suggest, and what might you suggest for today’s cities?
IV
Ponder the types of “modifiers” that Ullman makes to central place theory.
For example, with the example of Latin American “Sunday towns,” I’m sure many of you are familiar with the story of Junipero Serra and the California missions. Why are they where they are, and what explains their distance from one another?
Ullman further recognizes that the theory is static and has to reflect changing empirical reality like the development of road systems. What other features of contemporary society [technological, economic etc] would you suggest affects where cities are?
V
Ullman suggests the theory does apply to the “non-industrial” areas of the U.S., and points toward Iowa as an example. California’s version of Iowa, I suppose, is the Central Valley. Would you say it works there? I encourage you to consult google maps or some other data and see if the theory seems to fit.
David Harvey, The Right to the City
David Harvey is one of the most original and influential social scientists of the past 50 years. In addition, he’s not just an ivory tower thinker but someone who cares deeply about the real world.
Even if you don’t care about that, I hope you enjoy this video of David Harvey’s recent appearance on Democracy Now! He addresses many questions about our current crisis, and offers an overview of his argument in The Right to the City.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkTMO93Jyp0&feature=player_embedded
You can find the rest of the interview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ9dpuyx3Ps&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq6S-RCwg80&feature=player_embedded
But don’t think that watching an interview gets you off the hook for reading what might be your favorite essay of the quarter! For those of you who took USP2 with Prof. Pezzoli, you might remember the argument that city-regions could be the scale for a new form of citizenship. Here Harvey takes up a similar argument, suggesting that instead of the rights under capitalism—private property and profit—we extend the notion of human rights to democratize our cities.
You might also remember Molotch and Weber’s arguments when you read Harvey, to think about whom cities have historically served.
Spend some time with the first few pages, and ponder Harvey’s point that “The right to the city…is a right to change ourselves by changing the city” (23).
Harvey analyzes the formation and growth of cities [the process of urbanization] as tied to the creation and reinvestment of surplus [for our purposes profit]—which precedes, but becomes intertwined with the capitalist process. This is why he considers cities a “class phenomenon” (24).
Most of the introductory section is devoted to the incessant dynamism necessary for capitalism, that profits must endlessly be reinvested and any barriers to this cycle be overcome. Take the time to understand his arguments, as they are key to setting up his main point that “urbanization has played a particularly active role, alongside such phenomena as military expenditures, in absorbing the surplus product that capitalists perpetually produce in their search for profits” (25). This means he sees the process of urbanization as aiding capitalism itself.
Urban revolutions
Given that we’re in a capitalist crisis, and we’re considering remaking our cities—the ‘green revolution’—consider his analysis of 1850s Paris and the postwar U.S. under Robert Moses.
--What do these examples say about why, and how, cities get built and rebuilt?
--Pay attention to his analysis of scale, in particular how each crisis involved a larger scale than previously conceived.
--Also keep in mind that each crisis is resolved through new debt and financing techniques that never work forever but end in collapse.
Girding the globe
For those of you looking for answers to our current capitalist crisis, pay close attention to Harvey’s analysis. We just lived through a period in which urbanization, especially the home ownership, was a means of capitalist expansion. But this, like all other periods of capitalist growth, ended in crisis.
Property and pacification
Again, take a second to think through his comment that urban lifestyles, and the city itself, have become commodities—things that are bought and sold for profit. Many of you may recognize the urban features of division he describes on (32)—many are certainly in La Jolla! Consider the possibilities for a democratized city under these conditions, as Harvey says are much less likely, but much more important.
Dispossessions
Keep in mind the central point here, that because the “economic necessity”—i.e. capitalist crisis—eternally occurs, so too does the process of urban reorganization. And, because this is a class project, urbanization happens at the expense of those most marginalized. Of course, urbanization preceded capitalism, but it takes a certain form, operates by the logic of “accumulation by dispossession,” under the capitalist mode of development. Here Harvey is arguing that dispossession of the poor—literally kicking them out either through eminent domain or by pricing them out of areas—is tantamount to the absorption of surplus, or the ability to realize higher profits on the same land. This is how urbanization aids capitalism.
Formulating demands
I hope you have enjoyed the piece up to this far, as it is a clear-eyed examination of many recent urban & economic situations with which you may be already familiar. Now, similar to Molotch’s conclusion, consider the prospects for movements which might challenge the capitalist process of urbanization.
Spend some time with his closing point that focusing on the right to the city matters “precisely because it focuses on the question of who commands the necessary connection between urbanization and surplus production and use” (40).
**This is the crux of his argument about rethinking the rights to the city**
p.s. for all of you pissed about 165$ million in AIG bailout bonuses, keep in mind the figure for 2007—a banner year for capitalist failure--$32 BILLION.
WEEK 8 GLOBAL CITIES
For those of you who took USP2, when Prof. Pezzoli would say things like certain cities have “command and control capabilities” over the world economy, he was referring to the arguments made by people like Friedmann and Sassen.
Friedmann, The World City Hypothesis
Spend some time slowly reading and re-reading the first page and a quarter. Among other things, you’ll note that
• He indicates that Zorbaugh and others’ view of cities as social ecologies has been thoroughly repudiated—cities do not grow ‘naturally’
• He intends this article NOT as a theory
o world cities are not all in the same, but have similar economic roles
o these roles relate to what he calls the “new international division of labor”—What do you think he means by this term?
o in particular, world cities perform key functions in managing the contradictions between a ‘global’ economy and national/territorial states
1. What does Friedman say determines structural changes in cities? How does he define a city?
i. VOCAB articulation = “to join”
2. What criteria does Friedman use to create a hierarchy of cities? Does the map based on his hierarchy seem true today?
3. What are the main industries in world cities [remember this is 1986], and what kinds of labor forces exist in such places? How do more peripheral cities differ?
4. .
5. How does Friedmann explain migration and immigration both in terms of why and where to people move?
6. Again this should be familiar to USP2 vets, but take a second to think through Friedman’s point about multiple, simultaneous, scales of inequality. How does he pose the relationship between class and spatial polarization? How does class polarization differ in core and peripheral areas, and in what ways are they similar? Finally, how does he explain the process of social polarization? Spend some time with Figure 2 to appreciate his argument here.
7. What are the economic costs, and social consequences, of the growth of world cities? Do you see parallels to Harvey’s argument here?
Overall, the goal here is to understand the patterns Friedmann sees. These economic/social/political patterns are the basis upon which he suggests the world city concept. Remember he doesn’t think all world cities are the same, that they are one thing, but that they have important features in common. Know these and you get his point.
p.s. for those of you who are interested in USP grad programs, I think Friedmann—who advised Prof. Pezzoli—is still at UCLA. People say he’s quite nice in person.
Saskia Sassen
We’re reading Sassen’s remarks regarding a revised edition of her book “The Global City.” So pay attention to the final paragraph of these introductory comments so that you know what she’s up to, and what perceptions she’s arguing against.
A New Conceptual…
This section is crucial to understand her argument:
• What trends does she say are significant, and motivate her study?
• What does she say is new about the world, and what is not new?
• What does she mean by “re-scaling”?
• Why did she use the term ‘global city’?
The Global City Model
Spend some time with these 7 hypotheses, and think about them in terms of empirical trends in the real world that motivate her theorizing about the emergence and importance of ‘global cities.’
• Keep in mind that some of these empirical trends are seemingly contradictory. Number 1, for example, discusses how firms have greater need for centralized coordination because their operations are increasingly geographically dispersed.
• Follow her hypotheses along, and get an understanding of what kinds of activities characterize contermporary firms, what challenges and economic pressures they face, and how this dictates where they locate?
o For example, think about her arguments regarding the location and even importance of corporate headquarters vs. their specialized service outsourcers. Where do these organizations locate, and why? What connections between cities does she see and why?
• (xxii) Again pay close attention here as Sassen lays out the point of her argument, and what she’s arguing against. In particular, what does she think is new about globalization vs. what’s not, and what does she mean by “the need to produce” global control capabilities? These are essential to her point.
The Global City Model
I think you need to pay close attention to the beginning of this section, and can skim the rest (354-ff).
Make sure you read (346-53) closely, focusing in particular on how she distinguishes herself from Friedmann’s “world city” hypothesis.
• What’s the difference between a global city and world city (349)? Which concept, and the meaning its author gives to each, do you think explains more about the world?
• What similarities are there between the processes of social and spatial inequality seen by Friedmann and Sassen (361-2)?
WEEK 9
Iris Marion Young
Feel free to start with the very last paragraph of the essay to get a quick understanding of her point. She’s going to critique the value/norm/ideal of community, and argue for a different standpoint, or perspective, from which to think about how we’d like cities to be. In particular, she’s going to explore the potential of difference, something she feels has much to offer cities but is erased in conceptions of community.
This is also a long piece, and all we have for the week, so I suggest breaking your reading of it into 2 sessions at minimum. This article has a lot to offer, so give it the time it deserves.
Pay close attention to the quote from Jane Jacobs! Reflect on the meaning of her statement, and remember it as you go through the essay.
Right away also notice that Young is making an argument about why theory is important, what it allows us to do.
Then look for the substance of her position:
• Why does she critique the ideal of community?
• What does she offer instead?
o Take a moment to think about the vision she offers—even if you yourself value community, try to imagine effective city life without it.
o Keep an eye out for the new concepts she tells us she’s going to introduce.
The Opposition…
Here Young is setting up two positions, liberals who praise individualism, and critics who praise community. You don’t have to know both of these positions thoroughly, but make sure you understand her point at the end that people having this argument presume that it is a two-sided debate, with no other alternatives.
• What does she mean that “indidivualism and community have a common logic underlying their polarity, which makes it possibly for them to define each other negatively” (228-9)
The Rousseauist…
Though her language can get pretty heady at times, keep in mind her basic point here. What is the dream, the goal of people who theorize about the benefits of community?
VOCAB shared subjectivity = fancy way of saying people share a point of view, or see the world the same way. Same goes for “mutual intersubjective transcendance,” which for us means multiple people reaching a shared world view/point of view.
Keep in mind her final point as well: the dream of community has “serious political consequences” (232).
Privileging…
What vision of politics does the ideal of community posit (232-3)? What kind of interactions and political process does it praise?
Why does she argue this vision “avoids politics” (233-4)?
• What is the “important political question” (234)? This is key to the alternative to community she’s going to build in the essay…
Undesirable…
What is the central consequence of the community ideal?
What is the process by which Young suggests commmuity has such consequences (234-5)?
What space does Young allow for the positive benefits of building community, and what limits does she suggest are important (236)?
City Life as Normative…
This is a very important section. You should be well-familiar with her review of how all too often authors are nostalgic for Gemeinschaft even though it’s totally unrealistic for most of humanity that lives in big cities. This is why Young insists we have to start with a realistic portrayal of modern urban existence if we are to have effective theories about it.
• How does Young define “city life” (237)?
o How does this differ from traditional visions of community?
• What virtues does city life offer (238-40)? Do you agree with these, see others?
o Pay close attention to her vision of politics. Strive to understand her goal that differences are “unassimilated”—how does that differ from “transcending them,” often the goal of community?
Social Injustice
Young recognizes that among the virtues of contemporary city life there are horrific inequalities, injustices.
What are the three processes she identifies as generating these issues?
How do these compare to arguments made by Molotch, Harvey, or Friedmann/Sassen?
Empowerment without Autonomy
Follow Young closely here: she agrees with others that democratizing decisions is good, but argues against the ideal of “small autonomous local communities” (248)? Why?
How does she define empowerment, and how does it produce a different vision from autonomy (251-5)?
• What are the roles of regions in her analysis, and why does she argue for regional governance?
I apologize for not posting my Weber comments until the last minute, I think they would have been helpful for your assignment. As a result, here are my comments on Weeks 7-9.
You're on your own for Week 10--I know that many of you are already familiar with New Urbanism, so you shouldn't need my help.
WEEK 7
Remember that this week’s readings focus on the relationship between cities and CAPITALISM, or larger economic structures.
Ullman
Vocab: areal does not mean “not real,” but is an adjective meaning, “of or relating to or involving an area”
I
A nice overview of the work that has come before him, and why it’s unsatisfying for the question he wants to answer.
II
Keep in mind Ullman is both relating, and critiquing, Christaller’s theory about the distribution and location of cities.
For those who have taken USP1 or 2, much of the discussion about cites and their surroundings should be review—despite the fancy graphs—because this section emphasizes the relationship between city and “tributary area” or hinterland.
• What is the relationship posed by this theory?
o Where ‘should’ cities be placed in a productive area according to the theory?
o How far apart should cities be?
o What kinds of cities does the theory recognize, and how are their locations theorized?
• What assumptions about land does this theory make? How does it presume the economy works?
• Can you think of cities that do & do not meet these assumptions? Where does the author suggest this theory is accurate to actual urban locations? Why might this be true for THOSE places?
III
How is ‘centrality’ measured by Christaller? What alternatives does Ullman suggest, and what might you suggest for today’s cities?
IV
Ponder the types of “modifiers” that Ullman makes to central place theory.
For example, with the example of Latin American “Sunday towns,” I’m sure many of you are familiar with the story of Junipero Serra and the California missions. Why are they where they are, and what explains their distance from one another?
Ullman further recognizes that the theory is static and has to reflect changing empirical reality like the development of road systems. What other features of contemporary society [technological, economic etc] would you suggest affects where cities are?
V
Ullman suggests the theory does apply to the “non-industrial” areas of the U.S., and points toward Iowa as an example. California’s version of Iowa, I suppose, is the Central Valley. Would you say it works there? I encourage you to consult google maps or some other data and see if the theory seems to fit.
David Harvey, The Right to the City
David Harvey is one of the most original and influential social scientists of the past 50 years. In addition, he’s not just an ivory tower thinker but someone who cares deeply about the real world.
Even if you don’t care about that, I hope you enjoy this video of David Harvey’s recent appearance on Democracy Now! He addresses many questions about our current crisis, and offers an overview of his argument in The Right to the City.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkTMO93Jyp0&feature=player_embedded
You can find the rest of the interview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ9dpuyx3Ps&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq6S-RCwg80&feature=player_embedded
But don’t think that watching an interview gets you off the hook for reading what might be your favorite essay of the quarter! For those of you who took USP2 with Prof. Pezzoli, you might remember the argument that city-regions could be the scale for a new form of citizenship. Here Harvey takes up a similar argument, suggesting that instead of the rights under capitalism—private property and profit—we extend the notion of human rights to democratize our cities.
You might also remember Molotch and Weber’s arguments when you read Harvey, to think about whom cities have historically served.
Spend some time with the first few pages, and ponder Harvey’s point that “The right to the city…is a right to change ourselves by changing the city” (23).
Harvey analyzes the formation and growth of cities [the process of urbanization] as tied to the creation and reinvestment of surplus [for our purposes profit]—which precedes, but becomes intertwined with the capitalist process. This is why he considers cities a “class phenomenon” (24).
Most of the introductory section is devoted to the incessant dynamism necessary for capitalism, that profits must endlessly be reinvested and any barriers to this cycle be overcome. Take the time to understand his arguments, as they are key to setting up his main point that “urbanization has played a particularly active role, alongside such phenomena as military expenditures, in absorbing the surplus product that capitalists perpetually produce in their search for profits” (25). This means he sees the process of urbanization as aiding capitalism itself.
Urban revolutions
Given that we’re in a capitalist crisis, and we’re considering remaking our cities—the ‘green revolution’—consider his analysis of 1850s Paris and the postwar U.S. under Robert Moses.
--What do these examples say about why, and how, cities get built and rebuilt?
--Pay attention to his analysis of scale, in particular how each crisis involved a larger scale than previously conceived.
--Also keep in mind that each crisis is resolved through new debt and financing techniques that never work forever but end in collapse.
Girding the globe
For those of you looking for answers to our current capitalist crisis, pay close attention to Harvey’s analysis. We just lived through a period in which urbanization, especially the home ownership, was a means of capitalist expansion. But this, like all other periods of capitalist growth, ended in crisis.
Property and pacification
Again, take a second to think through his comment that urban lifestyles, and the city itself, have become commodities—things that are bought and sold for profit. Many of you may recognize the urban features of division he describes on (32)—many are certainly in La Jolla! Consider the possibilities for a democratized city under these conditions, as Harvey says are much less likely, but much more important.
Dispossessions
Keep in mind the central point here, that because the “economic necessity”—i.e. capitalist crisis—eternally occurs, so too does the process of urban reorganization. And, because this is a class project, urbanization happens at the expense of those most marginalized. Of course, urbanization preceded capitalism, but it takes a certain form, operates by the logic of “accumulation by dispossession,” under the capitalist mode of development. Here Harvey is arguing that dispossession of the poor—literally kicking them out either through eminent domain or by pricing them out of areas—is tantamount to the absorption of surplus, or the ability to realize higher profits on the same land. This is how urbanization aids capitalism.
Formulating demands
I hope you have enjoyed the piece up to this far, as it is a clear-eyed examination of many recent urban & economic situations with which you may be already familiar. Now, similar to Molotch’s conclusion, consider the prospects for movements which might challenge the capitalist process of urbanization.
Spend some time with his closing point that focusing on the right to the city matters “precisely because it focuses on the question of who commands the necessary connection between urbanization and surplus production and use” (40).
**This is the crux of his argument about rethinking the rights to the city**
p.s. for all of you pissed about 165$ million in AIG bailout bonuses, keep in mind the figure for 2007—a banner year for capitalist failure--$32 BILLION.
WEEK 8 GLOBAL CITIES
For those of you who took USP2, when Prof. Pezzoli would say things like certain cities have “command and control capabilities” over the world economy, he was referring to the arguments made by people like Friedmann and Sassen.
Friedmann, The World City Hypothesis
Spend some time slowly reading and re-reading the first page and a quarter. Among other things, you’ll note that
• He indicates that Zorbaugh and others’ view of cities as social ecologies has been thoroughly repudiated—cities do not grow ‘naturally’
• He intends this article NOT as a theory
o world cities are not all in the same, but have similar economic roles
o these roles relate to what he calls the “new international division of labor”—What do you think he means by this term?
o in particular, world cities perform key functions in managing the contradictions between a ‘global’ economy and national/territorial states
1. What does Friedman say determines structural changes in cities? How does he define a city?
i. VOCAB articulation = “to join”
2. What criteria does Friedman use to create a hierarchy of cities? Does the map based on his hierarchy seem true today?
3. What are the main industries in world cities [remember this is 1986], and what kinds of labor forces exist in such places? How do more peripheral cities differ?
4. .
5. How does Friedmann explain migration and immigration both in terms of why and where to people move?
6. Again this should be familiar to USP2 vets, but take a second to think through Friedman’s point about multiple, simultaneous, scales of inequality. How does he pose the relationship between class and spatial polarization? How does class polarization differ in core and peripheral areas, and in what ways are they similar? Finally, how does he explain the process of social polarization? Spend some time with Figure 2 to appreciate his argument here.
7. What are the economic costs, and social consequences, of the growth of world cities? Do you see parallels to Harvey’s argument here?
Overall, the goal here is to understand the patterns Friedmann sees. These economic/social/political patterns are the basis upon which he suggests the world city concept. Remember he doesn’t think all world cities are the same, that they are one thing, but that they have important features in common. Know these and you get his point.
p.s. for those of you who are interested in USP grad programs, I think Friedmann—who advised Prof. Pezzoli—is still at UCLA. People say he’s quite nice in person.
Saskia Sassen
We’re reading Sassen’s remarks regarding a revised edition of her book “The Global City.” So pay attention to the final paragraph of these introductory comments so that you know what she’s up to, and what perceptions she’s arguing against.
A New Conceptual…
This section is crucial to understand her argument:
• What trends does she say are significant, and motivate her study?
• What does she say is new about the world, and what is not new?
• What does she mean by “re-scaling”?
• Why did she use the term ‘global city’?
The Global City Model
Spend some time with these 7 hypotheses, and think about them in terms of empirical trends in the real world that motivate her theorizing about the emergence and importance of ‘global cities.’
• Keep in mind that some of these empirical trends are seemingly contradictory. Number 1, for example, discusses how firms have greater need for centralized coordination because their operations are increasingly geographically dispersed.
• Follow her hypotheses along, and get an understanding of what kinds of activities characterize contermporary firms, what challenges and economic pressures they face, and how this dictates where they locate?
o For example, think about her arguments regarding the location and even importance of corporate headquarters vs. their specialized service outsourcers. Where do these organizations locate, and why? What connections between cities does she see and why?
• (xxii) Again pay close attention here as Sassen lays out the point of her argument, and what she’s arguing against. In particular, what does she think is new about globalization vs. what’s not, and what does she mean by “the need to produce” global control capabilities? These are essential to her point.
The Global City Model
I think you need to pay close attention to the beginning of this section, and can skim the rest (354-ff).
Make sure you read (346-53) closely, focusing in particular on how she distinguishes herself from Friedmann’s “world city” hypothesis.
• What’s the difference between a global city and world city (349)? Which concept, and the meaning its author gives to each, do you think explains more about the world?
• What similarities are there between the processes of social and spatial inequality seen by Friedmann and Sassen (361-2)?
WEEK 9
Iris Marion Young
Feel free to start with the very last paragraph of the essay to get a quick understanding of her point. She’s going to critique the value/norm/ideal of community, and argue for a different standpoint, or perspective, from which to think about how we’d like cities to be. In particular, she’s going to explore the potential of difference, something she feels has much to offer cities but is erased in conceptions of community.
This is also a long piece, and all we have for the week, so I suggest breaking your reading of it into 2 sessions at minimum. This article has a lot to offer, so give it the time it deserves.
Pay close attention to the quote from Jane Jacobs! Reflect on the meaning of her statement, and remember it as you go through the essay.
Right away also notice that Young is making an argument about why theory is important, what it allows us to do.
Then look for the substance of her position:
• Why does she critique the ideal of community?
• What does she offer instead?
o Take a moment to think about the vision she offers—even if you yourself value community, try to imagine effective city life without it.
o Keep an eye out for the new concepts she tells us she’s going to introduce.
The Opposition…
Here Young is setting up two positions, liberals who praise individualism, and critics who praise community. You don’t have to know both of these positions thoroughly, but make sure you understand her point at the end that people having this argument presume that it is a two-sided debate, with no other alternatives.
• What does she mean that “indidivualism and community have a common logic underlying their polarity, which makes it possibly for them to define each other negatively” (228-9)
The Rousseauist…
Though her language can get pretty heady at times, keep in mind her basic point here. What is the dream, the goal of people who theorize about the benefits of community?
VOCAB shared subjectivity = fancy way of saying people share a point of view, or see the world the same way. Same goes for “mutual intersubjective transcendance,” which for us means multiple people reaching a shared world view/point of view.
Keep in mind her final point as well: the dream of community has “serious political consequences” (232).
Privileging…
What vision of politics does the ideal of community posit (232-3)? What kind of interactions and political process does it praise?
Why does she argue this vision “avoids politics” (233-4)?
• What is the “important political question” (234)? This is key to the alternative to community she’s going to build in the essay…
Undesirable…
What is the central consequence of the community ideal?
What is the process by which Young suggests commmuity has such consequences (234-5)?
What space does Young allow for the positive benefits of building community, and what limits does she suggest are important (236)?
City Life as Normative…
This is a very important section. You should be well-familiar with her review of how all too often authors are nostalgic for Gemeinschaft even though it’s totally unrealistic for most of humanity that lives in big cities. This is why Young insists we have to start with a realistic portrayal of modern urban existence if we are to have effective theories about it.
• How does Young define “city life” (237)?
o How does this differ from traditional visions of community?
• What virtues does city life offer (238-40)? Do you agree with these, see others?
o Pay close attention to her vision of politics. Strive to understand her goal that differences are “unassimilated”—how does that differ from “transcending them,” often the goal of community?
Social Injustice
Young recognizes that among the virtues of contemporary city life there are horrific inequalities, injustices.
What are the three processes she identifies as generating these issues?
How do these compare to arguments made by Molotch, Harvey, or Friedmann/Sassen?
Empowerment without Autonomy
Follow Young closely here: she agrees with others that democratizing decisions is good, but argues against the ideal of “small autonomous local communities” (248)? Why?
How does she define empowerment, and how does it produce a different vision from autonomy (251-5)?
• What are the roles of regions in her analysis, and why does she argue for regional governance?
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Week 6 Reading Notes
WEEK 6
Weber
Reading Weber can often seem like listening to your grandfather drone on about a bunch of seemingly unrelated topics, and you never really know what the point is. So my comments are geared to help you find the thread through his argument.
First, some vocab.
Polis= Greek city-state. Think Athens.
Occident= west/Europe, i.e. not the orient, which ~ Middle East + Asia
Proletariat= contemporary conception of the working class. Not just workers, but workers like us who don’t own the means of production [tools, computers, etc] but go to work for a capitalist boss.
State= national government
Most important, look for clues to Weber’s argument that citizenship
• Is a particular historical creation, i.e. it hasn’t been around forever
• Varies by time and place in which it has existed, i.e. isn’t always the same thing
• Is fundamentally tied to the emergence of cities
How is the city NOT defined for Weber, and then how does he define it [hint “certain ultimate fundamental facts”] (235-6)?
What is the significance of fortification, i.e. walls? (235)
Why did citizenship, and cities, arise in the west and not in the orient according to Weber (237-8)? Attempt a sketch of his model of occidental and oriental development.
What characterized citizenship, and cities, in the ancient [Greek], as well as medieval periods? (239-45). I suggest you develop a two-column table to capture the similarities and differences Weber lays out between the two eras. The following questions are meant as a beginning
• What changed with the advent of democracy?
• What organizations did one have to be a member of to be a citizen?
• What were the economic relations in each era?
• What changes in military techniques [i.e. who mattered for military victory] reduced the role of soldiers and heightened the importance of artisan’s guilds (245)? Understanding Weber’s comments about the military on 240 & 245 are key to understanding his historical argument regarding citizenship and the city.
• Finally, how was urban freedom lost in each era? What does Weber say about the relationship between cities and the larger political/economic systems they inhabit during different historical periods? [hint it’s a similar story but cities lose out to different larger entities, with different consequences for capitalism]
Take a second to soak in this last point about the development of the modern nation-state, an organizational form we all take for granted. How do we conceive of our citizenship? What does it mean to be an American?
Even if you feel you don’t fully understand everything in this piece, take the time to try and answer most of these questions, because when you do that you’ll have the basics down, and then lecture and section will reinforce the important themes.
Peterson, The Interests of the Limited City
Right away Peterson lays out his thesis: “we can speak of the interests of that structured system of social interactions of a city” (17). Our task now is to figure out what that means.
Beginning with the first major section, what does this NOT mean (17)?
For those of you who did not like, or understand, Tiebout, enjoy pp 18-20. Read the bottom of 20-top 21 carefully to catch Peterson’s definition, and model, of a city’s interest.
What analogy does he make to compare cities with? Do you buy it?
NOTE that although he insists that cities seek to improve their position along three axes, he’ll only discuss economic interests. If he had chosen social or political interests, could his analysis reach the same conclusions?
Nevertheless, let’s follow his argument.
22-4 What is the primary economic interest of the city?
How does that interest dictate how cities behave toward the three primary factors of production? What variations are there between cities’ ability to control/affect these factors? (24-9)
• Land
• Labor
o How are modern cities different than medieval, and different than nation-states
o What kind of labor do cities want, and how can they get such workers? What tools do they have to do so?
• Capital
o How can cities attract capital [i.e. investment money]?
(30) What problem do suburbs raise for his theory, and how does he acknowledge this?
(32-4) Again, enjoy and pay close attention to Peterson’s critique of Tiebout. Keep these critiques in mind as you read from the bottom of 34 through the end of the article. The arguments he raises against Tiebout’s model of reality are the basis of his conclusions about the limited interests of cities.
Peterson’s conclusions are quite dismal for cities that try to redistribute wealth to create equality, why?
Weber
Reading Weber can often seem like listening to your grandfather drone on about a bunch of seemingly unrelated topics, and you never really know what the point is. So my comments are geared to help you find the thread through his argument.
First, some vocab.
Polis= Greek city-state. Think Athens.
Occident= west/Europe, i.e. not the orient, which ~ Middle East + Asia
Proletariat= contemporary conception of the working class. Not just workers, but workers like us who don’t own the means of production [tools, computers, etc] but go to work for a capitalist boss.
State= national government
Most important, look for clues to Weber’s argument that citizenship
• Is a particular historical creation, i.e. it hasn’t been around forever
• Varies by time and place in which it has existed, i.e. isn’t always the same thing
• Is fundamentally tied to the emergence of cities
How is the city NOT defined for Weber, and then how does he define it [hint “certain ultimate fundamental facts”] (235-6)?
What is the significance of fortification, i.e. walls? (235)
Why did citizenship, and cities, arise in the west and not in the orient according to Weber (237-8)? Attempt a sketch of his model of occidental and oriental development.
What characterized citizenship, and cities, in the ancient [Greek], as well as medieval periods? (239-45). I suggest you develop a two-column table to capture the similarities and differences Weber lays out between the two eras. The following questions are meant as a beginning
• What changed with the advent of democracy?
- Why does Weber argue democracy occurred?
• What organizations did one have to be a member of to be a citizen?
• What were the economic relations in each era?
- What were the major sources of income in each?
- What were the relations between city and country/rural?
- What were the major classes in each?
- What characterized political freedoms in each era?
• What changes in military techniques [i.e. who mattered for military victory] reduced the role of soldiers and heightened the importance of artisan’s guilds (245)? Understanding Weber’s comments about the military on 240 & 245 are key to understanding his historical argument regarding citizenship and the city.
• Finally, how was urban freedom lost in each era? What does Weber say about the relationship between cities and the larger political/economic systems they inhabit during different historical periods? [hint it’s a similar story but cities lose out to different larger entities, with different consequences for capitalism]
Take a second to soak in this last point about the development of the modern nation-state, an organizational form we all take for granted. How do we conceive of our citizenship? What does it mean to be an American?
Even if you feel you don’t fully understand everything in this piece, take the time to try and answer most of these questions, because when you do that you’ll have the basics down, and then lecture and section will reinforce the important themes.
Peterson, The Interests of the Limited City
Right away Peterson lays out his thesis: “we can speak of the interests of that structured system of social interactions of a city” (17). Our task now is to figure out what that means.
Beginning with the first major section, what does this NOT mean (17)?
For those of you who did not like, or understand, Tiebout, enjoy pp 18-20. Read the bottom of 20-top 21 carefully to catch Peterson’s definition, and model, of a city’s interest.
What analogy does he make to compare cities with? Do you buy it?
NOTE that although he insists that cities seek to improve their position along three axes, he’ll only discuss economic interests. If he had chosen social or political interests, could his analysis reach the same conclusions?
Nevertheless, let’s follow his argument.
22-4 What is the primary economic interest of the city?
How does that interest dictate how cities behave toward the three primary factors of production? What variations are there between cities’ ability to control/affect these factors? (24-9)
• Land
• Labor
o How are modern cities different than medieval, and different than nation-states
o What kind of labor do cities want, and how can they get such workers? What tools do they have to do so?
• Capital
o How can cities attract capital [i.e. investment money]?
(30) What problem do suburbs raise for his theory, and how does he acknowledge this?
(32-4) Again, enjoy and pay close attention to Peterson’s critique of Tiebout. Keep these critiques in mind as you read from the bottom of 34 through the end of the article. The arguments he raises against Tiebout’s model of reality are the basis of his conclusions about the limited interests of cities.
Peterson’s conclusions are quite dismal for cities that try to redistribute wealth to create equality, why?
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