Cities and Urban Life:

Globalization and the Modern Metropolis

Accompaniment to the superb Giddens and Sutton (2013) (left) Chapter 6, with an assortment of additional accompanying resources

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18th century Paris: the original modern metropolis

.(Top left) The straight, organized boulevards of the modern metropolis

(Below) The Parisian arcades: the world’s first ‘shopping malls’ displaying consumer goods from around France’s colonized world

In the 18th century, Paris was home to between 500,000 and 1 million people.

It was, to most visitors, “shocking” in size; to many “wondrous and beautiful”, for others “the worst kind of hell.” (G&S2013: 205)

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• .New York City:A major hub for international diplomacy,Fundamental to global popular culture,Melting-pot (or “salad bowl” ) of global ethnicities

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Crucially, NYC is home to Wall Street- the “command centre” of the global, free-market economy

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Tokyo: The most populous, and biggest, metropolis in the world; a megalopolis of epic proportions,Home to the world’s 2nd-largest stock exchange,A “major cultural centre with many museums, art galleries and festivals”

How does 18th century Paris compare to the modern “mega

city”?

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By 21st century standards, 18th century Paris was

unremarkable; comparable to Dublin (Ireland), Turin (Italy) and

Danang (Vietnam)- all of which have around 1million inhabitants

. Tokyo, by contrast, has somewhere

between 35 and 39 million people, depending on the definition of city boundaries

Today, there are 24 megacities; 12 of which have more than 20million, with two (Tokyo and Guangzhou) already over 30million

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Please refer to the excellent “Rise of the Megacities” Guardian interactive resource:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/interactive/2012/oct/04/rise-of-megacities-interactive

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tLNOH8ulN5g/Tx8J1Lmw2cI/AAAAAAAAAE0/iILvFyVZe8s/s1600/megacities.jpg

To better “zoom in” please visit:

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G&S (2013): “Large cities provide unrivalled work opportunities and cultural experiences and yet…many find them

lonely and

unfriendly places.”

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Urban life is at once intensely social, and hopelessly

anonymous

Unlike those of rural, agrarian societies (across time and space), urban dwellers

frequently interact with strangers, or vague

acquaintances

.G&S (2013): “In a city or town, think about the number

of times you interact everyday with people you do not know…”

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“…the list might include the bus driver, shop workers, students and even people with whom you

exchange ‘pleasantries’ with on the street.”

Urban Studies:The study of the metropolis’ development; and the lifestyles and

personality type that characterizes modern cities

Urbanization and urbanism are synonymous with modernity, and as such were as hotly debated by the classical social theorists as they are today.

A&G (2013): “A useful way of evaluating urban theories is to assess the way they handle the ‘four Cs of urban experience’:

1- culture (the built environment, belief systems, cultural production)

2- consumption (of public and private goods and services)

3- conflict (over resources and development plans

4- community (the social life and make-up of populations)”

The “metropolis” in classical social theory

• ‘metropolis’ (n) = mother city (Latin) applies to all ‘central hub’ cities of sizes variant according to the time in history (unlike the term ‘mega city’, or ‘megalopolis’ , which is widely used for cities strictly over 10 million)

• Hence the “metropolis sociology” of theorists writing centuries

ago is still relevant despite the huge differences in size; the metropolis still performs similar functions

Metropolis=mētēr  (mother) + polis (city)

Ferdinand Tonnies (1887):Gemeinschaft and gesselschaft

• Study of effects of urbanization on social bonds and relations, and community solidarity

Gemeinschaft“Community bonds”

• gemeinschaft= the pre-modern, rural/agrarian way of life; strong community ties

• very personal and often lifelong relationships between neighbors/community members

• “Sense of duty and commitment” between them

Tonnies grew up in rural Germany, and moved to the city as a young adult

Gesselschaft“Associational bonds”

• The modern, metropolitan way of life

• People bonding through “association”; which was often “short-lived, transitory and instrumental” (A&G 2013)

• As interactionists like Goffman have shown, urbanism presents a complex minefield of often short, but nonetheless crucial, encounters;

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• Ties based on short-term circumstance rather than the deep, holistic bonds of the rural way of life

• Modern urbanites could not depend on each other in the same way as rural folk; and relationships are means-t0-ends rather than pure and holistic

Activity:

Tonnies’ theory is similar to Durkheim’s notion of mechanical and _______ similarity, and Parsons’ ________ variables’. Please revise these and note the links between the theories.

Georg Simmel (1903):The Metropolis and Mental Life

• Tonnies, Durkheim and Weber described the effects of the metropolis on society; but what

about the individual?

• Simmel is unique among the “founding fathers” in his more- “socio-psychological” approach, which later resonated in the work of Erving Goffman

See Classic Studies 6.1

Page 207

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• Simmel held that the rapid pace of city life, with it’s bombardment of “external stimuli” produced a strange effect on the individual

• These “external stimuli” included buildings, monuments, art, consumer

goods and other people

.• Metropolitan individuals develop a

“blasé attitude”

• they are disinterested and bored despite what –in cities like Berlin, London and Paris- was the pinnacle of human advancement

• Individuals “distance themselves from each other emotionally and physically”; leading to what could be seen as coldness, unfriendliness or impersonality

.• Simmel held that this attitude had an ancient, evolutionary cause; it was a natural need for an individual to :

“…preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence” in the face of what –for both “primitive” and “modern” individuals were often overwhelming circumstances

- In other words, the battle to preserve oneself and not be dominated or swallowed up by one’s environment

Full text:

http://www.altruists.org/static/files/the%20metropolis%20and%20mental%20life%20(georg%20simmel).htm

The Chicago School and the metropolis• 1920s-1940s: theorists of the University of Chicago e.g.

Robert Park and Louis Wirth are very influential still today

• Two key areas: (i) urban ecology (ii) urbanism

• (i) Urban ecology: ecology is a physical science of the adaptation of biological organisms to their environment

• In nature, organisms form systems and equilibriums

• The Chicago School studied the metropolis in these terms; how they appear, grow, and operate

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• For example, cities appear and develop initially based on natural resources e.g. water, fertile soil, or man-made resources like railways or trade routes

• Within the metropolis, biological notions of

competition, invasion and succession apply as cities become ordered into zones based on individuals and families’ adaptation to the social and economic (i.e. natural) system

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• Robert Park (1952):

“a city is … a great sorting mechanism which (automatically, naturally) selects out of

the population as a whole individuals best suited to live in a particular

region or milieu”

Cities tend to form rings, and within these

rings class-based segments

.• e.g. in the late-modern city centre

are big-business headquarters and stores, and older private homes;

• further out are larger residential neighborhoods for working classes and less “important” commercial properties;

• and even further out are

“suburbs” mainly for

middle-classes which typically have less commercial properties nearby

.(ii) Urbanism the study of the urban way of life

• The same tradition as Weber, Simmel and Tonnies previously

• Louis Wirth (1938): again, urban life

features more fleeting, short-term, associational, contacts: he called these “secondary” rather than the “primary” ones that dominate rural life

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• City life is much more

“fast-paced”

• G&S(2013):

“Competition prevails over cooperation and social relationships appear flimsy and brittle”

.• ‘urbanism’ begins in the city, but is a general

form of modern social existence spreads somewhat to the countryside also as more and

more rural people visit the city and have friends and kin there

• Wirth (1938) did however find some positives: cities

were places of increased tolerance, diversity, choice and progress

Activity

using examples from your home city, provide some real-life examples of Wirth (1938), Simmel (1903) or Tonnies (1897)s’ points

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Criticisms of the pessimism of Wirth (1938), Simmel (1903) and Tonnies (1897):

- Their urbanism is that only of their home countries e.g. Germany and the USA; it doesn’t necessarily apply to the metropolis of the

contemporary developing world e.g. Sri Lanka, Vietnam

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- The impersonality and lack of community may have been very exaggerated:

communities do exist within the metropolis, and many

people make many more “real” friendships there than they would in the countryside

- Urban life presents opportunity for membership of a plethora of

clubs and associations

Activity

(a)using examples from your home city, provide some real-life examples of these criticisms

(b)Think of one more criticism e.g. regarding the fast pace of life