Term
| Why do cities promote individualism? |
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Definition
| Cities promote individualism because they promote productive specialization, which is when individuals specialize in a specific task, which works together with other tasks to create a greater good. By specializing in specific things, tasks can be completed faster, so there are larger quantities of food and other goods. Because of specialization people have different, individualized skills, so they can depend on each other. |
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Term
| Why did some early sociologists think individualism was a good thing? and a bad thing? |
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Definition
(-)Tonnies believed that cities bring people together physically but separate socially. He viewed cities as places where people are only good for what they can produce in goods. Individualism is bad b/c they're not working towards a common goal.
(+)Simmel feels that cities are good b/c people feel more free, even though the sights and sounds leave them detached from each other.
(-)Wirth notes that the density of people in cities cause people to tune each other out & are more stressed when talking to each other, compared to when bumping into somebody in a rural environment.
(+)Durkheim associates cities with specialization and believed individuals working on specific tasks formed a greater whole compared to the sameness of the rural area. |
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Term
| RTH - Venkatesh notes that "we ask more from the poor. What was he talking about? |
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Definition
When Chicago faced struggles of job loss in the past, the effects were less felt by the middle & upper class communities.
The RTH = neighborhood where the gov't/police pay less attention to, so they have to be more responsible for themselves. The poor communities have less resources, so they have to find employment on their own. Threat of shutting down public housing meant expecting much more from the poor than we expect from the middle and upper class. |
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Term
Despite the vocal demand for police raids on suspected gang members in RTH, why were police raids ineffective in RTH? |
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Definition
| They were ineffective because of the lack of security measures and illegal methods to which they searched the properties. The tenants had no say in what was being searched and the police openly admitted to illegally conducting the searches. The disorganized methods used during the sweeps accumulated only minor drug arrests and the motives behind the raids were questioned. |
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Term
| Why was the RTH project demolished instead of rehabilitated and provided with more resources? |
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Definition
They were too far gone. After decades of low community involvement and an inability to properly police the units, the RTH was falling into physical disrepair. This was the result of isolating the RTHs, which led to the prevalence of crime, violence, and gang activity.
There were a lack of jobs and a shrinking city budget, so the RTHs were becoming a financial burden for the city of Chicago to maintain. The demolishing of the RTHs was an effort to regain power since the city had lost control of delegation. |
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Term
| What was the main focus of Small's Villa Victoria study? |
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Definition
| The main focus of Small's VV study was the relationship b/w concentrated poverty and social capital, specifically looking at the mechanisms by which neighborhood poverty in VV affected local community participation & the residents' social ties to the middle class. |
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Term
| How did Small conduct his research for the VV study? |
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Definition
| Small used ethnographic case studies to inform the large-scale research. He combined observation with interviews to understand the social dynamics of the neighborhood. On the neighborhood level, he looked at variations in landscape and social isolation He was much more interested in cultural factors than structural. On the individual level he analyzed cultural framing and how agency leads to variations in choices and motivations. He acted under the premise that variation was not random and studied these variations in addition to commonalities. |
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Term
| What 3 indicators of social capital does Small look at in his VV study? |
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Definition
1. Community participation
2. Bonding: social ties to neighbors
3. Bridging: social ties to middle class |
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Term
| There were no major physical boundaries keeping residents of VV and the rest of Boston's South End from meeting each other, but Small describes socially constructed boundaries. What are these and how do they come about? |
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Definition
Socially constructed boundaries come from people's perception of a space, class, and race. If you perceive a space as dirty, dangerous, or disorganized, that could encourage you to create a boundary that you should not cross. Class was also a marker of boundaries b/w VV and Boston's South End. For example, the residents outside VV did not want to participate in the festival inside VV, but they were willing to donate money to the festival. As far as race, most people inside VV were Puerto Rican, different from the racial makeup of the rest of Boston's South End.
VV is a fixed community; it has no overlap with the surrounding community. All of their critical resources can be found within the boundaries, which meant that they had no need to venture outside of VV. The socially constructed boundaries reinforced the stereotypes that they had made for each other, which were that the rich people would meet crime and the poor people would be unwanted. |
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Term
| Use examples from the film, The Price of Renewal to illustrate bridging ties, bonding ties, and community participation. |
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Definition
Bridging ties were evidenced in many outside contributors to the community. Both non-profit and for-profit organizations were involved in the revitalization. Furthermore, outside corporations and enterprises were enticed to come into the rebuilt community, ultimately generating over 500 million in revenue.
Much of the success fond was due to the use of the community in the revitalization process. Referred to as bonding ties, many of the community members, familiar with the area, worked on the revitalization of homes and projects essentially putting the "neighbor" back into "neighborhood." Those familiar with the area were employed as police officers and teachers, thus creating a more comfortable atmosphere and strengthening the bond within the community. |
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Term
| Use examples from the film, The Price of Renewal to illustrate the tension b/w urban renewal and gentrification. |
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Definition
| Gentrification is the process where escalating home prices, due to revitalization actually harms the community by creating an area that is made unaffordable to the residents that have lived there. The renewal of City Heights was completed just before the housing increase of the early 21st century. As the home prices and rent amounts increased, many of the residents were forced out of the neighborhood they had been a part of for many years and, in some cases, helped rebuild. This created much animosity from residents who do not want the renovation but suffer the consequences from its regardless. |
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Term
| Why does Wilson differentiate b/w poverty and poverty combined with social isolation? |
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Definition
Wilson wanted to explain why poor people lived in inner cities and why poverty was prevalent among these individuals. To conduct his theory, he looked at 2 factors:
1) class
2) the larger economic structures
He concluded that the restructuring of the economy led to unemployment, which led to unequal outcomes. The shift from blue collar jobs to service sector jobs and the White Flight socially isolated poor minorities. Wilson differentiates this type of poverty from typical poverty b/c he notes that these socially isolated individuals lack ties to the middle class and have no opportunity to get a job. Thus, he classifies these minorities as the "underclass," who live in a vicious cycle of poverty and isolation. |
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Term
| How, according to Wilson, does social isolation make it very difficult to escape "the cycle of poverty"? |
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Definition
| It becomes difficult to escape this "cycle of poverty" b/c this acceptance of unemployment becomes a way of life for the underclass. When the affluent and the educated get the opportunity, they move away, which leaves the poor to dwell in the save disadvantageous boat with no networking. As a result, Wilson notes joblessness becomes a way of life for these individuals. |
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Term
| How does the film, The New Los Angeles, illustrate a socio-spatial perspective? |
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Definition
Socio-spatial perspective takes on the view of growth as the linked outcome of economic, political, and cultural factors in addition to the growth of the machine.
In the film, LA is affected by the economic investment of developers and government incentives, illustrated most effectively in the alliance formed b/w the developer, local gov't, along with politcal agency of unions in the Hollywood and Highland entertainment complex, in which the developer agreed to work with unions in exchange for gov't incentives in the amount of $90 million. |
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Term
| How does the film, The New Los Angeles, illustrate an ecological perspective? |
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Definition
| This approach studies cities as if they were ecosystems, where many parts are working together contributing to the city as a whole. Just like ecosystems, cities can be invaded so that the use of the land changes or that the people who use the land changes, just like different species of plants and animals can invade an ecosystem. These invasions can result in local businesses failing, people not being able to afford houses they once lived in, or old jobs losing importance. |
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