Visual Lecture/Tutorial Summery
Urban Places and Social Problems
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Sociologie | jaar 2 | premaster
Urban Places and Social Problems | 7332D004BY
2025/2026
,Week 1: Simmel
Wirth
Lefebvre
Week 2: Burgess
Montalva Barba
Logan & Molotch
Week 3: Robinson
Davis
Roy
Caldeira
Weel 4: Scott
Le Corbusier
Week 5: Jane Jacobs
Duneier
Week 6: Nightingale
Pinkster
Elliot-Cooper
,
, Week 1: Simmel (mental life)
How does modern urban reality reshape the individual? & Who is the urbanite?
the metropolis/city is a structure, a massive,
impersonal, rapidly changing social environment
that imposes super-individual (meaning: larger
than any one person) forces on people
the metropolis (structural) mental life (individual) Personality traits of the urbanite:
“the intensi cation of nervous “blasé attitude” (protective), cold, aloof, • Cold
stimulation”: fast pace, diversity and reserved, latent antipathy • Reserved
number of changing activities, people, • Aloof
interactions, sensations, and images • Indi erent
• Blasé
money economy and division of labor rational, matter-of-fact, calculating, • Lonely
(industrial capitalism): centrality of punctual, intellectual, indi erent to • Rational
exchange value; anonymous market; uniqueness • Punctual
calculation and maximization of pro t; • Precise
standardized time (as resource) • Calculating
• Intellectual
larger social circle and ever-expanding greater personal freedom and room for • Free
horizons individuality, more cosmopolitan, lonely • Cosmopolitan
The “urbanite” is the person shaped by and responding to the tension between individual personality and the super-individual forces of the
metropolis.
Individual <—> society
agency <—> structure
Simmel does not see the urbanite as simply passive. Rather, the individual uses agency (developing blasé attitude, becoming rational and
calculating) to cope with, and navigate, structural pressures. > But that agency itself is shaped by structure.
structure reshapes the individual the individual develops attitudes to cope attitudes then de ne what “the urbanite” is
ff fi fi ff fi
Urban Places and Social Problems
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Sociologie | jaar 2 | premaster
Urban Places and Social Problems | 7332D004BY
2025/2026
,Week 1: Simmel
Wirth
Lefebvre
Week 2: Burgess
Montalva Barba
Logan & Molotch
Week 3: Robinson
Davis
Roy
Caldeira
Weel 4: Scott
Le Corbusier
Week 5: Jane Jacobs
Duneier
Week 6: Nightingale
Pinkster
Elliot-Cooper
,
, Week 1: Simmel (mental life)
How does modern urban reality reshape the individual? & Who is the urbanite?
the metropolis/city is a structure, a massive,
impersonal, rapidly changing social environment
that imposes super-individual (meaning: larger
than any one person) forces on people
the metropolis (structural) mental life (individual) Personality traits of the urbanite:
“the intensi cation of nervous “blasé attitude” (protective), cold, aloof, • Cold
stimulation”: fast pace, diversity and reserved, latent antipathy • Reserved
number of changing activities, people, • Aloof
interactions, sensations, and images • Indi erent
• Blasé
money economy and division of labor rational, matter-of-fact, calculating, • Lonely
(industrial capitalism): centrality of punctual, intellectual, indi erent to • Rational
exchange value; anonymous market; uniqueness • Punctual
calculation and maximization of pro t; • Precise
standardized time (as resource) • Calculating
• Intellectual
larger social circle and ever-expanding greater personal freedom and room for • Free
horizons individuality, more cosmopolitan, lonely • Cosmopolitan
The “urbanite” is the person shaped by and responding to the tension between individual personality and the super-individual forces of the
metropolis.
Individual <—> society
agency <—> structure
Simmel does not see the urbanite as simply passive. Rather, the individual uses agency (developing blasé attitude, becoming rational and
calculating) to cope with, and navigate, structural pressures. > But that agency itself is shaped by structure.
structure reshapes the individual the individual develops attitudes to cope attitudes then de ne what “the urbanite” is
ff fi fi ff fi
