Urban Social Geography - 3 oktober
How to study urban social geography
● Ontology - What can be said to exist (Heidegger - Dasein)
● Epistemology - Idealism, empiricism, realism – How we can get knowledge
● Theory - Explanation and prediction
Urban research paradigms
● Paradigm – Revolutionary changes, school, set of ideas
● Discourse – Own perspective of understanding
Positivism and quantitative approach
● Descriptives of geographical structures of cities using statistical data (maps, graphs)
● Scientific, objective, descriptions of cities
● Values and attitudes of the observer do not influence the analysis
● Only empirical sciences deliver valid knowledge
Changing urban context
● Socio-spatial dialectics – Process whereby people (actors) shape the structure of
cities and at the same time are affected by the urban structure
● Actors – Demographic changes, neo-liberal policies (key role of private sector),
post-fordism, flexible regime, dualisation of markets (low and high value)
● Structures – Architecture, urban forms, social stratification
Five terms for your glossary
- Paradigm – Set of ideas
- Discourse – Verbal / written exchange of ideas, bril waarmee je naar de wereld kijkt
- Socio-spatial dialectics
- Ontology X Epistemology – The study of existence X Getting knowledge
- Actor X Structure
Urban Social Geography - 10 oktober
Wellman: Community question
- Higher spatial mobility of the population – Development of transport and technology
- Replacing face-to-face contacts by distance contacts
- Delocalization of relationships from the place of residence
- Neighbourhood – Spatial dimension, area around the place of residence
- Community – A group of people sharing a trait, physical space or culture
Three arguments: Community lost, Community saved and Community transformed
Community lost
- Classic urban theories – Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel
- Chicago school – Louis Wirth, Robert E. Park
- Historical context: industrialization and urbanization
- Idealized view of live in villages and small cities - community based on primary ties
, - Fear of the city - secondary and anonymous ties
- The loss of community in the city
- Very small number of empirical studies
Ferdinand Tönnies
- 1855-1936
- Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (Community and society)
- Highlights the differences of pre-industrial rural life and urban life in industrial society
Gemeinschaft (community)
- Prevailed as a form of social organization in pre-industrial society, countryside
- Based on positive and spontaneous emotional ties, primary ties
- Shared values, spiritual traditions and blood ties
- Daily contact, interdependence in work
- Kinship and friendship ties, neighborhood
- People know each other and have a place in their social system
Gesellschaft (society)
- Industrialism, capitalism and urbanization
- Interpersonal ties based on calculation and profit
- Lack of close family ties and friendships
- Ties are based on treaties and laws
- Money economy
- Relations to land and neighborhood are not important anymore
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
- Interested in space
- Negative evaluation of transformation
- Overestimated ties in medieval city vs complete loss of community in urban village
- Very simplistic view – however, it generated the interested in the research of the
nature of communities
- Beginning of community studies
Émile Durkheim
- 1858 - 1917
- The Division of Labor in Society – 1893
- Typology based on changes in the nature of social ties among people and the
change of social solidarity
- Mechanical and organic solidarity
Mechanical solidarity
- Traditional society, rural areas
- Tradition society = a conglomerate of high number of small communities
- Everyone performs all types of activities (no specialization)
- Mechanical: The ties are determined and not able to change within the community
- The integrity: collective consciousness and repressive norms
- Communities are homogeneous
, Organic solidarity
- Industrial society, industrial city
- Strong professional differentiation
- Division of labour leads to specialization and mutual reliance
- Individual - free from feudal restrictions, choice of job, more opportunities to socialize
- Solidarity is based on mutual need of one to another
- Both progress and threat to society - a danger of social anomie, not sufficient
integration, isolation
Georg Simmel
- 1858-1918
- Compared to Tönnies and Durkheim (level of society) - Simmel on the levels on
individuals
- Influenced Chicago school (Robert E. Park, Louis Wirth)
- Everyday life in the city, organization of activities, way of thinking
- Don't look at society as a structure or system, but as a web of interactions between
people
- Raising the question of how stable institutions are
Metropolis and mental life
- Relationship between the urban environment and the individual's psychological
experience
- Traditional society: Social relations based on trust or kin (primary relationships) and
feudal economy bases on exchange trade
- Industrial society: Dominated by impersonal and specialized social relations
(secondary relationships) and cash-based economy and rational calculation of
profit and loss
- Key role of money economy
- Small towns: Personal ties, feelings and emotional relationships
- Cities: Blasé attitude
- Role of clock
- Freedom of urban population
- To be continued by Chicago School: Social disorganization
Community saved
Post-war community studies
- Social scientists divide to examine the theory of social disorganization (Chicago
school)
- 50s and 60s - a number of empirical community studies denied the theory of social
disorganization
- Outer perspective of inner cities - chaotic
- The city has a variety of social world that are territorially defined and which have a
life based on local institutions
Community saved
- Existence of communities within urban neighborhoods
How to study urban social geography
● Ontology - What can be said to exist (Heidegger - Dasein)
● Epistemology - Idealism, empiricism, realism – How we can get knowledge
● Theory - Explanation and prediction
Urban research paradigms
● Paradigm – Revolutionary changes, school, set of ideas
● Discourse – Own perspective of understanding
Positivism and quantitative approach
● Descriptives of geographical structures of cities using statistical data (maps, graphs)
● Scientific, objective, descriptions of cities
● Values and attitudes of the observer do not influence the analysis
● Only empirical sciences deliver valid knowledge
Changing urban context
● Socio-spatial dialectics – Process whereby people (actors) shape the structure of
cities and at the same time are affected by the urban structure
● Actors – Demographic changes, neo-liberal policies (key role of private sector),
post-fordism, flexible regime, dualisation of markets (low and high value)
● Structures – Architecture, urban forms, social stratification
Five terms for your glossary
- Paradigm – Set of ideas
- Discourse – Verbal / written exchange of ideas, bril waarmee je naar de wereld kijkt
- Socio-spatial dialectics
- Ontology X Epistemology – The study of existence X Getting knowledge
- Actor X Structure
Urban Social Geography - 10 oktober
Wellman: Community question
- Higher spatial mobility of the population – Development of transport and technology
- Replacing face-to-face contacts by distance contacts
- Delocalization of relationships from the place of residence
- Neighbourhood – Spatial dimension, area around the place of residence
- Community – A group of people sharing a trait, physical space or culture
Three arguments: Community lost, Community saved and Community transformed
Community lost
- Classic urban theories – Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel
- Chicago school – Louis Wirth, Robert E. Park
- Historical context: industrialization and urbanization
- Idealized view of live in villages and small cities - community based on primary ties
, - Fear of the city - secondary and anonymous ties
- The loss of community in the city
- Very small number of empirical studies
Ferdinand Tönnies
- 1855-1936
- Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (Community and society)
- Highlights the differences of pre-industrial rural life and urban life in industrial society
Gemeinschaft (community)
- Prevailed as a form of social organization in pre-industrial society, countryside
- Based on positive and spontaneous emotional ties, primary ties
- Shared values, spiritual traditions and blood ties
- Daily contact, interdependence in work
- Kinship and friendship ties, neighborhood
- People know each other and have a place in their social system
Gesellschaft (society)
- Industrialism, capitalism and urbanization
- Interpersonal ties based on calculation and profit
- Lack of close family ties and friendships
- Ties are based on treaties and laws
- Money economy
- Relations to land and neighborhood are not important anymore
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
- Interested in space
- Negative evaluation of transformation
- Overestimated ties in medieval city vs complete loss of community in urban village
- Very simplistic view – however, it generated the interested in the research of the
nature of communities
- Beginning of community studies
Émile Durkheim
- 1858 - 1917
- The Division of Labor in Society – 1893
- Typology based on changes in the nature of social ties among people and the
change of social solidarity
- Mechanical and organic solidarity
Mechanical solidarity
- Traditional society, rural areas
- Tradition society = a conglomerate of high number of small communities
- Everyone performs all types of activities (no specialization)
- Mechanical: The ties are determined and not able to change within the community
- The integrity: collective consciousness and repressive norms
- Communities are homogeneous
, Organic solidarity
- Industrial society, industrial city
- Strong professional differentiation
- Division of labour leads to specialization and mutual reliance
- Individual - free from feudal restrictions, choice of job, more opportunities to socialize
- Solidarity is based on mutual need of one to another
- Both progress and threat to society - a danger of social anomie, not sufficient
integration, isolation
Georg Simmel
- 1858-1918
- Compared to Tönnies and Durkheim (level of society) - Simmel on the levels on
individuals
- Influenced Chicago school (Robert E. Park, Louis Wirth)
- Everyday life in the city, organization of activities, way of thinking
- Don't look at society as a structure or system, but as a web of interactions between
people
- Raising the question of how stable institutions are
Metropolis and mental life
- Relationship between the urban environment and the individual's psychological
experience
- Traditional society: Social relations based on trust or kin (primary relationships) and
feudal economy bases on exchange trade
- Industrial society: Dominated by impersonal and specialized social relations
(secondary relationships) and cash-based economy and rational calculation of
profit and loss
- Key role of money economy
- Small towns: Personal ties, feelings and emotional relationships
- Cities: Blasé attitude
- Role of clock
- Freedom of urban population
- To be continued by Chicago School: Social disorganization
Community saved
Post-war community studies
- Social scientists divide to examine the theory of social disorganization (Chicago
school)
- 50s and 60s - a number of empirical community studies denied the theory of social
disorganization
- Outer perspective of inner cities - chaotic
- The city has a variety of social world that are territorially defined and which have a
life based on local institutions
Community saved
- Existence of communities within urban neighborhoods
