1. Political Science Nathaniel Butler
Prof. Alonso 12/11/2015
Political Science Final- Question 3 “Draft 2”
During the semester, I had the pleasurable time of exploring different sets of framework for
understanding the dynamics that shape contemporary U.S. cities. However, out of all of the
frameworks that I have experienced, the one that stood as the most convincing to me was
Urban Fortunes by Logan and Molotch. To be fair, I was originally critical of their assessment,
but reading Place Matters and the Naked City changed my assessment towards the text. The
arguments in the other course readings were a bit stronger when it came to bringing their
separate arguments across by themselves. However, assimilating all of the course readings as a
whole and figuring out my own conclusive theory made me realize that all of those texts in
unison makes the argument of Urban Fortunes a lot stronger than it first appeared to be on its
own. To reiterate the posed argument from Urban Fortunes, it stated that cities are in
competition with one another for capital, based on the sole purpose of increasing the exchange
value of the city in question. Global cities have more needs to meet, making it a necessity for
the exchange value to increase. This is done in a number of ways, including gentrification,
which increases the property value and attracts the middle to upper middle class to a certain
area. The culture that area contains increases property value, which promotes gentrification,
which attracts the upper middle class, franchise companies, and tourists to the city. All of that
chains into the main objective of the city, generating the capital to meet its needs, which is why

2. the Urban Fortunes piggybacks off the arguments of the other course readings in order to
bolster its own.
According to the revised third edition of Place Matters, the problems that are currently
facing American cities are largely political in origin, circling around a rising economic inequality
(p. 14). It’s not so much the existence of poverty, but the gap between the rich and the poor (p.
17). The text is not just documenting, but making an argument towards the claim that
technology and E-commerce would make cities obsolete. That was said on (p. 3), and on that
same page, the counter argument is that cities remain important due to the means of
intensifying personal interaction, and concentrated intellectual resources. Evolving from cities
to place as a whole (p. 4), the counter argument of Place Matters is our access to jobs and
public services, and the effectiveness is actually dependent on location of those things, and the
policies that govern them. My argument towards all of this is that place doesn’t matter because
of the policies and decisions already in place. Other areas that contains benefits and services
from an economic standpoint and are only products of the very same policies that bring other
areas to ruin.
Within the contents of the book, (p. 97) showed how political decisions containing more of the
weight when it mentioned the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment being put into effect
by U.S Congress. Congress allocated $70 million for 1,400 housing vouchers, giving poor families
a chance to move out of concentrated poverty areas. Notice how they used the words
“concentrated poverty areas” , anything that’s concentrated could come with the assumption
that whatever is happening to that district is done purposefully. The families were randomly

3. assigned between a control group of people who didn’t want to move, and the people who
took the voucher. Surprisingly, in a five-year span of the study, those who moved into the low
poverty neighborhoods actually worsened. It seemed to some people that through the
evaluation of the program, the two groups did not differ substantially on educational or labor
market outcomes. What exactly do those families bring to their supposed “New Life” in the low
poverty areas when they are even worse off upon arriving there? The answer is obvious, a high
wage job or profession demands more from you. Regardless of the fact of it being a higher
level of education, or a higher level of experience that could relate to the position, these are
things that these families were deprived of. What they already know was their means of
survival in the high poverty districts, which is something that doesn’t necessarily stand on par
from what is required from you.
This supports the argument from Urban fortunes by showing the strength of policy,
concentrated poverty areas are basically the remnants of areas that weren’t subjected to
gentrification, also standing as one of the final destinations of those who stood as victims of
gentrification. Policy works in hand with gentrification, catered to the idea that upper middle
class Caucasians is equivalent to an increase of income for private home investors. Instead of
them moving to another city, they concentrate the working class of predominately African
American citizens in a high poverty area, specifically making room for gentrification to increase
the property value to attract tourists and their wealthier counterparts. In (p. 111) of Urban
Fortunes, this showed by laying down the ground work of increasing the exchange value, and
the threat it stood to the neighborhood. The residents have little to no control over rent
increase, property renovation, or conversion. The neighborhoods of the poor are the most

4. vulnerable to gentrification (. 112-113 Urban fortunes), it’s implied that their very existence
damages the exchange value of the area. The chance of a good life for the poor are sacrificed
for the profits and rent enjoyed by the people living elsewhere. To top it off, they have a low
standing of economic and political power, making organizations that specifically represent their
interests a weak factor in destabilizing these harmful change to the area.
When it comes to the Naked City, Sharon Zukin explores the death and life of authentic
urban places. It was dependent on three particular factors that was introduced in the preface of
the text (p. ix-xv), those factors were capital, state, and culture. The idea was to keep these
three factors separate in the case of authentic urban places, as well as having culture stand on
its own as a probable element. My argument is simple in this case, I believe that out of the
three factors that Zukin brings across the text of Naked City, culture is nothing more than a
glorified decoration that blends in with state towards the cause of gentrification. I say this due
to the fact that culture might allow an area to keep a similar outlook due to their authentic
background (p. 120-122), gentrification still affects the heart of the city it’s involved with as
long as the property value can be raised. Culture can’t stand as a separate entity, simply due to
the fact that culture is a business.
Starting with Brooklyn (p. 45), one of the rising instances of culture involved the opening
of LedisFlam, Williamsburg’s first art gallery that opened in 1987. As the art gallery continued
with its success, the New York press started dedicating a free alternative newspaper in 1991
called Brooklyn Underground, which gave details about unique clubs and bars. It stood as a
tourist column for those new to the city, or to those promoting these businesses to increase
popularity and entice the locals to visit. Along the years, the cultural and geographical

5. differences between Brooklyn and Manhattan made Williamsburg be seen as an alternate
space, creating a hothouse of authenticity (p. 46). With so much accumulated popularity
surrounding a district, it encourages people to live there. That is cultures purpose, a controlled
variable that increases or decreases property value. Fast forwarding to the collapse of the
financial market in 2008. (P. 58 and 59), Michael Bloomberg’s administration tried to engulf
Brooklyn with to essence of Manhattan style condos. Williamsburg was a good place to pick,
even though private real estate investors doubted that people with money won’t move to
Brooklyn, the culture of the area in question decorated Brooklyn, making it more attractive to
people. An argument could rise that culture was a separate entity that made it possible for such
a chance to be taken with Brooklyn in the sense of the popularity surrounding it have an effect
on the property value. However, the end result of the progressing gentrification basically tripled
the rent of Brooklyn’s brewery, causing artists to move into Bushwick, Flatbush, and queens.
Though this happened, it didn’t mark the end of the culture, the surrounded clubs and
hangouts replaced their usual population with the upper middle class. These businesses will
still exist, because the people that can afford to live in Brooklyn’s brewery would enjoy the
festivities, which increases the revenue of the business and the performers who continue there.
The culture did not move with the artists, and has grounded itself within the community as a
decorated attraction. The predecessors made these places famous, and if culture is dominantly
based on the meaning that people give these locations more often than the individuality of the
people themselves, these places will continue to strive as long as they exist.
In this case, culture was only used as a medium for gentrification, increasing the
property value and the city’s potential to attract more people there. That in turn attracts more

6. business, which attracts capital. With a closing statement, considering a main objective of a city
to increase its capital, of course the city wouldn’t want to lose out to another one. City
competition encourages policies, policies shape gentrification in order to meet the city’s needs
of how much it needs to make and spend., making Urban fortunes stand at the top. All of these
things stand as federal incentives (p. 166-167 Urban Fortunes), the national government
subsidizing entrepreneurs or local governments to pursue a given development pattern. The
sake of these strategies is to increase the exchange value of the land, and by following the
guidance of the national government, the actions that are made because of it is for the sake of
the city. People see gentrification as the enemy when it ruins their livelihood, but it stands as
necessity that’s being directed by the national government itself, many of the federal
governments land use programs are based on positive incentives. It’s an orderly pyramid, and
the reason why it seems that poor neighborhoods lack a voice is due to that fact that it peaks
over the local government, which is basically made to do the federal governments bidding. All
of this is for the sake of a city to remain competitive in the sense of attracting capital, which
makes the ruined lives of gentrification nothing more than collateral damage.