This document summarizes and compares several articles about urbanization and the growth of cities outward from their cores to their peripheries. It discusses Edward Soja's analysis of increasing regional urbanization and the contrast between urban and suburban areas. It also examines Steve Pile's discussion of Lewis Mumford's view that both physical and social connections are important in defining cities. Examples are provided of Chicago growing due to its natural resources but then depleting them, and of cities like Tehran and Lahore experiencing uncontrolled urban sprawl, migration to the edges, and exploitation of rural areas.
Cities and Urban Life: Globalization and the Modern Metropolis. (Urbanization)brunogiegerich
PowerPoint presentation on urbanization, urbanism (city) life and the metropolis in a globalizing world. Covers the rise of mega-cities and some sociological aspects of urban life; with many pictures, themes and key social theorists.
Cities and Urban Life: Globalization and the Modern Metropolis. (Urbanization)brunogiegerich
PowerPoint presentation on urbanization, urbanism (city) life and the metropolis in a globalizing world. Covers the rise of mega-cities and some sociological aspects of urban life; with many pictures, themes and key social theorists.
Introduction to Dr. Yasser Elsheshatwy’s edited book “Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An Urban Kaleidoscope in a Globalizing World” published by Routledge (2004). It introduces critical assessments of contemporary Middle East cities.
Where is Home for the Abuja, Nigeria Urban Poorijtsrd
Abuja faced the challenges like all the new nation's capital relocation, resettlement and development. Development was taken to areas which hitherto were not only generally sparsely populated but also contributed quite little to the national economies. The design concept and physical development of the new capitals have been underpinned by the theory and principles of “garden city†by Ebenezer Howard 1898 which influenced the building of Letchworth in 1902 and Welwyn in 1920 as new towns, dealing with urban poverty, inadequacy of housing and spatial integration. The present work aims to indicate, that Abuja, Nigeria, has not followed her Master Plan as a result, has not made provisions for adequate housing for the urban poor. The authors adopted content base analysis secondary data sources , where they carefully analyzed and interpreted works of other authors and used them in buttressing their points as applied to the issue at hand, “where is home for the Abuja urban poor †Abuja, however, has not followed the urban development principles that guided both Letchworth and Welwyn. The Master Plan was abused, neglected and not followed. The Abuja urban design principles saw a lot of inconsistencies that result in Abuja urbanization, inadequacy of housing, urban poverty, etc. Informal land development provided shelter for Abuja urban poor. Obiadi Bons N. | Onochie A. O. | Nzewi N. U. "Where is Home for the Abuja, Nigeria Urban Poor?" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-3 , April 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd21656.pdf
2009 cultural animation and economic vitality identifying the links and reg...Lee Pugalis
Culture, space and economy are intermeshed in complex ways. This paper reports on findings from a larger empirical research project commissioned to investigate the symbiotic relationship between culturally animated urban street scenes and economic vitality. Grounded in empirical qualitative research focussing on recent place quality enhancement schemes in the North East of England, the central aim of this paper is to make the case that everyday cultural activity and economically vibrant places can go hand-in-hand. The research did not seek to quantify economic benefits of investments in the cultural animation of urban space, but interpretive analysis suggests that place quality regeneration strategies can enhance the economic performance and vitality of places. Based on the argument that cultural production of space and economic development are not, and therefore should not be viewed as, competing objectives, the paper puts forward a range of good practice pointers for policymakers and practitioners embarking on place quality enhancement schemes.
Key words: street scene, cultural animation, economic vitality, place quality, public space and urban regeneration
How does the study of Urban Geography contribute to our understanding of the nature of the city? of the possibilities of the ideal city? How does theology interface with urban geography?
Vigar, Geoff, Stephen Graham, and Patsy Healey. "In search of the city in spa...Stephen Graham
Summary. This paper addresses the ways in which urban regions are represented in contemporary urban policies. In doing so, it critically examines how urban trends are reflected in diverse notions of ‘cityness’ in contemporary policy discourses about spatiality and territoriality. Through a detailed case study of the use and construction of the word ‘city’ in a range of urban governance contexts in Newcastle upon Tyne, this paper analyses the political work done by diverse representations and invocations of ‘cityness’ in contemporary urban governance. Such representations matter because the way in which contemporary cities are conceptualised influences policy formulations and policy outcomes. In addition, considerable emphasis is being placed in contemporary urban policy on ‘joining-up’, ‘integrating’ and co-ordinating governance efforts. How conceptions of the city are mobilised to do such integrating work provides insight into the challenge such ambitions present. The evidence from the case study suggests that the capacity of local actors to think about the processes of change in metropolitan regions, and to define the ways in which they can respond, is often limited, as they struggle to define what their ‘city’ actually might be these days. This tends to be to the detriment of collective attempts to maximise conditions for citizens and for investment.
Gentrification and its Effects on Minority Communities – A Comparative Case S...Premier Publishers
This paper does a comparative analysis of four global cities and their minority districts which have been experiencing the same structural pressure of gentrification. The main contribution of this paper is providing a detailed comparison of four micro geographies worldwide and the impacts of gentrification on them: Barrio Logan in San Diego, Bo-Kaap in Cape Town, the Mission District in San Francisco, and the Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus District in Vienna. All four cities have been experiencing the displacement of minority communities due to increases in property values. These cities were chosen because their governments enacted different policies to temper the gentrification process. It was found that cities which implemented social housing and cultural inclusionary policies were more successful in maintaining the cultural and demographic make-up of the districts.
In Donald Barthelme's 1974 short story "I Bought a Little City", the narrator decides one day to purchase Galveston, Texas, where he then tears down some houses, shoots 6,000 dogs, and rearranges what remains into the shape of a giant Mona Lisa jigsaw puzzle visible only from the air. As with much of Barthelme's work, the premise seems so absurd that one cannot help but shake it until a metaphor falls out, and here one might well assume that, in the words of the novelist Donald Antrim, "I Bought a Little City" is "a take on the role that a writer has in writing a story – playing god,
Introduction to Dr. Yasser Elsheshatwy’s edited book “Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An Urban Kaleidoscope in a Globalizing World” published by Routledge (2004). It introduces critical assessments of contemporary Middle East cities.
Where is Home for the Abuja, Nigeria Urban Poorijtsrd
Abuja faced the challenges like all the new nation's capital relocation, resettlement and development. Development was taken to areas which hitherto were not only generally sparsely populated but also contributed quite little to the national economies. The design concept and physical development of the new capitals have been underpinned by the theory and principles of “garden city†by Ebenezer Howard 1898 which influenced the building of Letchworth in 1902 and Welwyn in 1920 as new towns, dealing with urban poverty, inadequacy of housing and spatial integration. The present work aims to indicate, that Abuja, Nigeria, has not followed her Master Plan as a result, has not made provisions for adequate housing for the urban poor. The authors adopted content base analysis secondary data sources , where they carefully analyzed and interpreted works of other authors and used them in buttressing their points as applied to the issue at hand, “where is home for the Abuja urban poor †Abuja, however, has not followed the urban development principles that guided both Letchworth and Welwyn. The Master Plan was abused, neglected and not followed. The Abuja urban design principles saw a lot of inconsistencies that result in Abuja urbanization, inadequacy of housing, urban poverty, etc. Informal land development provided shelter for Abuja urban poor. Obiadi Bons N. | Onochie A. O. | Nzewi N. U. "Where is Home for the Abuja, Nigeria Urban Poor?" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-3 , April 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd21656.pdf
2009 cultural animation and economic vitality identifying the links and reg...Lee Pugalis
Culture, space and economy are intermeshed in complex ways. This paper reports on findings from a larger empirical research project commissioned to investigate the symbiotic relationship between culturally animated urban street scenes and economic vitality. Grounded in empirical qualitative research focussing on recent place quality enhancement schemes in the North East of England, the central aim of this paper is to make the case that everyday cultural activity and economically vibrant places can go hand-in-hand. The research did not seek to quantify economic benefits of investments in the cultural animation of urban space, but interpretive analysis suggests that place quality regeneration strategies can enhance the economic performance and vitality of places. Based on the argument that cultural production of space and economic development are not, and therefore should not be viewed as, competing objectives, the paper puts forward a range of good practice pointers for policymakers and practitioners embarking on place quality enhancement schemes.
Key words: street scene, cultural animation, economic vitality, place quality, public space and urban regeneration
How does the study of Urban Geography contribute to our understanding of the nature of the city? of the possibilities of the ideal city? How does theology interface with urban geography?
Vigar, Geoff, Stephen Graham, and Patsy Healey. "In search of the city in spa...Stephen Graham
Summary. This paper addresses the ways in which urban regions are represented in contemporary urban policies. In doing so, it critically examines how urban trends are reflected in diverse notions of ‘cityness’ in contemporary policy discourses about spatiality and territoriality. Through a detailed case study of the use and construction of the word ‘city’ in a range of urban governance contexts in Newcastle upon Tyne, this paper analyses the political work done by diverse representations and invocations of ‘cityness’ in contemporary urban governance. Such representations matter because the way in which contemporary cities are conceptualised influences policy formulations and policy outcomes. In addition, considerable emphasis is being placed in contemporary urban policy on ‘joining-up’, ‘integrating’ and co-ordinating governance efforts. How conceptions of the city are mobilised to do such integrating work provides insight into the challenge such ambitions present. The evidence from the case study suggests that the capacity of local actors to think about the processes of change in metropolitan regions, and to define the ways in which they can respond, is often limited, as they struggle to define what their ‘city’ actually might be these days. This tends to be to the detriment of collective attempts to maximise conditions for citizens and for investment.
Gentrification and its Effects on Minority Communities – A Comparative Case S...Premier Publishers
This paper does a comparative analysis of four global cities and their minority districts which have been experiencing the same structural pressure of gentrification. The main contribution of this paper is providing a detailed comparison of four micro geographies worldwide and the impacts of gentrification on them: Barrio Logan in San Diego, Bo-Kaap in Cape Town, the Mission District in San Francisco, and the Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus District in Vienna. All four cities have been experiencing the displacement of minority communities due to increases in property values. These cities were chosen because their governments enacted different policies to temper the gentrification process. It was found that cities which implemented social housing and cultural inclusionary policies were more successful in maintaining the cultural and demographic make-up of the districts.
In Donald Barthelme's 1974 short story "I Bought a Little City", the narrator decides one day to purchase Galveston, Texas, where he then tears down some houses, shoots 6,000 dogs, and rearranges what remains into the shape of a giant Mona Lisa jigsaw puzzle visible only from the air. As with much of Barthelme's work, the premise seems so absurd that one cannot help but shake it until a metaphor falls out, and here one might well assume that, in the words of the novelist Donald Antrim, "I Bought a Little City" is "a take on the role that a writer has in writing a story – playing god,
Несоблюдение порядка или формы обоснования начальной (максимальной) цены контракта, обоснования объекта закупки, порядка приемки поставленного товара, выполненной работы (ее результатов), оказанной услуги
............. ..................... OTHER CITIES, OTHER WO.docxhoney725342
............. ..................... OTHER CITIES,
OTHER WORLDS ... ... ......................................... .............. .
URBAN IMAGINARIES IN A GLOBALIZING AGE
EDITED BY ANDREAS HUYSSEN
Duke University Press Durham and London 2008
147 Okwui Enwezor
Mega-exhibitions: The Antinomies of a Transnational Global Form
ASIA
181 Gyan Prakash
Mumbai: The Modern City in Ruins
205 Rahul Mehrotra
Negotiating the Static and Kinetic Cities: The Emergent Urbanism of
Mumbai
219 Yingjin Zhang
Remapping Beijing: Polylocality, Globalization, Cinema
243 Ackbar Abbas
Faking Globalization
MIDDLE EAST
267 Farha Ghannam
Two Dreams in a Global City: Class and Space in Urban Egypt
289 Orhan Pamuk
Huzun-Melancholy - Tristesse of Istanbul
307 Bibliography
321 Contributors
325 Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The essays that make up this volume were first presented as formal
lectures in a year-long graduate research seminar in 2001-2002 at
Columbia University, conducted as a Sawyer Seminar and funded
by the Mellon Foundation. All of the essays have been updated
and rewritten since they were first presented. The seminar was
concluded two years later by a follow-up conference which gener-
ated further discussions and several more essays. Both the semi-
nar and the conference featured architects, urban historians and
theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, literary and cultural crit-
ics, curators, and writers, most of whom came from those non-
Western cities they spoke about. Two essays were commissioned
at a later time to round out the volume.
My first thanks go to the Mellon Foundation for the generous
funding and support that made the seminar possible. The Sawyer
Seminar itself was developed in close cooperation between the
Center for Comparative Literature and Society, which I directed
at the time, and the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning,
and Preservation at Columbia University. Special thanks are owed
the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation
and its deans Bernard Tschumi and his successor Mark Wigley,
the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for American Architecture and
its director Joan Ockman, and my colleagues at the Center for
Comparative Literature and Society. I am especially grateful to
Rahul Mehrotra
NEGOTIATING THE STATIC AND KINETIC CITIES
THE EMERGENT URBANISM OF MUMBAI
Cities in India, characterized by physical and visual contra-dictions that coalesce in a landscape of incredible plural-
ism, are anticipated to be the largest urban conglomerates of the
twenty-first century. Historically, particularly during the period
of British colonization, the different worlds-whether economic,
social, or cultural-that were contained within these cities occu-
pied different spaces and operated under different rules, the aim
being to maximize control and minimize conflict between op-
posing worlds.1 Today, although these worlds have come ...
How can architects and planners help to create cities fit for the future? This presentation, created for the international conference on Cities, People and Places organised by the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka in October 2013, argues that people-centred policies that encourage sociability and civic participation are needed in response to global issues such as climate change and urbanisation.
The question of what is a city has occupied theattention of .docxoreo10
The question of what is a city has occupied the
attention of many urban scholars. Indeed, one of
the paradoxes of studying cities is that how the
city is to be defined has proved as (if not more)
problematic than has the question of how they
should be studied. As it was argued in the intro-
ductory chapter the city is a complex, multi-
faceted social organization. Little wonder, then,
that how they have been studied has inevitably
reflected different theoretical and disciplinary
perspectives. A similar conclusion can be drawn
to the question as to what constitutes a city.
Cities have many different ‘faces’. What, then,
gives the city its significance, its individuality
from other types of socio-spatial organization has
been given different emphases. Consider two
views of the city, one by Raymond Williams
(1973) in his classic book The Country and the
City, the other by Lewis Mumford (1938) in The
Culture of Cities. To Mumford:
The city, as one finds it in history, is the point of
maximum concentration for the power and culture of
a community. It is the place where the diffused rays of
many separate beams of life fall into focus, with gains
in social effectiveness and significance. The city is the
form and symbol of an integrated social relationship;
it is the seat of the temple, the market, the hall of
justice, the academy of learning. Here in the city the
goods of civilisation are multiplied and manifolded;
here is where human experience is transformed into
viable signs, symbols of conduct, systems of order.
(1938/1995: 104)
The defining features of the city are linked to its
strategic functioning to the wider community, its
importance as a civilizing force besides its part in
facilitating the market. Such a depiction of how
the city is to be understood contrasts with the
description offered by Raymond Williams:
The great buildings of civilisation, the meeting
places, the libraries and the theatres and domes; and
often more moving than these, the houses, the streets,
the press and excitement of so many people with so
many purposes. I have stood in so many cities and felt
this pulse: in the physical differences of Stockholm,
and Florence, Paris and Milan. (1973: 14)
Both are concerned to identify the city as a
symbol of civilization and culture, but while
Mumford expresses the significance of the city in
functional terms, Williams’s emphasis is more
experiential. Cities present many different faces
no one of which should be privileged as consti-
tuting the defining element(s) of it.
Paradoxically, in everyday language there is a
sense in which, albeit somewhat negatively, there
is little doubt as to what constitutes the city.
Popular discourse draws sharp boundaries
between the urban and the rural; in other words,
the urban is definable in terms of what it is not,
the rural. Of course, such a definition is hardly
enlightening as to what it is that defines the urban,
except that, again in popular discourse, it is
through ...
SOCIAL SCIENCE SS ELECTIVE 6 Cities and SocietiesJollibethGante
PART II: GLOBALIZATION AND ITS IMPACT ON CITIES
Overview of Global Cities – Saskia Sassen
The Urban-Rural Interface and Migration – Alan Gilbert and Josef Gugler
Community, Ethnicity, and Urban Sociology – Jan Lin
The New Urban Reality – Roger Waldinger
The Return of the Sweatshop – Edna Bonacich and Richard P. Appelbaum
What is a City”Architectural Record (1937)Lewis Mumfor.docxphilipnelson29183
“What is a City?”
Architectural Record (1937)
Lewis Mumford
Editors’ Introduction
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) has been called the United States’ last great public intellectual – that is, a scholar
not based in academia who writes for an educated popular audience. Beginning with the publication of his first
book The Story of Utopias in 1922 and continuing throughout a career that saw the publication of some twenty-
five influential volumes, Mumford made signal contributions to social philosophy, American literary and cultural
history, the history of technology and, preeminently, the history of cities and urban planning practice.
Born in Brooklyn and coming of age at a time when the modern city was reaching a new peak in the history of
urban civilization, Mumford saw the urban experience as an essential component in the development of human
culture and the human personality. He consistently argued that the physical design of cities and their economic
functions were secondary to their relationship to the natural environment and to the spiritual values of human
community. Mumford applied these principles to his architectural criticism for The New Yorker magazine and his
work with the Regional Planning Association of America in the 1920s and 1930s, his campaign against plans to
build a highway through Washington Square in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and his lifelong
championing of the environmental theories of Patrick Geddes and the Garden City ideals of Ebenezer Howard.
In “What is a City?” – the text of a 1937 talk to an audience of urban planners – Mumford lays out his fundamental
propositions about city planning and the human potential, both individual and social, of urban life. The city, he writes,
is “a theater of social action,” and everything else – art, politics, education, commerce – serve only to make the
“social drama . . . more richly significant, as a stage-set, well-designed, intensifies and underlines the gestures of
the actors and the action of the play.” The city as a form of social drama expressed as much in daily life as in
revolutionary moments – it was a theme and an image to which Mumford would return over and over again. In The
Culture of Cities of 1938, he rhapsodized about the artist Albrecht Dürer witnessing a religious procession in
Antwerp in 1519 that was a dramatic performance “where the spectators were also communicants.” And in “The
Urban Drama” from The City in History of 1961, he reflected on the ways that the social life of the ancient city
established a kind of dramatic dialogue “in which common life itself takes on the features of a drama, heightened
by every device of costume and scenery, for the setting itself magnifies the voice and increases the apparent
stature of the actors.” Mumford was quick to point out that the earliest urban dialogue was really a one-way
“monologue of power” from the king to his cowering subjects. Such an absence of true dialogue, he wrote, was
“bound to have a fat.
The article is a sociological study of the growth of the Chicago and describes about city`s processes of expansion, metabolism, and mobility.
Expansion as physical growth Expansion as a process Social organization and disorganization as the process of metabolism Mobility as the pulse of the community
In The Image of the City Lynch describes how individuals perceive and recall features in urban spaces. The most distinctive elements in the urban landscape - categorised in paths, nodes, edges, districts and landmarks - give shape to individuals' mental representation of the city.
Personal QualitiesWhyIssuesStance on Issues.docxdanhaley45372
Personal Qualities
Why?
Issues
Stance on Issues
Urbanism as a Way of Life
Author(s): Louis Wirth
Source: The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jul., 1938), pp. 1-24
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2768119 .
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THE AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
VOLUME XLIV JULY 1938 NUMBER 1
URBANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE
LOUIS WIRTH
ABSTRACT
The urbanization of the world, which is one of the most impressive facts of modern
times, has wrought profound changes in virtually every phase of social life. The recency
and rapidity of urbanization in the United States accounts for the acuteness of our
urban problems and our lack of awareness of them. Despite the dominance of urbanism
in the modern world we still lack a sociological definition of the city which would take
adequate account of the fact that while the city is the characteristic locus of urbanism,
the urban mode of life is not confined to cities. For sociological purposes a city is a
relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of heterogeneous individuals. Large
numbers account for individual variability, the relative absence of intimate personal
acquaintanceship, the segmentalization of human relations which are largely anony-
mous, superficial, and transitory, and associated characteristics. Density involves di-
versification and specializa.
Conceptualizing Rurality with Michel de Certeausbrown08
This SlideShare presentation contains a brief introduction to the ideas of Michael de Certeau and some possible avenues for reconnecting his work with the "cultural turn" in contemporary rural studies.
1. Khawaja 1
Agglomeration
on
Peripheries
Muzna Khawaja
Keywords:
urbanization, zoning,
peripheries, urban sprawl
natural resources,
land use.
Introduction
The world is a global village and shrinking
day by day on economic and social level.
The statement reciprocates the notion when
such shrinkage is compared to the other side
of the scene, which is the expansion aspect
of the world. This critical review would
highlight this other side through an insight
and comparison of four articles by five
authors. Highlighting the key issues on
social, geographic and political levels
concerning agglomeration on the city edges,
the journey of review will start from the
traditional urban models suggested by urban
historians, followed by either their
implications and consequences or
downplaying globally and what were the
consequences in their urban and suburban
physical settings, which in turn affected
naturally resources and caused migration?
My first selection of text is of
Edward.W.Soja "Regional Urbanization and
End of Metropolitan Era". Having a
geography background, he is also well
reputed being a spatial theorist, and
presented a global picture of urbanization
through out the ages, by reflecting the major
features of different stages of urbanization
2. Khawaja 2
with the support of other urban planner’s
concepts.
The next one is from City Worlds by Steve
Pile from human geography field, whose
main interest lies in "living in a globalised
world". He has tried to suggest his own idea
of explaining the meaning of a city and as
well as by taking accounts of few other
urban historians like Ebenezer Howard, an
urban planner and a founder of Garden City,
which was mainly about providing adequacy
of facilities and better life in all his
concentric rings of urbanization. Hence
Steve Pile proposes a model of an ideal city
besides taking into account the physical
settings, the social aspects are also put into
focus. On this role model of urbanization,
Chicago is exemplified, age. Built on the
above stated urban model by Ebenezer
Howard, it shows the stages of Chicago’s
development and how this city on the basis
of its natural resources extended its
economical, social networks within and
across the national borders which in turn
made this city a cosmopolitan and
metropolis. Contrary to this, the expansion
of peripheries caused drastic effects on its
available resources which profoundly
changed its rural geography.
The next text is from Arrival City about
Tehran written by Doug Saunders. Being a
journalist and having served for a long time
as a foreign correspondent in an
international newspaper, gave him
motivation to write this book, in which he
has covered 20 nations on five continents, in
order to study the global wave of migration
from rural to urban or to other countries.
Doug Saunders analysis of migration aspects
in those particular regions where it was
unavoidable and caused agglomeration on
peripheries; further describing the reason of
this population concentration on the edges of
Tehran that resulted due to gigantic
migration from rural to urban and back
forth, creating arrival cities on the
peripheries of Tehran. Hence affected the
rural settings.
Lastly, another comparative study is being
given by an architect and environmental
designer Anis. A. Siddiqi along with Soufia.
A. Siddiqi paid attention to the geographical
transformations of the city. He writes about
Lahore (Pakistan) presenting a similar
situation as to Tehran where
mismanagement and unplanned strategies,
dispersed its urban fabric caused urban
sprawl towards peripheries which ultimately
transformed the rural/suburbs physical
settings.
As a conclusion, the review is framed as an
argument based on all these comparative
studies.
3. Khawaja 3
E
Regional
urbanizationC
Regional Urbanization and End of
Metropolitan Era by Edward Soja:
Soja presents a clear picture of the
urbanization process in terms of zoning,
introduced by Chicago school Urban
Ecology. Later this notion gets invalidated
over the time when this conventional system
couldn’t incorporate the challenges
pertaining to population and its demands on
socio-political level. The failing of
metropolitan era is better understood
through a dualism mentioned in his text
between urban and suburban worlds of
life,»….. where the former is the place of
creation and possibilities having
heterogeneity and the later as a way of life,
with a homogenous character«. (Edward
Soja, 2011, 680).
The uniformities of urban area were just
reordered in suburbia causing migration of
people from the core of cities towards its
peripheries. These circumstances resulted
into a huge contrast between the two zones
in terms of density. Soja further presents a
convincing chart of the whole urbanization
in totality, where he depicts the density
through shifts and changes in each zones. In
this chart of density he mentions
»…..second boundary which is the mobile
one of the city, defining the outer edge of
constantly expanding suburban growth«
(Edward Soja, 2011, 680). Such expansions
caused an upheaval at demographic and
cultural levels, resulted into a regional
urbanization, which is additionally »…..
superseded by another new phase of multi-
scalar regional urbanization«. (Edward
Soja, 2011, 680)
These transformations are better understood
when we have a look at the concepts and
considerations of urbanisation in the
following comparative study taken out of
City Worlds, in making of utopian city to
understand the meaning of a city.
0 B D
Density graph
So what is a city by Steve Pile:
Density
A
Distance
A`
4. Khawaja 4
The author mainly defines a city besides its
physical structures, in terms of social ones,
in order to understand its vitality and
complexity. He further analyses the city by
taking an account of Lewis Mumford, an
urban historian and a sociologist.
Lewis Mumford who wrote about making of
cities at the time, when there was an
alarming situation in America of
unmanageable population growth rate of
cities. Although he did not propose any
model or solution but presented an
observation, which could be taken as a role
model for its conceptualization, to avoid
explosion, conflicts and dispersion within or
outside a city.
Mumford argued that for making a city not
only physical features are to be taken into
consideration but the social relations in a
city are also of equal significance. Steve Pile
assumes that Lewis Mumford must have had
acknowledged the previous similar notions
of some other utopian planners like
Ebenezer Howard and Abercrombie’s plans
for an ideal city. The main thriving concept
behind all these notions was to segregate
different activities of city and assign their
locations accordingly, to envisage a dream
city in order to avoid a chaotic feature of a
city. ».... within a sustainable environment in
which people would live and thrive«. (Steve
Pile, 1991, 14)
Lewis Mumford further defines the meaning
of a city in terms of three main objectives; a
network of associations on social, cultural,
political and economical levels among
individuals and groups, whether known or
strangers. These associations depend on
spatial forms through direct or remote
encounter of people belonging to different
classes and backgrounds. Such happenings
occur both at private and state sectors,
bringing people from all directions in
specific modes and activities and places. He
further stresses that due to the ever
sprawling nature of a city, city’s existence
becomes questionable if its planning is not
wholly based on such social processes and
flows of interchange of commodities,
business, and values rather on sustainability
of its urban characteristics.
From Nature to Metropolis by Steve
Pile
5. Khawaja 5
Chicago was first built as a raised city out of
mud due to natural circumstances, while
heavily confrontation to floods. Furthermore
it was targeted to create it a place of
diversity, cosmopolitan and intensity.
This place was firstly envisaged on paper as
a fictitious city and people’s greedy
imagination, »…..Fictive lots on fictive
streets in fictive towns became the basis for
thousands of transactions«
(Cronon, 1991, 32)
Nevertheless the potential of this place got
acknowledged quite beforehand, by utmost
planning and development strategies, in
order to transform it as a geographic
network in almost all sectors i.e. finance,
information and social. The connectivity of
its hinterland to the rest of the country was
given utmost importance in order to promote
exchange of goods. For this matter networks
of transportation and »…..accelerated flow
of information were executed to transform it
as a nexus« (Steve Pile, 1991, 25). This
strategy of making it a place of convergence
of all activities, turned out to be a gateway
from east to west and to the rest of the
world, which in return intensified its urban
characteristics as thought and planned. Such
connectivity changed the landscape much of
America, became hard to distinguish
between urban and its hinterlands.
A place from nowhere grown into a
capitalist through circulation, production and
exchange; ready to be a metropolis. On one
hand this city became a focal point; an
overlap of so many activities, but on the
other side its exaggerated magnetism has
adverse effects on the nature located on its
peripheries. More and more trees were being
cut down as per demand of the production
and growing timber market, which in turn
left footprints in its landscapes, pushing its
hinterlands further away. The city is now
sucking up its own natural resources, with
which this place once came into being as a
city but turned its precious nature into
commodity. Nature is commodified.
»…Chicago is growing bigger and bigger,
especially as the railway networks were
expanding― until there were no more trees«
(Steve Pile, 2005, 31)
Chicago is now heavily congested that
raised the cost of doing business there and
people started bypassing this place as a
transit from going east to west. Due to the
reason that more cutting of trees made the
distance bigger from the city to transport
wood from the high altitude of forest where
availability of timber woods was high, rather
the selling of woods had started directly at
the site of wood which in return reduced the
attraction of going to Chicago.
Simultaneously railway networks that once
made concentration on this place in various
6. Khawaja 6
commodities now caused dispersion to other
cities. But by this time the city already won
a cosmopolitan status. Many people got
uprooted and migrated to this part of the
world across continents. The spatial and
social map of the city encompassed
distinctive districts within conventional
concentric rings of urbanization, as once
introduced by Lewis Mumford. Here in
Chicago this different spatial distribution
although stands in conflict with each other
depending upon how their ethnic differences
are interrelated to each other. Different
nationalities, cultures and classes living in
contrast next to each other and settled down
in distinctive areas. Chicago is thus
intensified focal point for social and
economic activities but at the cost of
changing its natural geography by cutting
more and more trees and shrinking down the
natural resources.
Plan
Peripheries of The Garden City by
Ebenezer Howard
7. Khawaja 7
Land distribution of Chicago
When the margins explode by Doug
Saunders
In contrast to the earlier example, this text
presents an opposite picture when city’s
strengths and resources are not
acknowledged and hence fallen apart into
hands of corrupt and disloyal government
local/state.
A constant dualism between urbia and
suburbia is quite evident here. The author
here comprehensively sketches two places
Emamzadeh and Eslamshahr, situated
around Tehran as "Arrival cities". The
former, lying on the north of the city, this
place got affected by every political and
social upheavals taking place in the main
city. Every political move of politicians
which couldn’t fulfil the promises they made
with the people while their election
campaigns, had adverse reaction on this
region.
The place is inhabited by craftsmen, and
small traders coming from rural areas. It
offered a potential to invest in real estate for
the rural people by leaving their villages
behind and residing here to invest their
savings.
Due to unaccomplished promises of the
rulers and ignorance, this area over the time
turned into a place of dissent.
Simultaneously poor urban settlers have
nowhere to go as the city got aggressive in
estate prices which forced them to leave the
central city and head towards fringes. An
appropriate citation fits here well by a local
urban planner as a foreseen warning »an
explosion is waiting to happen here on the
edges of Tehran« (Doug Saunders, 2011,
200). This is due to inadequacy of the urban
planning which failed to meet the
demographic shifts of the centre, resulted
into a migration towards the edges, and thus
living in unrecognized settlements. A
vacuum for more migrants in the future was
created and in return for state-run sector jobs
opportunities, created an inequality at the
urban level. Such circumstances just added
fuel for an explosion on the margins. The
latter arrival city which was used to be a
frontier area of Tehran is Eslamshahr. Its
illegal distribution of land transformed its
8. Khawaja 8
status into a suburb, a place of beginnings in
turn. This offered as a parallel space to the
legal sector of the government, and became
a great opponent as it attracted more people
to reside there.
The consecutive play of different political
revolutions caused an extreme unrest and
uncertainty among the poor people living on
edges and working as unidentified blue
collars manual working class, not enjoying
or being acknowledged by their work in the
central urban of Tehran. This caused the loss
of politician’s credibility as they did not
meet up the expectations and hence misled
the people by false promises and unjust
strategies. Every time by each revolutionary
political upheaval the eyes of the people
were set onto their upcoming politicians.
They risked everything and migrated from
their rural roots towards urban life for the
sake of better future. Ultimately afflicted
population started emerging autonomously
by self organizing their own needs, donating
their efforts and skills in urban planning
sectors. More and more people turned to this
arrival city which thus forcibly halted its
expansion. This caused another explosion in
such arrival cities and created sub-
settlements around this place. But these sub-
fringes were still inaccessible to poor rural
people which in turn created their own new
arrival areas on its peripheries. They
remained on marginality and excluded from
the urban society, accessible to only those
living in the former peripheries of the central
Tehran. Overall such repeated creations and
explosions on the margins were result of
failed processes of politicians and rulers that
paved the way of burst over and over again.
Tehran and its expansion.
9. Khawaja 9
Urban sprawl in Lahore by
Anis.A.Siddiqi
Lahore (Pakistan) is subjected to poor urban
planning by local government and is the 2nd
largest city of the country. Besides being
continuously urban sprawling based on an
unplanned expansion, without any serious
consideration on its natural resources, infra-
structure and land use distribution, is already
in the making of metropolis. Furthermore,
relying more and more on road
transportation caused outstripping the
available natural resources. This has resulted
into an alarming situation on the outskirts.
(Shreekant Guptal and Indu Rayadurgam,
2008, 4)
According to another recent demographic
work indicating Pakistan’s primary cities
integrated with their rural suburbs into the
city economies. »....have formed into a
significant population agglomeration that
has increased its political and economic
importance« (Ali, 2003).
This has radically increased the current level
of urbanization in Pakistan as 50%.
The major concern areas are the drainage
problems, transportation system, land use,
density, vegetation and other amenities to
their residents.
Past
Present
Conclusion:
This review has at first presented an
overview of urbanization in terms of
dualism between urban and rural areas by
Edward Soja. Due to regional densities and
economic inequalities, migration towards
edges occurred which created a huge
contrast between the two zones. To
understand this flow, Sonja’s density chart
gives us a clear picture of the shift in
between two zones, with a prediction of
another new creation of a zone outwards
from the peripheries.
10. Khawaja 10
Next is conceptualization of an ideal city
presented by Steve Pile with a close eye on
the concentric rings of urbanization to
achieve a sustainable city. As an example
Chicago is quoted to study its evolution and
transformation from a nowhere land into a
cosmopolits, on sheer basis of natural
resources but later due to over consumption
of these available means and explosion of
population on the peripheries drastic change
occurred in the landscape.
A contrasting picture of Tehran and its two
peripheral areas are being sketched in the
following sequence by Doug Saunders,
which is a product of state’s urban planning
negligence and utter political upheavals and
unrest. These areas served as parallel to
urban, created due to illegal distribution of
land but governed on self organization of the
localites. However, this process doesn’t stop
here rather continued to be subdivided on its
fringes, creating arrival cities and changed
the suburb landscape profoundly.
In the end another similar situation of
Lahore (Pakistan) is presented by
Anis.A.Siddiqi. Besides having an alarming
situation on its outskirts, the city is heading
towards transformation into a metropolitan
city. It is facing quite enormous challenges
in the hands of state’s disregardances and
unplanned urban expansion.
Arguments:
This critical writing review has in turn raised
few considerations and queries.
Due to the reason that almost every major
city is urbanized in the world, how can the
hinterlands or suburbs survive or sustain, so
that the landscape of peripheries are not
profoundly affected due to agglomeration in
urban?
Can the urban areas survive without their
Hinterlands?
What is the role of urban governance in that
process of sustainability and impartial
distribution of land use and resources?
Summary:
After all these above comparative studies,
it’s been observed that living in rural area
has been a part of life but simultaneously
clinging to the urbia is also not avoidable.
Rural and urban have their distinctive
attributes and activities. The hinterlands are
dependent on its urban areas and in return,
subjected to its control but nevertheless,
suburbs are adjoined with villages,
performing a vital role of providing natural
resources i.e. agriculture, raw materials for
food and vegetation.
11. Khawaja 11
The major role here is played by urban
governance. The difference between local
and state sector in terms of their
responsibilities of land distribution and uses
should be clearly demarcated, in order to
achieve a sustained city, so that the
expansion of the urban could be well-
planned and the future expansion of the
urban sector could be better foreseen.
Mainly due to low density urban and
suburban development people are forced to
move to peripheries and hence increased
distances and usage of automobiles. Ending
up on occupying farm lands and forests and
destroying natural resources―an exodus of
congestion towards city edges.
Bibliography:
Edward, Soja (2011): Regional Urbanization and End of Metropolitan Era. Blackwell Publishing
Ltd.
Pile, Steve (1999): City worlds. What is a City? Routledge: London.
Pile, Steve (1999): City worlds. From Nature to Metropolis. Routledge: London.
Saunders, Doug (2011): Arrival Cities. When the margins explode. Alfred A. Knopf: Toronto.
Guptal, Shreekant and Rayadurgam, Indu (2008): Urban growth and governance in South Asia.
Patterns of urbanization in South Asia.
Anis.A.Siddiqi and Soufia.A.Siddiqi: Urban Sprawl in Pakistan and Architect’s role in the war
against a waterless world.
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