The New Urban Sociology, Chapter 7, Gottdiener, Hutchison and Ryan, 2016

1. People and lifestyles in the
Metropolis
Urban and Suburban Culture
Considering the interplay between the social factors of income, gender, age, ethnicity and race, and
the spatial patterns of population concentration or dispersal across the metropolitan region
Sociospatial approach: social factors determining the patterns of population dispersal are also linked
to particular spaces

2. Class differences and spatial
location
Class Stratification in the United States
Standing in the social hierarchy depends on cultural attributes like religion, ethnicity,
political power but above all, wealth (Marx, Weber)
US stratified society: people are located within a social hierarchy that determines access to
resources including place (think environmental).
Acts of consumption are moments in the reproduction of social relations.
Social scientists divide society into a number of different groups: socioeconomic status: SES
SES: wealth, occupation, gender, race AND MORE
5 groups: lower class, working class, lower middle class, upper middle class, ruling class
Place of residence matters!

3. Class differences & spatial
location
The Wealthy:
Mechanism of reproduction: social and spatial isolation
Mechanism of closure: conspicuous consumption – leisure, child rearing
The Creative Class and Suburban middle class:
Yuppies, gentrification – a-racial
The Creative Class – transformative but ignores social division of labor and focuses on the technical
Creative class is also a-capitalist: turning PROFIT on real estate
Creative class takes over space (and displaces others) for use, not exchange value
Suburban middle class:
upper class lifestyle on a more modest budget
Family time shrinking, problematic for the reproduction of this social class
Also, restructuring of the family

4. Class differences & spatial
location
The Working Class and the Working Poor
Quality of life depends on public services provided by local gov’t
Often at odds with public administrators (because can’t turn to private and
cities are strapped)
The Ghettoized Poor
“Not a lifestyle that anyone chooses” (?)
Subjected to pathological consequences of the city – neighborhood effects
Elimination of public housing
Food deserts – as a metaphor for health disparities and spatial inequalities

5. Women, Gender Roles and Space
Issue of gender and urban space is a vast topic on which urban sociologists have largely
been silent
City is man made because women had little to do with its planning (and when they did,
mainly permitted to critique or reproduce structure : Hayden and Jacobs)
Women and the Urban Political Economy
Women’s relationship to work and home dictated by male economy – in reaction
to social and economic trends of the time (men made war, so women went to work)
Increased labor force participation BUT persistent wage gap: Poor women have
always needed to supplement income
Domestic and emotional labor – double or even triple shift
Labor of producing the labor force is almost entirely left to women

6. Women, Gender Roles and Space
Women and the Urban Environment
Home as the women’s sphere of influence; decorating as self expression
Harassment and #metoo
Travel:
within city: constrained because of physical vulnerability
outside of city: men long distance, women, close to home

7. Gay and Lesbian Communities in
Urban Life
Heteronormative assumptions about space
But intersectoral: gay people have many of the same needs
infrastructure/transportation
recreation
work

8. The City as a special Place:
Nightlife, Urban Culture, and
Regeneration of Downtowns
Nightlife and downtown are synonymous
Nightlife as urban renewal
How has social media changed going out?

9. Urban Culture and City
Revitalization
Rouse – “festival marketplace” – Barcelona, Balitmore, Boston - - a formula that can be applied globally
Culture led – Bilboa, Chicago – promoting place or hiding problems?
Measuring success
Make-over for touristic consumption: “The Miracle Mile”; festivals; necessarily interested in attracting
the most deep pocketed consumers

10. Ethnicity and Immigration
What counts for the dynamics of ethnicity is the extend to which those symbolic differences clash with those of the
dominant society or of other ethnic groups
The First Wave
Asians immigrated thousand of years ago, European settlers in 15th century confronted Native Americans
Irish first large group of immigrants that went directly to dicites – confronted extensive discrimiation
The Second Wave – 1880s – 75% European
Central and Eastern Europe
Older first wave immigrants propagated racist and anti-sematic ideas about new arrivals
Strong suggested “sending them back to Europe’
The Third Wave -- 1970s on –
Strong percentages of Asians, Central and South Americans
Economically diverse– some with limited resources and others highly resourced
“Brain drain” associated with well-endowed but why not also poor immigrants?

11. Ethnic and Cultural Diversity
across the Metropolis
Sociospatial relations play a significant role in the lives of minority groups
Low unemployment and high immigration go hand in hand
Economic crisis/restructuring causing immigrant backlash
What is the difference between attitudes towards immigrants now vs. the early 20th century?