Transcript Day 7

HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS
• We have someone from Awareness of Climate Change
through Education and Research (ACER), Larissa, to tell
you a bit about her organization.
• Sustainability Fair on Wednesday in front of the VIU Library
– farmers’ market, free bike tune-ups, Nanaimo Car
Sharing organization, and more…
• Amanda and I will be presenting today on Chapter 12 of
the Harry Hiller book.
• Also: the criteria for evaluation of presentations are up on
the web site (for your projects references all visuals too).
MEGALOPOLIS
• Neglected to mention on Thursday. Prime example in
the States is ‘Boswash’ – the tendency of urban
communities to overlap from Washington, DC to
Boston. In Canada, it’s the Greater Golden
Horeseshoe.
HARRY HILLER (ED.) – CHAPTER 12
• The chapter is by John Hannigan and focuses on “The
New Urban Political Economy,” though it’s a little light
on Canadian examples, unlike much of the rest of the
book.
• In the 1960s, sociology saw a shift from the ‘human
ecology’ approach founded by the Chicago School in
the 1920s to a political economy approach.
• In geography, the shift was from a more quantitative,
‘scientific’ approach to one that emphasized more
humanist values and issues.
HARRY HILLER (ED.) – CHAPTER 12
• Hannigan characterizes the new approach as emphasizing
“investment shifts by banks, insurance companies, and
international corporations that shaped cities by transferring
ownership and uses of land from one social class to another.
Furthermore, the political economy approach focused on how
conflicts between different elements of urban populations,
notably social classes and racial and ethnic populations,
determined the physical and social character of the
metropolis.” This approach is also echoed in the work of
internationally renowned geographer, David Harvey.
HARRY HILLER (ED.) – CHAPTER 12
• A key factor that fostered this shift was the development of
urban conflict itself – social movements, race riots, ‘white
flight’ (in the U.S.), the demolition of poor and ethnic
neighbourhoods and their replacement by housing projects
and major developments targeted to make money or
infrastructure projects to facilitate commuting and urban
development.
• In essence, urban sociologists and geographers were
abandoning the supposed ‘neutrality’ of their forebears
which the authors argues was questionable in the first place.
INSTANCE OF ‘60S CONFLICT
HILLER (ED.) – CHAPTER 12
• The context for the Chicago School’s work was the movement
into the city of former rural dwellers and immigrants, with an
accompanying ‘adjustment’ crisis. From the perspective of the
human ecologists, “the traditional bases of solidarity – the
family, the neighhourhood, and the church – were all
disintegrating, leading to widespread marital breakdown, juvenile
delinquency, and other indicators of social disorder.
• The sociologists wanted to understand the impact of the physical
environment of the city on its people, and how they could use
that knowledge to put things right. Hence, the term ‘human
ecology,’ with the analogy to the habitat and interactions
between other species (in this case, different social groups).
HILLER (ED.) – CHAPTER 12
•
The sociologists and geographers of the 1960s no longer believed that
there was a shared culture that people could or should buy into, that
society as a whole was not serving much of the population’s needs.
•
After World War II, major changes – at the behest of governments and
corporations – had occurred. Housing development became largely a
corporate prerogative. In the U.S., there was Levittown, in Canada Don
Mills. The major expansion of the housing market was needed to address
pent-up demand, especially on the part of veterans who wanted to start
families, and the government pitched in by guaranteeing mortgages,
giving subsidies and incentives to developers, and building freeways.
•
Whereas Canada had a more homogeneous population in the ‘50s and
‘60s, in the U.S. white families began to move out to the suburbs,
especially after the riots.
CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT
Levittown
HARRY HILLER (ED.) – CHAPTER 12
• Another source of conflict was ‘urban renewal’. The intentions
were sometimes good – improve quality of housing and, in the
process, elevate social standards, but in some cases it was a
way of concentrating people of a certain class or race in high
density units and grabbing their land for redevelopment.
Oftentimes, the ‘projects’ were worse, in the long run, than
the projects they replaced, a phenomenon that Jane Jacobs
perceptively noted.
STRATHCONA, VANCOUVER
AFRICVILLE
• One of the worst examples of ‘urban renewal’ in Canada was
Africville, a community Afro-Canadians, outside Halifax that
the city government refused to provide services for and
eventually expropriated for industrial development, dispersing
its residents into public housing for the most part (with
belongings sent in the back of a municipal garbage truck), and
compensation of $500.00 paid per dwelling (the houses
themselves were demolished in the middle of the night).
REDLINING
• Another practice that caused conflict was ‘red-lining’ where financial
institutions would deem certain neighbourhoods off-limits for mortgages
and renovation loans while realtors would discourage minorities from
moving into white neighbourhods.
• This helped fuel the notion that some neighbourhoods were
irredeemably ‘blighted’.
• Fortunately, under Trudeau, the federal government stopped subsidizing
urban renewal and gave grants to neighbourhoods to fix themselves up,
grants that required municipal collaboration.
• Also, the rebellion of numerous groups in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s
led to the emergence of numerous municipal governments that were
more democratic and reflective of the aspirations of the public.
Numerous progressive initiatives came out of that era.
DEVELOPING WORLD URBANIZATION
• Geographers and sociologists have also looked at the massive
expansion of cities in the developing world.
• In addition to being frozen out of formal economy largely, and having to
scavenge in the informal economy – bartering, selling small items in
street markets, searching through garbage dumps, and building illegal
settlements without basic services – the rapid process of urbanization
has also created a ready pool of cheap industrial labour for multinational corporations and their local partners.
• At this point, I would like to turn it over to Amanda.
RICHARD FLORIDA AND THE ‘BOHEMIAN FACTOR’
•
Richard Florida is
an American sociologist who has since resettled in
Canada. He developed the concept of the ‘creative class’ –
knowledge workers (software and game developers, computer
engineers, architects, consultants, and others) who are part of the
new “knowledge economy.” In contrast with where workers moved to
where the jobs are (and still do – Fort Mac), these folks are so much
in demand that the jobs will move to where they like to live.
• Communities that rate high on social tolerance and diversity, have a
lot of urban amenities, and that feature large numbers of artists and
gays, also tend to have a high number of member of the creative
class. Thus, ‘quality of place’ becomes a key drawing card.