Urban Geography Final 1.0

Types of suburbs

"Bedroom" suburbs that housed middle and upper income city commuters. elevation often a function of social rank and income Industrial suburbs employing local working-class populations

Role of technology in suburbanization

'The automobile is usually credited as the primary new force, but we should remember that it was merely the most impressive machine and visible agent of change (Brownell, 1972). Other technologies also played major roles, especially electricity and telephones. Radio, the talking motion picture, and the phonograph enabled city-class entertainment media to follow people into suburbia (with the television revolution soon to come in the early postwar years)." (50)

Citistat: collective world city

))) Emerged from competing urban webs of colonial and post-colonial reas Became geographically diffuse hub of omnipresent periphery, drawing labor and materials from readily-substitutable locations throughout the periphery Geographically corporeal (urban places exist), but geographically ethereal (virtual communication across physical space) Composed of: 1) Commuditiese: commodified cybergeois (those overseeing global latifundia i.e. CEOs and celebs) residential and commercial ecologies - Communities created to satisfy and profit from habitat preferences of cybergeoise - Pre-packaged environments, competing for best amenities - Located far from restless protosurp (increasingly marginalized surplus labor) populations; Increasingly teleintegrated to form cyburbia 2) Citadels: commercial commudities, completed teleintegration, consisting of high-rise corporate towers that control production and distribution of global latifundia Consists of cyburbia (collection of state-of-the-art services reliant upon costly and technologically complex interfaces) and cyberia (electronic outland of rudimentary communication Basic phone, telegraphy services) Disinformation superhighway: (DSH) mass info-tain-mercial media owned by a 2 dozen cybergeoisie institutions Information/entertainment/commercial media controlled by a few companies owned by a few powerful people - Highly-filtered sensory organ through which commodities and the in-beyond perceive the world outside their unmediated daily experiences - Consent factory for Citistat → engineering memetic contagion to encourage participation in a global latifundia that is represented as both inevitable and desirable

Chicago School

- Concentric ring - City organized around core - Zones

Why was NYC the poster child for an industrial capital city?

- Economic/ Mercantile dominance. - 1830 - 36% of trade in US → 1860(?) 72% Fragmented elite class → in competition with one another→ Entrepreneurial Risks Immigration → labor force grew, demanded lower wages, fueled growing job market 1819-1920 - 30 million people immigrated to NYC Location not a factor

significance of Highway construction to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

- Highway construction was a direct subsidization of the suburbs on the part of the federal government. - It first allowed travel in, out, and among urban places, and it also made the inside of cities even less desirable to live in. Displacing residents, and construction chaos

significance of Streetcars to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

- ease of transportation within the city. For people to move from urban residential districts outward, they required means to get back in for work. - First 'mass' inter-urban transportation that was accessible to more people; allowed commuting up to 10 miles 'outside of the city.' - By early 1890s, electric streetcar became dominant mode of intraurban transportation; 15-18 mph - Brought relatively dense housing, grid form; often built by the streetcar company close to the streetcar lines! 1890s-1920s until people are buying automobiles - Even upperclass streetcar suburbs exists (can tell from how close they are together)

Definitions of Edge City

1. 5 million square feet of office space 2. 600000 square feet of retail space 3. a population that increases at 9am, marking the area as a work center 4. local perception as a destination for activities, such as jobs, shopping, entertainment 5. the edge city has a history where 30 years ago, the site was residential or rural.

Urban Renewal Mantras

1. saving business 2. resolving traffic and parking issues 3. rebuilding property values 4. Replace shabby, worn-out structures Since housewives led business away from CBD, downtown redevelopment was a retailing strategy against suburbs

Partitioning of suburbs

1: zoning ordinances (controlled standards to maintain prices consistent with income/status of current residents) 2: racial and ethnic covenants (contracts between buyer and home developer, prevented sale to minorities)

Mid 1960s urban renewal

>1300 redevelopment projects underway, 34 sq. miles land acquired, 129,000 structures demolished, something like $3.014 million in fed grants spent by end of 1962

Simon Development Corp U-shaped Shopping Center

A company involved in the development of strip malls, the L, the U, and the barbell (H), all of which are related to parking and suburban retail centers. The U: A shopping center layout with wide parking aisles and generous parking stalls, designed to make shopping pleasant for female customers

Park and Shop Model

A retail model where parking is provided in front, and rear parking is reserved for employees to accommodate women as the primary shoppers

Ghetto

A segregated inner-city enclave, often walled-off, characterized by a socially and economically homogenous population

Company Town: Pullman

A town where a company provides residential facilities for its workers, as exemplified by Pullman with meticulously planned housing

significance of WWII to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

After the war families grew and were encouraged by 'cultural' norms to desire a home of the type in the suburbs: lawn, privacy, community, etc. GI bill 1944 created Veterans Administration program (VA) Post-WWII housing shortage and Baby Boom required way more construction → mass production of new houses w good prices, easy financing due to FHA and VA helping mortgages 1950s: retailers can sell to masses in suburban shopping centers - CBD ties are loosening - Workers no longer constrained to live near employment - Desire to reside in highest-possible status neighborhood supersede workplace accessibility as the leading factor governing choice of a suburban residential location

Suburbs

Areas offering calm of the country with city advantages Suburbs reflect powerful values and beliefs ingrained in AMER national character and culture: - Love of newness - Nearness to nature - Freedom to move - Individualism - Violence - Melting pot of peoples - Manifest sense of destiny Agrarian doctrine of 18th century Enlightenment: Rural ideal: rural life is best for the soul, minimizing opportunity for individual sin. Small agrarian community allows for face-to-face interaction, equal participation, and control over local gov't Cities: symbols of corruption w/ class division, social inequity, and disorder - Modern urbanization = unavoidable byproduct of industrial revolution - City = inhumane, but efficient producer - Rejecting ethnic pluralism of the city and maintaining distinctive native American culture in suburbs

Technology impact on suburbs

Car-produced landscape: Widely dispersed housing tracts, Curvilinear streets, Residential driveways and garages, Drive-in shopping and auto service strips, High-speed highways CA horticultural suburb = specific xpression of arcadian ideal shaping new residential AMER Entertainment in suburbs: telephone, radio, talking motion picture, phonograph, pop culture

Postmodern Urbanism: Jonathan Raban: relationship between cognitive and real

City has hard and soft elements Hard Material: fabric of the build environment Streets, buildings Newcomer first confronts the hard city Soft: Individualized interpretation of the city; Perception created in our minds; Awaits imprint of indentiy → you shape the form around you

Comprehensive, large-scale redesigns of urban renewal

Compared to modest beautification Progressive Era or piecemeal/individualistic competition strategies of depression-era demolition and store front modernization Experimental new formulas for restoring magnetism of commercial centers → destroy old downtown in order to save it Assumptions behind urgent choices of urban renewal reflect era's tension over women's roles, disdain for nonwhite shoppers, ambiguities of judging even the physical condition of downtown's deterioration Cultural underpinnings of downtown's economic crisis and the nation's commitment to urban renewal

Social Geography of the Streetcar Metropolis

Concentric belts w/ income rising w/ increasing distance from city center eliminated limitations of pedestrian city, enabling residential sorting of urban population into homogenous neighborhoods along social and economic class lines PATTERN (from center): - Ethnic community - Horsecar suburb (suburbanizing middle class to moderate-income working class) - Outermost suburbs (most wealthy) Growth of suburbs after 1890 Fueled by expansion of middle-income urban population Realize dream of homeownership in a garden setting Strong class-consciousness and widely shared values were acquired → hallmarks of suburban society

Ways that Retail left the city

Consequent, then catalytic. 1940-56-60 consequent: more eventual moving of retail malls - think nyc with its retail mall moving from downtown to uptown 1970 - catalytic: the leapfrog where retail malls just fully jumped to suburbs and thus caused more business to move there along Shopping centers are built for cars. Designed solutions for women to shop more conveniently (even taking into account their bad driving skills as an assumption)

Public Housing

Constructed as part of federal urban renewal programs to address slums and improve housing conditions

Downtown/Urban Crisis

Declining property values, empty lots, traffic congestion, declining retail sales, vacancies, "lower quality clientele," and shabby buildings. Racialized fears that downtowns might become "lower-class ethnic islands" of commerce added urgency to the calls for urban renewal Slums: Poor customers and racialized fears, designated for destruction and powerless in urban renewal Associated with poverty, crime, abandonment, and racial tension, with racial conflict becoming the overriding narrative for interpreting city life 1930s-40s Downtown fears mainly amongst city planners, admin, and urban specialists 1950s Publicity of downtown crisis to the public. Middle class life was changing, nobody goes downtown anymore

Obsolescence

Designation used to render districts eligible for destruction, implying the need for rebuilding. Convince AMER to support demolition of cherished downtown buildings? Post War AMERICA had to be weaned from Main Street Ideal → old downtown became obsolete Symbol of new maturity: tear down and build again! 1950s: downtown investment strategy to completely rebuild → modernization w/ up-to-date efficient structures. Eliminate, not remodeled Discarded aspects of old Main Street ideal adopted by the suburban shopping center, where the suburbs achieved simplified, commercial environment that couldn't have been in downtown Could enforce Progressive era principles through leases to ensure unified look Redevelopers/retail profits depended on convincing consumers that current belongings were obsolete → Used investment concept of obsolescence to kill the old downtown for a vision of the future

Suburban Mall Emulation

Efforts by downtown areas to replicate the soothing, calm, and relaxing atmosphere of suburban malls to attract customers

Planned Suburb Movement in late 1800s

Emergence of formal planning of suburban communities Romantic garden villages in streetcar era Attempted to integrate housing, shopping, etc compactly for upper middle class and wealthy buyers 1920s: began to use space more lavishly in automobile era Low density; Large open spaces for recreation - Garden apartment - Greenbelt towns

Retail studies

Emphasized suburbanization of retail rather than residential/industrial decentralization in reshaping regional economies SInce 1948 (prosperity + consumption): downtown proportion of metropolitan salees lower than suburban Studies: Discover attitudes and motivation factors that repel or attract shoppers to downtown or suburban centers

significance of gender ideology to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

Especially for middle class white families, an ideology of the homemaker rose, which manifested as wives remaining home and caring for the children while the men commuted to the city for work women worked in the factories during the war, so after the war, they want to keep working but now that the GI's come back the govt wants to make sure they have their jobs back. that's why they promoted the cult of domesticity (women are a threat bc men need jobs) building more housing is good for the economy, women staying home is also good for the economy after the war factories, now in 1946 the men are going to go to work building housing, TV, automobiles postwar "father knows best"

Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

Established in 1934 under the National Housing Act, aimed to alleviate unemployment by adopting HOLC's appraisal methods, standardizing mortgages, and establishing minimum home construction standards. From 1938 through the end of the 1950s, the FHA insured mortgages on nearly 1/3 of all new housing produced annually in the United States, the vast majority located in suburban areas and reserved for whites only considered blacks 'adverse influences' on property values and the agency warned personnel not to insure mortgages on homes unless they were in 'racially homogenous' white neighborhoods and covered with a restrictive covenant Residence in a racially exclusive neighborhood was a source of protection and security"

The Great Migration impact on suburbanization

Exodus of middle class accompanied by arrival of black migrants Rural southern blacks attracted to northern city for industrial work Replacing cheap foreign labor that was cut off by national origins quota system Whites refused to share urban residential space with black people Segregated inner-city enclaves --> walled-off ghettos

Growth of suburbs after 1890 and their social geography = fragmented

Expansion driven by the increase in the middle-income urban population Low-income working class and poor: industrial towns within intercity rail corridors Wealth: tightly knit enclaves Middle class: sociospatial stratification w/ minor status-related differences

The rise of skyscrapers and office parks

Finance; design; white collar industries Office buildings with the beautiful place to go on a walk, greenery Isolated from diversity of city Have to drive to get there

Interdictory Space

Fortification have extended a canopy of suppression and surveillance across the entire city Spaces designed to exclude by function and cognitive sensibilities Types of interdictory space: - Passively aggressive Stealthy: space concealed by intervening objects / grade changes. Slippery: places only reachable by means of interrupted or obfuscated approaches - Assertively confrontational: Deliberately obstructed "crusty" space surrounded by walls and checkpoints - Inhospitable "prickly" places (unsittable benches devoid of shade) - "Juttery" space ostentatiously saturated with surveillance devices Infiltration of fear into the home Bunker-style blockhome Fear of public realm Fortification of commercial facilities URBAN FRAGMENTATION@

Carceral cities

Fortified cities/mean streets Obsession with security reflected in physical form Divided into fortified cells of affluence and terror where police battle criminalized poor Working poor and destitute are spatially sequestered on mean streets, exclude from forbidden cities through security by design High tech policing High tech gated residential developments Panopticon malls

FHA and VA

Government agencies that provided assistance to veterans in obtaining mortgages and housing loans after World War II

Federal Housing Admin

Government agency that aided millions of families to become homeowners through home loan insurance - 1934: Federal Housing Admin home loan insurance aided millions of families to become homeowners

Hetero vs Homogenous Market

HOMO: market with similar or uniform consumer preferences, designed for by suburban malls. Suburbs lacked bargain basement → disinterest in budget-conscious consumer HETERO: Downtown. Downtown drew business from whole urban area and all ethnic groups and classes Redevelopers feared that this would tilt towards poor, nonwhite consumers and turned their back on diversity

The Vanishing Homemaker: My Wife, Your Wife, and Your Neighbor's Wife

Housewives transitioned from being the primary consumers to entering the workforce, challenging traditional gender roles Domestic crisis: housewives find societal role as consumers and family managers unfulfilling Post WWII: women entering workforce, challenging notion that their place was in the home or low-paying part-time employment Postwar AMER glorified dependency of housewives on husbands → Prescriptive literature hints at underlying discontent w/ gender roles Middle class women shopping during the day? Suburbs → informal living, shopping was casual and chore-like rather than exciting. Old thrill of shopping is gone Women had more options due to the car Outdoors everyday, increasing human contact; Life is more interesting in other ways than just shopping Retailers wanted to restore fulfillment women had once had for shopping → Shopping center as a workplace for women: She worked to find a unique tithing at a justifiable price. Balance availability while making her feel like she had finished a quest

Gender Ideology

Housewives were glorified and idealized as the target customers for downtown retail, with their desires and whims shaping urban redevelopment. Shifting gender roles postwar. Subversive threat of working, married women to family life in AMER. Anxiety about wives working and debasing family life fueled concerns over downtown retail decline EX: 1955: International Downtown Executives Association conference Glorification of housewives, deprecation of working wives

significance of Racism to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

Immigrant populations flooded into the city, changing the makeup of residential districts and the general population. When upper middle class white families couldn't afford to move uptown into the elite residences, they moved instead outside of the city. Anti-Black and anti-ethnic racism led to a fleeing Black suburbanization Suburbs were segregated as well - see Atlanta planning committee Restrictive covenants: "you can not sell this property to anyone not white, not christian" (basically)

Timeline of decentralization and suburbanization

In American cities, suburbanization began in the late 1800s. But could be argued it began with beginning of capitalism as people moved away from industrial districts Trolley era ended circa 1920, 25% of nonrural US population lived in suburbs Planned suburb movement in late 1920s **As an alternative to uncontrolled outward sprawl of suburbanization. garden apartment complex and greenbelt towns Segregation long predates suburbanization, but they exacerbate each other in the post-industrial capitalist city

Interstates & highways

Interstates & Highways allowed for manufacturing to leave the city. Government subsidized the interstates Now manufacturing and labor could just travel via interstates, infrastructure exists, laborers commute via highways as well. Now, IT world, only "light industry" can exist in the middle of cities and manufacturing is outside near interstates. "command and control" centers leave the city through office parks & professional buildings. "This is where you're going to live and this is where you're going to work"

Edge Cities

LA: great granddaddy of edge cities Location: Intersection b/t urban beltway and hub-and spoke lateral road Conditions propelling development: - Dominance of automobile and parking - Communications revolution Entry of women into workforce 3 types of edge cities: - Uptowns: Periphreal, pre-automobile settlements. Subsequently absorbed by urban sprawl - Boomers: Classic edge cities Located at freeway interactions - Greenfields: Current state of the art Occuring at intersection of several thousand acres of farmland and one developer's monumental ego

American Council to Improve Our Neighborhoods (ACTION)

Launched public campaign in 1954 to stimulate interest in urban renewal and rehabilitation of sound housing and and removal of slums End public apathy and inspire individuals and citizens groups to take personal responsibility in tackling urban problems

Women's Roads

Local highways designed to minimize driving difficulties for women and connect expressways and shopping centers

significance of Shopping malls to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

Malls provided commercial centers in particular for the women and young people who did not frequent the city. A cultural center as well, it was a symbol of consumerism. provided "fulfillment"

significance of mass production of housing to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

Mass production made homes in the suburbs more accessible for the middle class to buy... further encouraging their move away from renting expensive apartments

Black Gentrification

Migration of middle-class Blacks to low-income, urban, Black neighborhoods 1970s: black middle class gentrified due to race-based housing restrictions limiting the choices of the Black middle-class - have fewer housing options, economic resources, and lower social status than white counterparts - Could only live in the worst neighborhoods that happened to be gentrified and gentrifiable. - driven by social justice agenda and expression of a particular Black, middle-class identity (classless) - diff motivations and outcomes: produced less inequality, but also less advancement of economic and social status 1980s: less black gentrification, perhaps due to strengthening of fair housing practices → expanded housing choices post 2000s patterns of gentrification - Gentrification intensifies racial and class exclusivity of gentrified neighborhood - Black more likely to be denied mortgage if their home is in a gentrified neighborhood FINDINGS on motivation - Middle-class gentrifiers want to build something good out of historic and contemporary race-based discrimination in employment and residence experienceed by Black families and communities - Emphasis on community, demonstrate racial solidarity and work toward racial advancements - Classless: self-perception of inhabiting multiple class locations. Choice of neighborhood affirms multiclass status - Middle class dedicated to limiting lower-class displacement - Racial uplift? - Brixton's success in limiting displacement of low-income residents → due to development being managed by a few local housing development corporations with strong community management - intent is not to replace low with high income residents, but to create an integrated community, work actively to maintain and protect that population from displacement - SOLUTION: encourage asset accumulation (ho

Four-Stage Evolutionary Model

Model of urban transport eras coinciding with major innovations affecting movement and spatial organization in the metropolis. Essentially 1. Compact pedestrian city 2. Developing frontier w/ streetcar and rail corridors 3 Interstitial infilling of recreational auto era, spreading of development 4. urban deconcentration of freeway erea 1. Walking-Horsecar Era (pre 1850 to 1880s) - Small, compact AMER city - Homogenous - Rich resided inside walls - Relative freedom of movement from horse-drawn carriages and after mid 1830s, railroads gave them the option to leave the industrial city - Horse-drawn street cars big success around 1830-1850s - Dispersed city people to the country Cleanliness, ventilation, space, healthful pursuits, natural beauty - Horsecar Suburb: newly accessible outer ring - Permitted urban expansion 3 miles from downtown - 1880s: residential suburbia from upper-class enclave to middle-income housing tract 2. Electric Streetcar Era (late 1880s to 1920s) - Most large cities had rail suburbs, Only accessible to wealthy due to high cost of houses and commute - Narrow radial corridors, Linear "rosary bead" settlement pattern - Development determined by walking distance from each railhead - wealth: due to improved commuter train service and undesirable, hectic pace of urban life: many choose to move outside of industrial city year-round - 1890s: electric streetcars = dominant mode of intraurban transport - Facilitated urban expansion up to 10 miles from city core - urban street-rail systems; radial crosstown routs, lightrail extended to countryside - more technology (electricity, wells, septic tanks, transit revolution) - Narrow, fingerlike linear development of housing tracts thrusting outward from city along traction routes and parallel utility lines - More frequent train stops, some at theme parks and a

Urban Renewal

Nation committed to urban renewal as solution to downtown crisis in the 50s and 60s. Make AMER downtown appealing to white, suburban, middle-class women. Main reasons as understood by the public: 1. save business (retail!) 2. resolve traffic & parking congestion 3. rebuild property values 4. replace worn-out structures ACTION: American Council to Improve Our Neighborhoods (drew members from lots of associations across the public and private sectors?) "Slum clearance" as a euphemism for removal of Black residents. Argued that slum's residents adjacent to downtown cheapened and destroyed the vitality of urban commercial life. Downtown execs & city officials mobilized to control who did and didn't belong downtown Emphasized centrality of retail to CBDs and downtowns Major relative gain in retail sales across suburban areas, while little increase within respective CBDs

Local Business Leaders role in urban renewal

Observed obstacles to renewal and demanded it, forming alliances with organizations with major downtown interests

Spatial manifestations of industrial capital city

Ostentatious commercial architecture - skyscrapers! Ostentatious residential architecture - mansions used by elite to distinguish themselves Residential spaces expand and move upward; upper middle classes "flee" Efflorescence (blooming) of new commercial/leisure spaces: Department stores Rise of consumer culture big example was Ladies Mile, which there was a presentation on Department stores/retail district leap-frogged instead of incremental movements uptown Parks encroached by development (as opposed to expanded like in Boston) Suburbanization

1954 Housing Act and 1956 Highway Act

Part of urban renewal. Business-mayoral coalitions worked to leverage this federal funding specifically for central development in the cities 1956 highway act: fed gov paid 90% of local construction costs. 42,000 miles in nat'l network, 5,000 miles planned for metropolitan areas (nearly 1000 in NY and LA suburbs alone) Basically delegitimized public transportation

Los Angeles School

Postmodern urban process Capitalist, modified with telecommunications revolution, changing nature of work, and globalization Urban periphery organizes the center within context of a globalizing capitalism Contemp urbanism: Landscapes and people are homogenized to facilitate larger scale production and consumption Cities no longer develop as concentrated loci of population and economic activities Fragmented parcels within Citistat, the collective world city - Material composition Commodified communities (commudities) In-beyond (permanently marginalized) Virtual composition Cyburbia (those hooked into electronic world), Cyberia (those who are not) Social order maintained by Consent factory: Ideological DSH Coercion: praedatorian guard (privatized vestige of nation-state's police powers)

Stages of 20th century urbanism

Pre-modern transitional period: up to 1940 Era of modernist cityscapes: after 1950 - Megastructural bigness; Few street entrances to buildings; Little architectural detailing - Straight space / prairie space: Center city canyons; Suburban vistas - Rational forder and flexibility; Landscapes of total order Boring almost - Hardness and opacity: Freeways, Displacement of nature - Discontinuous serial vision Deriving from dominance of the automobile Period of postmodern townscapes: since 1970 - more detailed, handcrafted, cariety, stylish, polyculturalism - Quantspace, Deliberate cuteness - Textured facades Aimed at pedestrians, Rich in detail "Aged" aesthetic - Stylishness Appealing to fashionable, chic, affluent - Reconnection with local Deliberate historical-geographical reconnections - Pedestrian-automobile split Redressing modernist bias toward the car Postmodern townscape as a disguise for govt't and corporations → pretty lies. Only fundamental advance is sanitation All other changes are window dressing: Skyscrapers, renewal, suburban subdivisions, expressways, heritage districts

Privatopia

Private housing development based in common-interest deveelopments. Administered by homeowner's associations. Sustained by covenants, conditions, and restrictions malls, gated communities, the "death of public space"? fueled by privatization, Promoted by ideology of hostile privatism, Culture of non-participation Secession of the successful has altered concept of citizenship ONe's duties consist of satisfying own's obligation to private property --> now focusing on the wealthy

Civil Rights Protests

Protests in the 1960s that forced recognition of African American shoppers in downtown areas

Highway Legislation

Reduced traffic congestion and improved transportation as part of post-WWII urban improvement efforts

Zoning ordinances

Regulations to preserve existing municipalities and command housing prices consistent with income and status levels, often including racial covenants

Romantic Suburb Movement 1830

Response to increasingly undesirable city life. Initially only wealthy could afford time and cost of commuting via rail Garden suburbs: emanate winding countryside European-Style Suburbs: Undesirable suburbs before 1800, associated with poor and social outcasts

Heteropolis

Rise of minorities Ethnic pluralism → hetero-architecture Virtue in mixing, transgressing boundaries, inverting customs, and adopting marginal usage Built environment is transient, unplanned, improvised Hetero-architecture's main point is to accept the different voices that create a city, suppress none, and make from their interactions a greater dialogue Minoritization: postmodern phenomenon, most of the population feels "other" City dwellers distanced from power structure

Parkways

Scenic greenery-lined routes for leisure/recreational driving in urban countryside

1948 Shelley v. Kraemer

Shelley v. Kraemer prohibited racial covenantsfter restrictive covenants came redlining (HOLC).

Retail Revolution

Shift of retail sales from downtown to suburban areas, led by suburban housewives. Shopping centers/malls threatened the downtown retail districts. Role of retail revolution alone in precipitating the Main Street crisis and justifying downtown rebuilding calls attention to the critical role of white suburban housewives in urban redevelopment

Automobiles led to Partitioning of Suburban Social Space

Sorting of residents according to economic status Price of houses = filtering system Automobiles allowed more separate congregations of similar-income groups, supported geographically extensive highly differentiated suburban locality (No more heterogenous society of streetcar suburb) Zoning ordinances Preserve existing municipalities to command housing prices consistent with income and status levels +++ racial covenants

Keno Capitalism

Spatial manifestations of postmodern urban condition: Urbanization occurring in a quasi-random field of opportunities Chicago style city form sacrificed for non-contiguous collage of parcelized, consumption-oriented landscapes devoid of conventional centers, yet wired into electronic propinquity and nominally unified by DSH (Disinformation superhighway, creates wants and dreams, inflates value of commodities, conversion, propaganda) Acute fragmentation and specialization → disjointed urban outcomes Landscape created by exogenous investment processes inherent to flexism, creating apparently-random development and redevelopment of urban land Flexist imposition of global imperatives on local economies → to haphazard juxtaposition of land uses scattered across the landscape Fordism (place oriented) → now a dissonant geographical order Diverse staple crops for local consumption → now a monoculture of exportable crops Assembly lines supplied with parts and managed from distant continents

Post WWII Urban Improvement Efforts

Spearheaded by downtown business leaders and cooperative municipal governments after WWII. - Replaced sewer and water systems - Reduced pollution - Highway legislation reduced traffic congestion - Upgraded transportation / public transport Business executives and concerned public officials alliance used federal urban renewal money for downtown redevelopment → maneuvered 1954 Housing Act and 1956 HIghway Act to further central city construction. Federal gov't increasingly involved in removing existing businesses and old buildings for new centuries. Urban renewal shifted from private/municipal projects to federal funding

Streetcar suburb

Suburban area made accessible by streetcar transportation, enabling residential sorting along social and economic class lines 1890s: electric streetcars = dominant mode of intraurban transport Each streetcar suburb, besides offering class identity and security, possessed its own blend of uniformly supported social values, which invariably glorified the family Gridded streets and dependence upon downtown failed to provide local centers where community can have frequent contact

Bedroom suburbs

Suburbs inhabited by middle/upper-income city commuters, characterized by residential facilities

Wealthy buffer suburbs

Suburbs inhabited by wealthy individuals seeking separation from lower-income groups

Outmost suburbs

Suburbs located near steam railroads and not middle-class trolley lines

Department Stores

Symbol of retail's wellbeing, with an implicit dependence upon white suburban women for city redevelopment. *"In the 1950s, however, mostly male downtown interests invoked women's housekeeping standards in the name of mostly female consumers"

Main Street Ideal

The "immature" concept of a traditional, small-town downtown area, often associated with emotional attachment and old memories. Jane Jacobs supported this diversity. Wrecking ball of obsolescence made this ideal obsolete to convince AMER to support demolition of cherished downtown buildings; Symbol of new maturity: tear down and build again.

Transportation Determinist

The belief that transportation networks and technology are the primary factors shaping human activities and spatial organization

Post-WWII Downtown Crisis

The decline of downtown areas due to women's increasing independence in making career and spending decisions. Declining quality / class of shoppers due to ethnic enclaves and great migration

White Flight

The emigration of white residents from central cities to the suburbs, often in response to the immigration of black residents

Negro Shopping District

The fear of downtown being overrun by low-income and ethnic consumers, leading to a decline in quality and number of customers

Retailers' Narrative of Decline

The fear that selling to working women and immigrants would lower the perceived class of goods, impacting sales to the desired customer group

Interwar Period

The period between the two World Wars, characterized by the deconcentration of economic activity in the city and the suburbanization of retailing

Freeway Era

The period of suburban boom in the 1940s and 50s, marked by the construction of urban freeways and the dominance of automobiles in suburban America Key to postwar national economic recovery and reestablishment of 20s style prosperity Without construction boom (houses, highways), country would have a depressed economy 1956 Interstate Highway Act: Proliferation of urban freeways - deterioration of public transport - SUBURBAN AMERICA DEPENDENT ON AUTO TRANSPORT

Wrecking Ball of Obsolescence

The persuasive strategy used to support the demolition of cherished downtown buildings. Used investment concept of obsolescence to kill the old downtown for a vision of the future Downtown Investors: disorder was too much, let's tear it all down and start anew Embellished a collective memory of a vibrant downtown heyday, effectively moving a vital downtown from the living present to the realm of history Small, old, independent storefronts → obsolete. Legitimate, but immature (old memories)

Bargain Basement Retailing

The practice of offering discounted goods in downtown areas, attracting diverse shoppers and enhancing competitiveness Boosted retail economy; Challenging stereotype of cheap goods and cheap customers

Decentralization

The process of redistributing or dispersing functions, powers, people, or things away from a central location or authority

Speculator-developers

Thousands of individuals making uncoordinated decisions in the process of suburban land development, motivated by profit from fast land turnover

Redlining

Through the HOLC, around 1930s post great migration. "Residential Security Map" 1. first grade A 2. second grade B 3. third grade C 4. fourth grade D "bad areas" didn't receive funding and investment, while good areas did... then the cycle continued

Structure of suburbia dictated by

Transportation Social and individual values Land and capital resource availability Private market actions Technological development Stereotype of Middle class suburban family: New house Long-term, fixed rate, FHA-insured mortgage

significance of Federal housing policies to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

Until the 1930s, no federal involvement in housing policy. THEN its goal: Reduce unemployment and provide homebuyers w/ opportunity to buy the house, encourage homeownership Great Depression in 1929 → people were evicted, homeless, jobless → pres hoover convened national Conference on home building and home ownership in 1931 → encouraged housing by starting mortgages (fed will back the mortgage so someone can buy a house without paying for it all at once)' Conference recs all trying to encourage home ownership: - long term mortgages - low interest rates - govt aid to priv efforts for low income families - reduction of home construction costs - Spurring the private market Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) refinanced and subsidized sooo many mortgages introduced and proved the feasibility of the 30 year (long term) mortgage. - initiated "redlining" bc its rating system undervalued neighborhoods that were dense, mixed, or aging (after restrictive covenants) - designated certain loans as risky based on ethnic groups in different neighborhoods - Homer Hoyt tried to show which areas of city would maintain value versus depreciate. Hoyt zones! Hoyt's model of neighborhood change showed how POC families moving in decreased the price - Tautology: banks decided property values would decrease if there were too many immigrants and poc in the area - and then because of that assumption, the values actually DID decrease. Nothing "just happened." Federal Housing Administration (FHA) created by 1934 National Housing Act, tried to alleviate unemployment. HOLC appraisal methods (racist) were adopted by FHA. Decreased interest rates because the govt was guaranteeing so much. Many many families purchased homes, became cheaper to buy a home in the suburbs than to rent in the city. FHA stripped inner city of middle class.

suburbanization quote from warner

Warner: Aside from class segregation there was nothing in the process of late nineteenth century suburban construction that built communities or neighborhoods: it built streets. [The grid plan] was an economically efficient geometry [for the developer] which divided large parcels of land as they came on the market...." Yeates: "At the same time, the new freedom of the middle-class nuclear family to pursue its own socioeconomic objectives became a pervasive force; however, such a way of life, focused on the narrow upwardly mobile social interests of the individual family unity, was hardly conducive to the formation of cohesive communities (Yeates and Garner, 1976, p. 191)"

significance of Baby Boom to acceleration of US's suburbanization process

With the Baby Boom came the rise of the nuclear family. The increase in population required more housing for these families, but jobs remained in the city. Those who could afford to often opted to raise their families in the supposedly utopic suburbia. Automobiles allowed workers to commute

Urban Redevelopment strategy

Women: key to revitalizing CBD. Her Desires and Whims: Courtship By Design - Downtown execs and city officials wanted to save downtown retail core and reverse the declining quality / class of shoppers - To generate tax rev, pedestrian traffic, and other enterprises - Suburban homemakers > working women / women of color living downtown - Make downtown attractive and safe for white, middle class, suburban women, aesthetically put women "in the buying mood" - Themes: humor, color, movement, lightheartedness" to support aesthetic and philosophical inclinations of women and children - More convenient and accessible to suburban women - highways, emphasis on angled parking to be easier - Private motor car was key to retail - Ease of access, minimum walking distance from car to store, store to store, and location of merchandise, all-weather shopping, beauty, trimming distance to walk to car - U-shaped shopping center w/ wide parking aisles and generous parking stalls makes shopping pleasant for the female customer Shoppers created peak downtown land values in 1920s, investors hopped that white suburban housewives could reinvigorate urban commerce in postwar years

Postmodern Urbanism Themes

World City: globalization - Emergence of relatively few centers of command and control in globalizing economy Dual city: polarization - Social polarization: Race, class, power, religion, gender Hybrid City: fragmentation and cultural hybrids - Fragmentation of material and cognitive life - Collapse of conventional communities - Rise of new cultural categories and spaces → cultural hybrids Cyber City : information age unseats existing socio-spatial structuring Each represented in postmodern urbanism

Flexism

a pattern of econo-cultural production and consumption characterized by near-instantaneous delivery and rapid redirecttability of resource flows Cheaper and faster systems (transport, communication, globalization of capital markets, specialized production processes) → short product and production cycles → highly mobile capital and commodity flow → outmaneuver geographically fixed labor markets, communities, and bounded nation states Evade long-term commitment to place-based socio-economies Under Fordism, exploitation is exercised through alienation of labor att place of production Flexism: little or no labor at a given local Local businesses replaced by chains Down-waging and capital concentration

Vanport City Oregon: an alternative method of residential cities (communist idea)

an example of a residential community for women who didn't have time to clean and cook, not stuck in the domestic sphere, they had to work children were taken care of, free childcare women-only community mixed-race, mixed-religion mass transit

Tautology

banks decided property values would decrease if there were too many immigrants and poc in the area - and then because of that assumption, the values actually DID decrease. Nothing "just happened."

Instead of Vanport, post-war, we get Levittowns

boxes of mass-produced housing single families gender ideology that women would stay home and men would go to work racially segregated (white only)

Mass-Transit Technology

in mid/late 1800s Allowed middle-income urban residents to move into suburbs Narrow band of lower-density housing on outskirts of colonial city EX: Chicago Graett Fire of 1871 1890s: intraurban transport constraints lifted, middle class suburbanize

Holsteinization

process of monoculturing people as consumers to facilitate the harvesting of desires Decomposition of communities into isolated family units and individuals Replace social networks of mutual support with dependent customers

Block Busting

the fear of somebody moving into your street that was not white caused white people to move out immediately to avoid losing value on their house, trying to retain value before POC move in and decrease it.

Hoyt Model

values declined as a function of lowered status of residents and that prices would rice when blacks were first introduced (paying a premium to break the color barrier) and then decline thematically Applied notions of ethnic and racial worth to real-eestatee apprasing