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11.469

Urban Sociology in Theory and Practice

3-0-9 units · Graduate

Introduction to core writings in urban sociology. Explores the nature and changing character of the city and the urban experience, providing context for the development of urban studies research and planning skills. Topics include the changing nature of community, neighborhood effects, social capital and networks, social stratification, feminist theory and critical race theory, and the interaction of social structure and political power. Subject will take place in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk with half of the class from MIT and half of the class from MCI-Norfolk. Limited to 25.

Spring 2016

Topics

  • Introduction to the Course, Orientation at MCI Norfolk
  • The Sociological Imagination
  • Early Urban Sociology
  • Community and How to Study It
  • The Ethnographic Tradition
  • Urban Political Economy: Cities, Industrialization, Deindustrialization
  • Urban Political Economy: Elites, Political Power, and Urban Dynamics
  • Theories of Urban Inequality
  • Identities, Boundaries, and Inequality
  • Social Capital and Social Networks
  • Neighborhood Effects: Order, Disorder, and Collective Efficacy
  • Social Origins of Violence
  • Collective Action

Readings

Spring 2009

This course is intended to introduce graduate students to a set of core writings in the field of urban sociology. Topics include the changing nature of community, social inequality, political power, socio-spatial change, technological change, and the relationship between the built environment and human behavior. We examine the key theoretical paradigms that have constituted the field since its founding, assess how and why they have changed over time, and discuss the implications of these paradigmatic shifts for urban scholarship, social policy and the planning practice.

Readings

  • [Readings in Urban Theory] = Fainstein, Susan, and Scott Campbell. Readings in Urban Theory . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2002. ISBN: 9780631223450.
    Required
  • [The City Reader] = Legates, Richard, and Frederick Stout. The City Reader . New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415770842.
    Required
  • [Metromarxism] = Merrifield, Andy. Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City . New York, NY: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 9780415933490.
    Required
  • Durkheim, Emile. “Division of Labour in Society.” In Sociology: An Introduction: From the Classics to Contemporary Feminists . Edited by Gordon Bailey and Noga Gayle. Don Mills, Canada: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 121-134. ISBN: 9780195409406.
    Required
  • Aldous, Joan, Emile Durkheim, and Ferdinand Tonnies. “An Exchange between Durkheim and Tonnies on the Nature of Social Relations, with an Introduction by Joan Aldous.” The American Journal of Sociology 77, no. 6 (1972): 1191-1200.
    Required
  • Simmel, Georg. “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” In The Sociology of Georg Simmel . Edited by Kurt H. Wolff. New York, NY: Free Press, 1964, pp. 409-424. ISBN: 9780029289204.
    Required
  • Weber, Max. “The Nature of Cities.” In The City . New York, NY: Free Press, 1966. ISBN: 9780029342107.
    Required
  • Merrifield, Andrew. “Karl Marx: Commodities and Cities with Sober Senses.” Metromarxism , pp. 13-30.
    Required
  • ———. “Friedrich Engels: Backstreet Boy in Manchester.” Metromarxism , pp. 31-48.
    Required
  • Tilly, Charles. “Misreading, Then Rereading, Nineteenth-century Social Change.” In Social Structures: A Network Approach . Edited by Barry Wellman and Stephen Berkowitz. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 332-358. ISBN: 9780521286879.
    Listed reading
  • Redfield, Robert. “The Folk Society.” The American Journal of Sociology 52, no. 4 (1947): 293-308.
    Listed reading
  • Tonnies, Ferdinand. Community and Society . New York, NY: Dover Publications, 2002. ISBN: 9780486424972.
    Listed reading
  • Marx, Karl. “The Commodity” and “The Process of Exchange.” Chapters 1 and 2 in Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy . New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1992. ISBN: 9780140445688.
    Listed reading
  • Engels, Friedrich. The Conditions of the Working Class in England . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780192836885.
    Listed reading
  • Wirth, Louis. “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” The American Journal of Sociology 44, no. 1 (1938): 1-24. (Also available in The City Reader , pp. 97-104) ( PDF ) ↗
    Required
  • Park, Robert E. “The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the City Environment.” The American Journal of Sociology 20, no. 5 (1915): 577-612.
    Required
  • Park, Robert E. “ Human Ecology .” The American Journal of Sociology 42, no. 1 (1936): 1-15. ↗
    Required
  • Burgess, Ernest W. “The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project.” In The City . Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 1984, pp. 47-62. ISBN: 9780226646114.
    Required
  • McKenzie, Roderick. “The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Community.” In The City . Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 1984, pp. 63-79. ISBN: 9780226646114.
    Required
  • Milgram, Stanley. “The Experience of Living in Cities.” Science 167 (1970): 1461-1468.
    Required
  • LaFarge, Albert. The Essential William H. Whyte . New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780823220267.
    Listed reading
  • Buy at MIT Press Maier, Richard. “The Civic Bond.” Chapter 2 in A Communications Theory of Urban Growth . Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1962. ISBN: 9780262130127. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Harris, Chauncy D., and Edward L. Ullman. “ The Nature of Cities .” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 242 (1945): 7-17. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Hoyt, Homer. The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighbourhoods in American Cities . Washington, DC: U.S. Federal Housing Administration, 1939.
    Listed reading
  • Dunlap, Riley E., and William R. Catton Jr. “Environmental Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 5 (1979): 243-273.
    Required
  • Michelson, William, and Willem van Vliet. “Theory and the Sociological Study of the Built Environment.” In Handbook of Environmental Sociology . Edited by Riley Dunlap and William Michelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001, pp. 33-69. ISBN: 9780313268083.
    Required
  • Abrentzen, Sherry. “Socio-Behavioral Qualities of the Built Environment.” In Handbook of Environmental Sociology . Edited by Riley Dunlap and William Michelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001, pp. 70-95. ISBN: 9780313268083.
    Required
  • Gans, Herbert. “Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life: A Re-evaluation of Definitions.” In People, Plans, and Policies: Essays on Poverty, Racism, and Other National Urban Problems . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1994, pp. 51-69. ISBN: 9780231074032.
    Required
  • Fischer, Claude. “The Subcultural Theory of Urbanism: A Twentieth-Year Assessment.” The American Journal of Sociology 101, no. 3 (1995): 543-577.
    Required
  • Dunlap, Riley. “Paradigms, Theories, and Environmental Sociology.” In Sociological Theory and the Environment: Classical Foundations, Contemporary Insights . Edited by Frederick Buttel, August Gijswijt, Peter Dickens, and Riley Dunlap. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002, pp. 329-350. ISBN: 9780742501867.
    Listed reading
  • Fischer, Claude S. “Toward a Subcultural Theory of Urbanism.” The American Journal of Sociology 80, no. 6 (1975): 1319-1341.
    Listed reading
  • Tilly, Charles. “The Pattern of the Metropolis.” In An Urban World . Edited by Kevin, Lynch. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1974, pp. 298-315.
    Listed reading
  • Hawley, Amos. Human Ecology: A Theoretical Essay . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780226319841.
    Listed reading
  • Wellman, Barry. “The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers.” The American Journal of Sociology 84, no. 5 (1979): 1201-1231.
    Listed reading
  • Tilly, Charles. “The Historic and the Structural Theories of Urban Form: Their Implications for Urban Renewal.” In An Urban World . Edited by William Alonso. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1974, pp. 441-446.
    Listed reading
  • Bookchin, Murray. The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy . Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2005. ISBN: 9781904859260.
    Listed reading
  • Michelson, William. Man and His Urban Environment: Sociological Approach . Revised ed. Boston, MA: Longman Higher Education, 1976. ISBN: 9780201047264.
    Listed reading
  • Dunlap, Riley E. and William R. Catton Jr. “Struggling with Human Exemptionalism: The Rise, Decline and Revitalization of Environmental Sociology.” The American Sociologist 25, no. 1 (1994): 5-30.
    Listed reading
  • Fischer, Claude. To Dwell among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780226251387. (Read chapters 1, 2, 7, 8, and 10)
    Listed reading
  • Field, Donald R., and Darryll R. Johnson. “Rural Communities and Natural Resources: A Classical Interest.” The Rural Sociologist 6, no. 2 (1986): 187-196.
    Listed reading
  • Michelson, William. Environmental Choice, Human Behavior, and Residential Satisfaction . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780195021448.
    Listed reading
  • Hawley, Amos. Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure . New York, NY: Ronald Press Co., 1950. ISBN: 9780826039200.
    Listed reading
  • Rae, Douglas W. City: Urbanism and Its End . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780300107746.
    Listed reading
  • Gans, Herbert. Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans . New York, NY: The Free Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780029112403.
    Listed reading
  • Venkatesh, Sudhir. American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780674008304.
    Listed reading
  • Whyte, William F. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum . 4th ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780226895451.
    Listed reading
  • Pattillo, Mary. Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780226649320.
    Listed reading
  • Whyte, William H. “The Design of Spaces. In The City Reader , pp. 429-436.
    Listed reading
  • Young, Alford A. “Herbert Gans and the Politics of Urban Ethnography in the (Continued) Age of the Underclass.” City & Community 6, no. 1 (2007): 7-20.
    Listed reading
  • Gregory, Steven. Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780691029368.
    Listed reading
  • Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities . New York, NY: Modern Library, 1993. ISBN: 9780679600473.
    Listed reading
  • Liebow, Elliot. Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men . Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1967.
    Listed reading
  • Pattillo-McCoy, Mary. Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780226649290.
    Listed reading
  • Anderson, Elijah. Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780226018164.
    Listed reading
  • Caldeira, Teresa. City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in Sao Paulo . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780520221437.
    Listed reading
  • Gans, Herbert. The Levittowners . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780231055710.
    Listed reading
  • Kefalas, Maria. Working-Class Heroes: Protecting Home, Community, and Nation in a Chicago Neighborhood . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780520235434.
    Listed reading
  • McDermott, Monica. Working-Class White: The Making and Unmaking of Race Relations . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780520248090.
    Listed reading
  • McLeod, Jay. Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood . Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780813343587.
    Listed reading
  • Young, Alford A. The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780691127002.
    Listed reading
  • Vidich, Arthur, and Joseph Bensman. Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780252068904.
    Listed reading
  • Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects . New York, NY: Harcourt, 1961. ISBN: 9780156180351.
    Required
  • Merrifield, Andrew. “Walter Benjamin: The City of Profane Illumination.” In Metromarxism .
    Required
  • Howard, Ebenezer. “The Town-country Magnet.” The City Reader , pp. 309-316.
    Required
  • Wright, Frank Lloyd. “Broad-Acre City: A New Community Plan.” The City Reader , pp. 325-330.
    Required
  • Charles Tilly. “The Chaos of the Living City.” In An Urban World. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1974, pp. 86-107.
    Required
  • Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects . New York, NY: Harcourt, 1961. ISBN: 9780156180351.
    Listed reading
  • Sennett, Richard. Families against the City: Middle Class Homes of Industrial Chicago, 1872-1890 . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 59-149. ISBN: 9780674292260.
    Listed reading
  • Tilly, Charles. “If All the World Were Philadelphia: A Scaffolding for Urban History, 1774-1930.” In An Urban World. Edited by Sam Bass Warner. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1974, pp. 315-331.
    Listed reading
  • Sjoberg, Gideon. The Preindustrial City: Past and Present . New York, NY: Free Press, 1965. ISBN: 9780029289808.
    Listed reading
  • Benjamin, Walter. “Paris, Capital of the Twentieth Century.” In The Arcades Project . Edited by Rolf Tiedemann. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780674008021.
    Listed reading
  • Sennett, Richard. The Fall of Public Man . New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992. ISBN: 9780393308792.
    Listed reading
  • Merrifield, Andrew. “Henri Lefebvre: The Urban Revolution.” Metromarxism , pp. 71-92.
    Required
  • ———. “Manuel Castells: The City of Althusser and Social Movements.” Metromarxism , pp. 113-132.
    Required
  • ———. “David Harvey: The Geopolitics of Urbanization.” Metromarxism , pp. 133-157.
    Required
  • ———. “Marshall Berman: A Marxist Urban Romance.” Metromarxism , pp. 157-173.
    Required
  • Sawers, Larry. “New Perspectives on Urban Political Economy.” In Marxism and the Metropolis: New Perspectives in Urban Political Economy . Edited by William Tabb and Larry Sawers. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 3-20. ISBN: 9780195033083.
    Required
  • Gordon, David. “Capitalist Development and the History of American Cities.” In Marxism and the Metropolis: New Perspectives in Urban Political Economy . Edited by William Tabb and Larry Sawers. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp 54-81. ISBN: 9780195033083.
    Required
  • Saunders, Peter. Urban Politics: A Sociological Interpretation . London, UK: Hutchinson Educational, 1984, pp. 66-136. ISBN: 9780091531119.
    Listed reading
  • Castells, Manuel. The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory . Edited by Ida Susser. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2002. ISBN: 9780631219330. (Read Part I)
    Listed reading
  • Lefebvre, Henri. The Urban Revolution . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780816641604.
    Listed reading
  • David, Harvey. The Urbanization of Capital: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization . Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780801831447.
    Listed reading
  • Schlosberg, David. Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780199562480. (Read chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6)
    Listed reading
  • Pellow, David. “Environmental Inequality Formation.” American Behavioral Scientist 43, no. 4 (2000): 581-601.
    Listed reading
  • Buy at MIT Press Pellow, David, and Robert Brulle. Power, Justice, and the Environment . Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005, pp. 1-53. ISBN: 9780262661935. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Fainstein, Susan. Planning and the Just City . Paper prepared for Conference on Searching for the Just City, GSAPP, Columbia University, April 29, 2006.
    Listed reading
  • Logan, Jonathan, and Harvey Molotch. “The City as a Growth Machine.” Chapter 10 in Readings in Urban Theory .
    Required
  • Squires, Gregory D. “Partnership and the Pursuit of the Private City.” Chapter 11 in Readings in Urban Theory .
    Required
  • Smith, Neil. “Gentrification, the Frontier, and the Restructuring of Urban Space.” Chapter 12 in Readings in Urban Theory .
    Required
  • Painter, Joe. “Regulation Theory, Post-Fordism, and Urban Politics.” Chapter 5 in Readings in Urban Theory .
    Required
  • Mollenkopf, John. The Contested City . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780691022208.
    Listed reading
  • Fainstein, Susan. The City Builders: Property Development in New York and London, 1980-2000 . Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2001. ISBN: 9780700611331.
    Listed reading
  • Katznelson, Ira. City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States . Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780226426730.
    Listed reading
  • Friedland, Roger. Power and Crisis in the City: Corporations, Unions, and Urban Policy . New York, NY: MacMillan, 1982. ISBN: 9780333260760.
    Listed reading
  • Logan, John, and Harvey Molotch. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780520254282.
    Listed reading
  • Abu-Lughod, Janet. From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York’s Lower East Side . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1994. ISBN: 9781557865250.
    Listed reading
  • Zukin, Sharon. “Whose Culture, Whose City.” The City Reader , pp. 136-146.
    Required
  • Wilson, William Julius. “From Institutional to Jobless Ghettos.” The City Reader , pp. 126-135.
    Required
  • Merrifield, Andy. “Social Justice and Communities of Difference: A Snapshot from Liverpool.” In The Urbanization of Injustice . Edited by Eric Swyngedouw and Andrew Merrifield. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780814755761.
    Required
  • Massey, Douglas. “American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass.” American Journal of Sociology 96, no. 2 (1990): 329-357.
    Required
  • Sampson, Robert. “Disparity and Diversity in the Contemporary City.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 1-31.
    Required
  • Davis, Diane. “Taking Place and Space Seriously: Reflections on ‘Disparity and Diversity in the Contemporary City.’” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 39-47.
    Required
  • Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780691121864. (Part II and III)
    Listed reading
  • Katz, Michael. The “Underclass” Debate . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780691006284.
    Listed reading
  • Festinger, Leon. Social Pressures in Informal Groups: A Study of Human Factors in Housing . Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1950. ISBN: 9780804701747.
    Listed reading
  • Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780226901312.
    Listed reading
  • Castells, Manuel. The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory . Edited by Ida Susser. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2002, (Read Part II). ISBN: 9780631219330.
    Listed reading
  • Zukin, Sharon. The Cultures of Cities . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 1996. ISBN: 9781557864376.
    Listed reading
  • Davis, Mike. City of Quartz . New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1992. ISBN: 9780679738060.
    Listed reading
  • Klinenberg, Eric. Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago . Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 2003, (Read chapter 2). ISBN: 9780226443225.
    Listed reading
  • Buy at MIT Press Bullard, Robert. Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity . Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780262524704. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Gilroy, Paul. “A Response.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 33-38.
    Listed reading
  • Bottoms, Anthony. “Disorder, Order and Control Signals.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 49-55.
    Listed reading
  • Sennett, Richard. “Urban Disorder Today.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 57-58.
    Listed reading
  • Wikström, Per-Olof H. “Questions of Perception and Reality.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 59-63.
    Listed reading
  • Body-Gendrot, Sophie. “A Plea for Urban Disorder.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 65-73.
    Listed reading
  • Wiles, Paul. “Disadvantage, Disorder and Diversity.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 75-81.
    Listed reading
  • Sampson, Robert. “Analytic Approaches to Disorder.” British Journal of Sociology 60, no. 1 (2009): 83-93.
    Listed reading
  • Sassen, Saskia. “The Impact of New Technologies and Globalization on Cities.” The City Reader , pp. 212-220.
    Required
  • Wellman, Barry, and Scot Wortley. “Different Strokes From Different Folks: Community Ties and Social Support.” American Journal of Sociology 96, no. 3 (1990): 558-88.
    Required
  • Wellman, Barry. “The Network Community: An Introduction.” In Networks in the Global Village: Life in Contemporary Communities . Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999, pp. 1-48. ISBN: 9780813368214.
    Required
  • Granovetter, Mark. “The Strength of Weak Ties”. American Journal of Sociology 78, no. 6 (1973): 1360-1380.
    Required
  • Calhoun, Craig. “Community Without Propinquity Revisited: Communications Technology and the Transformation of the Urban Public Sphere.” Sociological Inquiry 68, no. 3 (1998): 373-379.
    Required
  • Gieryn, Thomas. “A Space for Place in Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 463-496.
    Required
  • Graham, Stephen. “Bridging Urban Digital Divides? Urban Polarisation and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs).” Urban Studies 39, no. 1 (2002): 33-56.
    Required
  • Matei, Sorin, and Sandra Ball-Rokeach. “Real and Virtual Social Ties: Connections in the Everyday Lives of Seven Ethnic Neighborhoods.” American Behavioral Scientist 45, no. 3 (2001): 550-564.
    Required
  • Hampton, Keith. “Grieving for a Lost Network: Collective Action in a Wired Suburb.” The Information Society 19 (2003): 417-428. ( PDF ) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community . New York, NY: Simon & Shuster, 2001. ISBN: 9780743203043.
    Listed reading
  • Webber, Melvin. “Order in Diversity: Community without Propinquity.” Cities and Space: The Future Use of Urban Land . Edited by Lowdon Wingo. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963, pp. 23-54.
    Listed reading
  • Wellman, Barry. Networks in the Global Village: Life in Contemporary Communities . Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780813368214.
    Listed reading
  • Fischer, Claude. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780520086470.
    Listed reading
  • Fischer, Claude. “Bowling Alone: What’s the Score?” Social Networks 27, no. 2 (2005): 155-167.
    Listed reading
  • Ling, Rich. The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society . San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2004. ISBN: 9781558609365.
    Listed reading
  • Buy at MIT Press Katz, James E., and Ronald E. Rice. Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement, and Interaction . Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262112697. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Davis, Diane. “Cities in Global Context: A Brief Intellectual History.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29, no. 1 (2005): 92-109.
    Required
  • Sassen, Saskia. “New Frontiers Facing Urban Sociology at the Millennium.” British Journal of Sociology 51, no. 1 (2000): 143-159.
    Required
  • King, Anthony D. Global Cities: Post-imperialism and the Internationalization of London . New York, NY: Routledge, 1991. ISBN: 9780415062411.
    Required
  • Smith, Michael Peter. “Transnationalism and the City.” In The Urban Moment: Cosmopolitan Essays on the Late 20th Century City . Edited by Robert Beauregard, Sophie Body-Gendrot and Line Beauregard. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1999, pp. 119-140. ISBN: 9780761914853.
    Required
  • DeFilippis, James. “Understanding Capital Mobility, the “New Urban Politics,” and Local Autonomy.” Chapter 1 in Unmaking Goliath: Community Control in the Face of Global Capital . New York, NY: Routledge, 2003, pp. 17-60. ISBN: 9780415945257.
    Required
  • Graham, Stephen. “Beyond the ‘Dazzling Light’: From Dreams of Transcendence to the ‘Remediation’ of Urban Life.” New Media and Society 6 no. 1 (2004): 16-25.
    Required
  • Sassen, Saskia. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780691070636.
    Listed reading
  • Levitt, Peggy. The Transnational Villagers . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780520228139.
    Listed reading
  • Roberts, J. Timmons and Peter E. Grimes. “World-System Theory and the Environment: Toward a New Synthesis.” In Sociological Theory and the Environment: Classical Foundations, Contemporary Insights . Edited by Frederick Buttel, August Gijswijt, Peter Dickens, and Riley Dunlap. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002, pp. 167-194. ISBN: 9780742501867.
    Listed reading
  • Clark, David. Urban World/Global City . New York, NY: Routledge, 2003. ISBN: 9780415320986.
    Listed reading
  • Drainville, Andre. Contesting Globalization: Space and Place in the World Economy . New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. ISBN: 9780415319300.
    Listed reading
  • Marcuse, Peter, and Ronald Van Kempen. Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order ? Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. ISBN: 9780631212904.
    Listed reading
  • Sites, William. Remaking New York: Primitive Globalization and the Politics of Urban Community . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780816641567.
    Listed reading
  • Beauregard, Robert. “City of Superlatives.” City and Community 2, no. 3 (2003): 183-199.
    Required
  • Dear, Michael. “Response to Beauregard-Superlative Urbanisms: The Necessity for Rhetoric in Social Theory.” City and Community 2, no. 3 (2003): 201-204.
    Required
  • Brenner, Neil. “Stereotypes, Archetypes, and Prototypes: Three Uses of Superlatives in Contemporary Urban Studies.” City and Community 2, no. 3 (2003): 205-216.
    Required
  • Soja, Edward. “Taking L.A. Apart: Towards A Post-modern Geography.” The City Reader , pp. 189-200.
    Required
  • Davis, Mike. “Fortress L.A.” The City Reader , pp. 201-205.
    Required
  • Hannigan, John. “Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Post-modern Metropolis.” Chapter 14 in Readings in Urban Theory .
    Required
  • Davis, Diane. “Speaking to the Silences: Do We Need a Sociology for the post-9/11 World?” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 18, nos. 3-4 (2005): 293-311.
    Required
  • Dunlap, Riley E., and Kent D. Van Liere. “The ‘New Environmental Paradigm.’” Journal of Environmental Education 40, no. 1 (2008): 19-28.
    Required
  • Sandercock, Leonie. Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities in the 21st Century . London, UK: Continuum, 2003, pp. 85-153. ISBN: 9780826464637.
    Listed reading
  • Dear, Michael. From Chicago to L.A.: Re-visioning Urban Theory . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2001. ISBN: 9780761920953.
    Listed reading
  • Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums . New York, NY: Verso, 2007. ISBN: 9781844671601.
    Listed reading
  • Beck, Ulrich. World at Risk . Cambridge, MA: Polity, 2009. ISBN: 9780745642017.
    Listed reading
  • Fainstein, Susan, and Scott Campbell. Readings in Urban Theory . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2002. ISBN: 9780631223450.
    Required
  • Legates, Richard, and Frederick Stout. The City Reader . New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415770842.
    Required
  • Merrifield, Andy. Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City . New York, NY: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 9780415933490.
    Required
  • DeFilippis, James. Unmaking Goliath: Community Control in the Face of Global Capital. New York, NY: Routledge, 2003, pp. 17-60. ISBN: 9780415945257.
    Recommended
  • King, Anthony D. Global Cities: Post-imperialism and the Internationalization of London . New York, NY: Routledge, 1991. ISBN: 9780415062411.
    Recommended
  • Gans, Herbert J. Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans . New York, NY: The Free Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780029112403.
    Recommended
  • Gans, Herbert. The Levittowners . New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1982. ISBN: 9780231055710.
    Recommended
  • Levitt, Peggy. The Transnational Villagers . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780520228139.
    Recommended
  • Mollenkopf, John Hull. The Contested City . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780691022208.
    Recommended
  • Burgess, Ernest W., and Robert E. Park. The City . Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780226646114.
    Recommended
  • Sassen, Saskia. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780691070636.
    Recommended
  • Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780691121864.
    Recommended
  • Castells, Manuel. The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory . Edited by Ida Susser. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2002. ISBN: 9780631219330.
    Recommended
  • Wellman, Barry. Networks in the Global Village: Life in Contemporary Communities . Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780813368214.
    Recommended
  • Whyte, William Foote. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum . Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780226895451.
    Recommended

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None G (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units

Sources