Contemporary Urban Social Structure and Change

This seminar will explore the transformation of American cities and metropolitan areas during the post-World War II years.  Readings, class discussions, and assignments will examine the principal ideological perspectives that have shaped politics and social science research, theories that evolved from those world views, and policies that have emerged (as well as those that have been submerged) during these years.

A central focus will be the objective reality and subjective perceptions of inequality.  The critical role of inequality, and of competing explanations for inequality, will be examined and will also serve as an orienting theme around which other issues are to be explored.  The dynamics of inequalities associated with class, race, gender, ethnicity, and space will be analyzed in terms of their implications for the process of urbanization, the changing nature of social institutions (e.g. government agencies, private corporations, labor unions, community organizations) and uneven urban development generally.

Course requirements include both oral participation and written work.  It is assumed that all students will attend each session and will have completed all the required readings in their entirety prior to the week that they are discussed.        

Required Readings

The following books are required and can be purchased at the UWM Bookstore. 

William J. Wilson, When Work Disappears, Alfred, A. Knopf, 1996.

Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid, Harvard University Press 1993.

Michael Katz, The Undeserving Poor, Pantheon Books, 1989.

Myron Orfield, Metropolitics, Brookings Institution Press/Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1997.

Kathryn Marie Dudley, The End of the Line, University of Chicago Press, 1994.

David Rusk, Inside Game Outside Game, Brookings Institution Press, 1999.

Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, Princeton University Press, 1996.

A collection of articles and book chapters is also required and is available in electronic reserve at the Golda Meir Library, E 176.  Instructions for downloading and copying these documents are attached.

Assignments    

Students will be required to complete several oral and written assignments. 

Oral Assignments

Students will select one week for which they will be responsible for introducing and leading part of the discussion.  The primary objective will be to respond to the set of readings that week.   Students should assume that everyone has completed the reading so while a brief overview of the authors' central message would be appropriate a detailed summary is unnecessary.  This presentation should focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the readings (explaining why they are helpful, uninformative, or simply wrong), how each reading relates to the theoretical issues that have been examined in earlier readings and discussions, critical questions that are raised (in terms of theory, policy, or future research), and other matters that the students find striking.

Each student should also read and bring to class at least one published book review of the required books and be prepared to discuss that review.  This does not mean that a portion of every class will consist of a recitation by each student of a review.  Hopefully, the insights of the various reviewers will be incorporated in the seminar discussions.

Students will also be expected to participate in the discussion each week.

Finally, during the last three weeks of class each student will make a 20 minute presentation of their final paper and entertain questions on that presentation.

Written Assignments

Two written assignments will be completed by each student.  The first paper will be a critical analysis of a set of readings assigned for the seminar.  The second will be an analysis of an issue selected by each student.

The first paper will critically examine at least three of the readings (books, book chapters, or articles) discussed during the first five weeks of the seminar.  Students will select a group of readings related to a particular topic and discuss the strengths and limitations of their treatment of that topic.  Particular attention should be paid to the theoretical perspectives underpinning the arguments and the policy implications as they relate to the structure and dynamics of urban communities.  Papers should be between five and eight pages, and will be due on February 28.

The second paper will examine a topic to be selected by each student, in consultation with the instructor.  A one page synopsis of the paper will be due on March 6.  The topic of the paper must relate to at least one of the major issues discussed in the seminar (e.g. racism, sexism, housing patterns, poverty, labor markets, welfare, industrial relations, economic development policy).  The subject of the paper should draw from each student's research interests, ideally the topic of their dissertation.  The paper must draw from the required readings for the seminar but should be supplemented by additional research materials selected by the student.  Papers should be ten to fifteen pages long and will be due on May 8.

In case of late submissions, there will be a reduction of one grade increment for each day that the paper is late.

Grades

Seminar grades will be based on the final paper (50%), the first paper or literature review (30%), and classroom participation (20%).

SCHEDULE

1/24                 Introduction

1/31                 Inequality:  Ideological and Theoretical Roots

Milton Friedman, "The Relation between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom," and "The Role of Government in a Free Society," from Capitalism and Freedom, University of Chicago Press, 1962

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, "Some Principles of Stratification" and responses in Class, Status, and Power, Macmillan, 1966.

Karl Marx, "A Note on Classes," in Class, Status, and Power, Macmillan, 1966.

Reinhard Bendix and Seymour Martin Lipset, "Karl Marx's Theory of Social Classes," in Class, Status, and Power, Macmillan, 1966.

Max Weber, "Class, Status, and Party," in Class, Status, and Power, Macmillan, 1966.

Patrick M. Horan, "Is Status Attainment Research Atheoretical," American Sociological Review Vol. 43, 1978.

C. Wright Mills, "The Promise," from The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press, 1959.

Timothy Barnekov and Daniel Rich, "Privatism and the Limits of Local Economic Development Policy," Urban Affairs Quarterly, 1989.

2/7                   Urbanism and Urbanization

Max Weber, "The Nature of the City," in Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities, Prentice-Hall, 1969.

George Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," in Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities, Prentice-Hall, 1969.

Ernest W. Burgess, "Residential segregation in American cities,"  Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 1928.

Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," in Urbanism in World Perspective, Crowell, 1968.

Herbert J. Gans, "Urbanism and suburbanism as ways of life:  A re-evaluation of definitions," in Urbanism in World Perspective, Crowell, 1968.

Mark Gottdiener and Joe R. Feagin, "The Paradigm Shift in Urban Sociology," Urban Affairs Quarterly, 1988.

2/14                 Political Economy of Uneven Urban Development

David Rusk, Inside Game Outside Game, Brookings Institute Press, 1999.

Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone, "Zapping Labor," from The Great U-Turn, Basic Books, 1988.

2/21                 Race and Redevelopment

William J. Wilson, When Work Disappears, Knopf, 1996.

2/28                 Housing:  Segregation, Poverty, and Uneven Development

FIRST PAPER DUE

Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid, Harvard University Press 1993.

Stephen Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom, "Cities and Suburbs," America in Black and White, New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1997.

3/6                   Urban Development and the Dynamics of Gender Roles and Relationships

ONE PAGE SYNOPSIS OF FINAL PAPER DUE

Delores Hayden, "Getting and Spending," in Redesigning the American Dream, Norton, 1984.

Lynn M. Appleton, "The Gender Regimes of American Cities" and Louise Jezierski, "Women Organizing Their Place in Restructuring Economies," in Judith A. Garber and Robyne S. Turner, Gender in Urban Research, Sage, 1995.

Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein, "Work, Welfare, and Single Mothers' Economic Survival Strategies," American Sociological Review, 1997.

3/13                 Ideology, Politics, and Poverty

Michael Katz, The Undeserving Poor, Pantheon Books, 1989.

Edward C. Banfield, "The Imperatives of Class," in The Unheavenly City Revisited, Waveland Press, 1990.

Lawrence Mead, "Introduction"  The New Politics of Poverty New York:  Basic Books, 1992.

3/20                 SPRING BREAK

3/27                 Culture and Ideology in Post-Industrial America

Kathryn Marie Dudley, The End of the Line, University of Chicago Press, 1994.

4/3                   Class, Race, and the Urban Crisis

Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, Princeton University Press, 1996.

4/10                 Urban Sprawl and the Politics of Uneven Development

Myron Orfield, Metropolitics Brookings Institution Press and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1997.

4/17                 Cities for Who?

Saskia Sassen, "Cities and Communities in the Global Economy," American Behavioral Scientist 39 (5) March/April 1996. 

Robert Lynd, selections from Knowledge for What:  the Place of Social Science in American Culture, Princeton University Press, 1939.

4/24-5/8            Student presentations

FINAL PAPER DUE, MAY 8