Postmetropolis

Edward W. Soja had written about the "Six Discourses on the Postmetropolis". Postmetropolis is the term to describe the differences between the post modern areas and the modern areas from before the 1970's. Modernism came first with Wright, Howard, and La Corbusier. In the 1970's Post Modernism came about which was basically people rebelling against the modernist principles.
The Postmetropolis had six main discourses has Soja stated. They were Flexcity, Cosmopolis, Exopolis, Metropolarities, Carceral Archipelago's, and Sim city. Flexcity was Post-Fordism which looks to consumers first and asked for feedback unlike Fordism the Modernism era. The producer and consumer are in constant communication. An example of a Flexcity is New York, it can easily adapt and change, so you can think of Felxcity as flexible.
Cosmopolis is simply to be cultured and diverse, with a diverse population. It has golbalization and glocalization which are means of exchange in a way.
Exopolis is the idea of an edge city. Such as in the greater metro area a good consumer suburb town that is the center of production can be part of the city. Exurbs are greater than 50 miles from the main city. This article from The New York Times talks about people commuting form exurb cities...http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/11/realestate/commuting-at-the-edge-of-the-exurb-belt.html
Metropolarities are developments of new types of qualities or social structures that might emerge.
Carceral Archipelagos are "prison islands". It is the thought that you are being watched , such as by having to sign in and show id's to get into buildings and such similar places.
Last is the Sim City. An example of this is Time Square. It is both real and unreal. It use to be a very serious center of production and post modernism it is used for many such things as the ball dropping and the naked cowboy.

"Ecology of Fear"

Mike Davis wrote about "Ecology of Fear". Davis said hes sees the city based upon fear. To him cities are still seen as zones of danger with a lot of illegal things happening in them. Things such as drug-dealing, rapes, and murders are most likely to happen in a city. Davis' ideas followed Jane Jacobs, so this time was around the 1980's. His idea was to somehow contain the danger and damage in a city. Most of the danger came from immigrants, minorities, lower class people, but especially the homeless.
Mike Davis' subject of study was the fortress city Los Angeles. Davis wanted to recognize the hard and soft boundaries that had to be placed when and where, also having to do with social boundaries within the built environment. For example, he felt that instead of having flat bench's on the corners and bus stops, to have something a lot more uncomfortable so that people won't always be trying to hang around the area. He wanted to use a method of exercises of social difference and power. Mixing of social classes at many public parks he felt would relieve many tensions throughout the city.
Hard boundaries were used to keep certain people out of places were such physical things as big solid fences maybe with some barbed wire on the top. An example of a soft boundary would be just a sign saying no entrance or keep off grass. It would be something where you physically could go and do but if an authority figure saw you, you would be kicked out. So overall a hard boundary would be a tougher boundary to overcome, but for entering either boundary counsequences would be the same.
Davis' overall point was that fear proves itself, and that it is not based upon crime. To read more about Mike Davis' "Ecology of Fear" and Los Angeles click on the following link...http://misonou.livejournal.com/530886.html

Suburbs overcoming Cities

Jane Jacobs was all about the movement called New Urbanism. This went against all the old urbanism and against the paternalism of the modernist approach. The modernist approach was from the likes of Wright and La Corbusier. Jacobs said that we needed to look at the city as natural living things and thought it was the worst thing to do to try and control and change things in a city.
The difference between a city and suburb is it's densities. The city has a high density and the suburbs a low density. Suburbs were homogenous which meant they had the same race and class living there which is obviously different today. The suburb has changed over time from homogenous to heterogenous. The suburbs have now become more diverse than cities. Jane Jacobs wanted to allow the city to grow as an ecosystem and after about the 1960's the New Urbanist's were very successful. To look up awesome info about New Urbanism click this link http://www.newurbanism.org/

They pushed for community planning rather than having specialists and professionals. Neighborhoods and small communities started becoming more important to people. Nieghborhoods started becoming the basis of America's social fabric and American's wanted and needed togetherness and relationships.
A huge factor in suburb life was the automobile. Most people didn't need to go or live in the city when they have an automobile and stores around them to shop with everything they need. Suburbs started to have restaurants, clothing stores, and eventually malls with a countless variety of stores. Automobiles alone helped erode the basis of forming relationships. By the year 1998 51% of people lived in suburbs and by today that percentage has probably risen.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

In the first four chapters of this book, the author, Jane Jacobs discusses why sidewalks are so important to a city and what makes them so significant. Jacobs differs with Howard's and La Corbusier's ideas and says that they are all irrelevant to how cities work.
She starts off by saying the three primary uses of sidewalks which are safety, contact, and assimilating children. She says that street safety is promoted by pavements which shows the public and private seperation. She says that people are more so protected or feel protected from the eyes of all the pedestrians on the streets and those watching out of their office building windows. By this she basically meant that over time pavements contribute to building trust between neighbors and in the community. Also, because of so many stores on the sidewalks of cities, the social life is enhanced because of all the storekeepers finding out about retail news and spreading it to pedestrians that enter their stores. A great point that she states is that sidewalk contact and safety combined together, puts a nice block on racial discrimination and segregation. It forms bonds and brings more people together.
Jacobs then goes ahead to say that trust cannot be built in artificial public places such as a game room in a housing project. She is going against the idea of the Radiant City and the Garden City. She further goes against these theories by saying that the sidewalks are a safe environment for children unlike big city parks because of the lack of security and surveillance in the parks. She says successful parks are those under a lot of use from companies and residents.
Overall Jacobs has her own ideas of what should make a great American city and it doesn't have anything to do with what Howard or La Corbusier think. To read further about Jane Jacobs and her ideas click on her homepage. http://bss.sfsu.edu/pamuk/urban/

Urban Planning

Urban planning was an attempt to rationalize and control the uncontrolled development in urbanization. People wanted to get the city back under control by architecture and zoning. There were a few different theories having to do with urban planning and how to make cities into what are today's suburbs. In the cities there was concern about crime, deviance, unwed mothers and people were wondering where the society was headed.
Ebenezar Howard who wrote "Garden Cities of Tommorow" had the idea to remake and contain the city. He looked at what populations are doing and how they are behaving. He said there are three magnets which draw people where to live. At this point people either lived in a city or a country. With this theory the city and country would come together and take little pieces from each to make today's suburbs. This created a co-op, this is where everyone collectively owns shares in a building and not just one or two people. The entire community benefits rather than some individuals. This also keeps prices moderate with people's incomes and limits the size to 30,000 people per town. Howard's five main things for this was decentralization, which is breaking up the big cities into little smaller cities, agricultural and industrial, cooperative land ownership, and large scale planning. The first town-country was Radburn, New Jersey back in 1929. To read more about Howard and to get a look at good old Radburn, NJ click here http://www.gmu.edu/library/specialcollections/plancomm.html

Concentric Zone Theory

During the 1920's Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess developed a unique program at the University of Chicago. They mainly based it around the city of Chicago at the time but they elaborated on the theory of cities and said that the most important force of a city was competition. Land was a big issue in their elaboration and how people competed for land which forced different groups and types of people into one section, such as the poor, and the wealthy into another area. This forced more areas to pay higher rents which forced businesses to move away from the center of the cities. Park and Burgess called this a succession. The model that they call the Concentric Zone Thoery said that cities would form five different concentric rings dealing with the central business district, transitional zone, working class, and residential zone, and commuters zone. The Circle starts with the cities center and moves outward away from the city. If you click on this link you will be able to see an image of the Concentric Zone Theory and will be able to understand it better. http://www.rri.wvu.edu/WebBook/Briassoulis/figure3.2c.jpg

The Great Towns

Frederick Engels elaborated on how England was the most powerful kingdom with lots of rivers, waterways, and colonies which made it the first nation to industrialize. In the 1780's there was about 20,000 people there and by 1801 there was 70,000 people! So in about 20 years the kingdom more than tripled it's population.
This kingdom worked because it had the Geimenschaft quality. This was a community where everyones was communistic and religion played a huge role. By saying communistic these people were basically like thye Amish in how everyone contributes and helps out. This type of life would not stay forever...
The Geisellschaft type of life soon took over. This is where people had self seeking interests, private property, and specialized labor was happening which is one peticular type of job. Wage and money started to be very important to people and people started reducing labor costs to induce profit.
In the Geimenschaft there was like a consensus which is an agreement. Mechanical solidarity and Organic solidarity started to take place as well as the Division of Labor. The Gemeinschaft all had to do with community, mechanical, status, and was traditional. The Geseillschaft had to do with contract, organic, class, and was modern.
To further understand more about these two bug "G" words you can click this link http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/gemein.html