Images of Urban Life

Utopia is often described in terms of a specific place or space and that space is often a city.

Why a city?

1. Manageable. We can’t make Nevada a Utopia, but we could perhaps make a city a utopia. Neither Aristotle nor Plato could conceive of a society that overpassed the bounds of the city: none of them could embrace a muli-national or poly-cultured community.

2. Mumford argues that the city has the advantage of mirroring the complexities of society.

3. Before the notion of sovereign countries there was the notion of the city-state. In a way Athens was Greece, Rome was Italy. So historically the 1st visualizations of a utopia were at the city, local or community level.

Lewis Mumford

Where does Mumford start his historical analysis of the Utopia?

Plato’s Republic

Where does Mumford suggest Plato got his ideas and inspiration regarding his discussion of the city?

Characteristics of Utopia

• King/Lord (city is the creation of the king)• Military – prepared for war• Utopia = paradise = perfection = blessed =

God-Temple • Manufactured-not spontaneous – a human

artifact• Authoritarian (censorship; control of human

breeding) – you need to control the masses to make a utopia.

• Division of labor (class divisions/slavery)

• Protected from threats from within and from without

• Static - Immune to change (logical – if you reach perfection, no-need for change).

• Homogenous (religious, ethnic, etc.)

• Isolation, stratification, fixation, regimentation, standardization, militarization

Notions of the MachineThe collective human machine: controlled by the king with a

vision.

Invisible Machine: the masses utilized/controlled by the leader to build and shape the city

Labor machine; military machine

Technology –we still need people but not in masses – hi tech – blade runner- star trek; Orwell

The Urban MachineLink between the city and technology (the machine -

industrial revolution)

Metropolis/Bladerunner – Technological revolution. Two classes: off worlders/on worlders. Live above/below.

Link between city, technology and loss of humanity

The encroachment of the machine into the pastoral life

Moral of the Story?

Every utopia is almost by definition a sterile desert, unfit for human occupation.

The article makes us think about (quoting Aristotle) “consider what form of political community is the best of all for those who are most able to realize their ideal life.” What institutions, structures will maximize our potential, help actualize our ideals?

The notion that the power of human design to alter natural conditions and customary practices. Designing human behavior.

Modern Utopia?

Mumford presents a classic conception of a utopian society – what would be a modern conception of utopia? Would a modern conception of a utopia be very different or share similar characteristics as the classic.

Is the City the place to create a modern utopia?

Yanarella ask wether the city a magnet or a container?

Marx believed urban development was essential for the socialist utopia he dreamed about.

Weber suggests that the city is no longer an important social phenomenon since it was stripped of its political and economic autonomy.

Utopia and Social Diverserity

Lewis Wirth’s seminal article on “Urbanism as a Way of Life” (1938) anticipates the tensions posed by increasing social heterogeneity within the confines of fixed, urban places

Standard economic theory also suggests that for local public goods (Tiebout, 1956) there exist markets that are more efficiently provided by homogeneous groups, since larger, socially more heterogeneous jurisdictions will have greater diversity in public service tastes and disagreement (i.e., conflict) over policy preferences.

So what is the solution?

Segregation?

Is there anything good about social diversity?

Ecological Differentiation

Definition: Concentrated poverty, segregation, and differences of social capital.

Why is this bad?

What happens when people do not have a stake in the larger community?

not a problem if you are in an gated and self-sustained environment and don't have to leave.

Gated communities just push crime to an adjacent area.

What Causes Ecological Differentiation?

Bickford’s argument:

Our desire for safety, order, homogeneity is not necessarily natural or self-determined but rather there are exogenous factors that influence our desire for such things:

Media

Parents

Friends

INSTITUTIONS

Utopia = social engineering?

Some political/policy decisions make segregation worse.

"The world is being constructed, quite literally, in ways that adversely affect how we regard politics and who we

recognize as fellow citizens".

Examples1) Economic development policies that promote

gentrification (the ousting of poor so that the land can be used by businesses). Eminent domain.

2) transportation: highways over alternatives (San Diego trolley example)

3) minimum sized lots

4) no sidewalks

5) Breaking up the CCSD

Social RegulationPublic vs. Private - what is public?; what is

private?

The definition of privacy is a power struggle: The private is political. The owners of shopping mall want public tax dollars to help them build their mall and to help maintain the roads and expand the freeways and want police protection but they want the right to say this is private property and we can exclude anyone we want. Prunyard decision 1980. Semi-Public space.

Who do you trust to make the decisions regarding our

community?

• Public Institutions

• Private Individuals, Private Organizations

PUBLIC V. PRIVATE DECISIONS

Bickford makes a good point - we want government to butt out and let us make our own choices but in reality we aren't really making any choices. We are simply substituting one authority over another. Her example is the CID (common interest development) or PUD (planned unit development).