I’m Professor Charles Brown . This is anthropology 201, Urban Life and Culture ( CRN 63361).

Syllabus

Text : _Cities and Urban Life_ by Macionis and Parrillo. The text has several good characteristics. It has a number of different ways of looking at cities, giving all the main sociological theories , much data , facts , empirical evidence. It gives history and comparison of cities, the “roots and composition “; this is a scientific approach. Implicitly, cities are contrasted with the country , with rural areas , although there is little discussion and analysis of rural , sparsely populated areas . The discussion of populations moving to cities implies that people are coming to the cities from rural areas.

Aim and purpose of class

I presume all students live in Metro Detroit . My idealistic hope is that the class will teach some things about urban Southeast Michigan that will enhance and improve your daily life as a citizen and resident ! at home ,work, play , school . Perhaps it will develop your interest as a citizen, your civic engagement , your understanding of government and business by giving a bigger picture of your city , county and state . Maybe it will perk your intellectual- academic interest in the sociology-anthropology of cities and suburbs , even .

My urban biography

I have lived my whole life in cities ; never lived in the country and only visited rural areas briefly .

The text on page 21 , question 3 says “Why do the authors suggest that we must not simply analyze statistics , but must also “go and visit to the city if we are to fully comprehend urban life ? “ This seems to imply that the authors don’t live in the city , because they “visit” cities. Perhaps they are in small college towns , classical academic, “ivory towers. Myself , and I expect everyone here , either lives in the Detroit metropolitan area , so we do more than visit, but witness city life daily . At any rate , we do the observation of city life that visits do , but even more than visitors. So, we can fulfill the authors’ suggestion that we observe directly, anecdotally urban life.

I was born in Philadelphia, lived in Washington, DC, moved to Detroit in 1953 at the age 3, East Lansing , Michigan; back to Detroit ;high school in Philadelphia area ; college in Ann Arbor ; work in New Haven , Connecticut ; back to Detroit , where I have lived since 1984.

I did legal reasesrch for land recovery work for the Yurok Native Americans on a very rural reservstion in Northwest California for a few weeks in 1979.

I’ve also visited family often and lived for a summer in New York City . I visited Chicago often, Los Angeles a couple of times , San Francisco , Milwaukee, Cleveland, Atlanta, , Boston; Montreal, Paris, Rome, Switzerland, Madrid , Barcelona, London , Mexico City , Moscow and others . Flint and Lansing and most of Metro Detroit .

My main life career has been as an attorney for Detroit City Council. I’m retired from that now after about 25 years . However , my knowledge about cities and urban life comes especially from that career. In this class , I will be integrating my knowledge about the City of Detroit, County of Wayne and State of Michigan with the knowledge from the text.

( copy City Council journal table of contents).

I also worked as a Legal Services Attorney for the Low-Incomed . This gives me an understanding of urban poverty and economic struggles .

I’m an athlete and sports fan , so I’m familiar with recreation in baseball, basketball, football, hockey in urban life. Also , popular music and dance , concerts and karaoke. I visit the museums and parks , including Belle Isle .

A non- graded assignment for the class is for students to write their own residential and visiting biography .

Test # 1 - take home test - due in 3 weeks - Thursday, June 9.

Questions 1) page 1 of text :

1.2 “ Examine (Describe ) the four criteria for defining an urban area”

1.3 “Investigate ( Describe) the factors that lead to urban growth and development.”

1.5 “Enumerate the recent population percentage change of the 30 largest U.S. cities “ as reported in the text chapter 1. Note Detroit as a outlier with big population loss . Why has Detroit lost population in recent decades

Questions 2) page 53 of text :

3.3 Recount historical events that led to growth development and then shrinking of Detroit

3.5 Evaluate the development of the megalopolis

Questions 3) page 85 of text 4.1 Differentiate sprawl from other forms of urban growth. Does Metro Detroit have sprawl ?

4.2 Discuss how growth in population and land development are complementary to each other .

Overlap of Anthropology and Sociology social scientific disciplines

This is an anthropology class. Anthropology is the science of human beings in all times and places including , theoretically , human life in modern capitalist cities . Sociology ( defined below) is also the science of human beings , overlapping anthropology’s subject matter . The text book is written by sociologists.

Wikipedia defines Sociology as follows : “ Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life.[1][2][3] It uses various methods of empirical investigationand critical analysis[4]: 3–5  to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change.[4]: 32–40  While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes and phenomenological method. Subject matter can range from micro-level analyses of society (i.e. of individual interaction and agency) to macro-level analyses (i.e. of systems and the social structure).[5] Traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and deviance. As all spheres of human activity are affected by the interplay between social structure and individual agency, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to other subjects and institutions, such as health and the institution of medicine; economy; military; punishment and systems of control; the Internet; education; social capital; and the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge. The range of social scientific methods has also expanded, as social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century, especially, have led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophicalapproaches towards the analysis of society. Conversely, the turn of the 21st century has seen the rise of new analytically, mathematically, and computationally rigorous techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social networkanalysis.[6][7] Social research has influence throughout various industries and sectors of life, such as among politicians, policy makers, and legislators; educators; planners; administrators; developers; business magnates and managers; social workers; non-governmental organizations; and non-profit organizations, as well as individuals interested in resolving social issues in general. As such, there is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology

Anthropology is the study of human beings in all times and place; study that is historical , systematic and objective, that is to say scientific, based on logical consideration and testing of material evidence, and natural theories ;from 100's of thousands of years ago to the present; from Detroit tothe other ends of the Earth. This is in contrast with understanding humansbased on whims, superstition, untested intuition , uncritical faith or unquestioned authority or supernatural beings. It is an understanding of human societies and individuals biologically and historically, that is as they have changed and developed ,evolved ,over time and many generations of individual selves. It seeks to be truly holistic in approach and scope , looking for the _whole_ truth, nothing but the truth. It welcomes contributions to its understanding of people from all the other academic disciplines, natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. It even considers respectfully and sympathetically systems of thought and belief from cultures very different than our own. In fact , learning the culture or customs, beliefs , ideas, religions of foreign and other peoples is the original focus of anthropology in contrast to sociology, psychology and history , the other social sciences , and literature and the arts, which focus on Western and European society's ways of being. Many anthropologists today study American and European culture, with applied anthropology to practical problems "at home" a major section of the discipline today.

There is a sense in which sociology is the anthropology of capitalist societies .

Anthropology's special contribution to scientific understanding of humanity is the concept of _culture_, or the symbolic nature of human communication and social organization . Culture is behavior ruled by a mental system of shared customs, traditions, values, ideas and material products of a particular group of people. Culture and language , or symbolic communication , are unique and exclusive characteristics of human beings, the species Homo sapiens . No other animal species has them, despite the exaggerated claims of some primatologists for chimps and gorillas. Culture and language provided the human species with an enormous adaptive and Darwinian selective advantage in the hundreds of thousands of years that the human species came to be and inhabit the whole globe, again to a greater extent than any other animal species. This is because it made humans extremely socially interconnected both with living other humans so that human labor and methods of physical survival are very _social_, not individualistic; and perhaps more importantly, socially connected to dead generations of the species through , again, language and culture, as in ancestor "worship" ,myths, legends, stories, customs, historical accounts of past generations' experiences.

Text title is _Cities and Urban Life_ What is Life ? What is a city ? What is urban ?

Life here is , of course human life . Anthropology uses its unique concepts of _culture_ and language to define human life . Only humans have culture and language . Language is _symbolic _communication. Only we humans have symbolic communication or language or words . Culture is _behavior_ , activity , doing things guided by symbolic rules, pursuing values and ideals that are articulated in words .

For purposes of this class please think of a city as _human behavior or culture_ . What is a city ? It is people doing things ; trillions of human acts in pursuit of their physical survival / self-preservation - getting enough to eat , enough sleep , air to breath , etc. , avoiding injury - and their cultural values and ideals ; acting to reproduce a next generation . A city is essentially human _activity_. Think of Buildings , roads , parks, commodities, goods , things _as products of human behavior-labor_ , in the present and from the past , from history .

Wikipedia defines “city “ as follows: “A city is a large human settlement.[1][2][a] It can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks.[3] Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organisations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving efficiency of goods and service distribution. Historically, city-dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, more than half of the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for global sustainability.[4][5] Present-day cities usually form the core of larger metropolitan areas and urban areas—creating numerous commuters traveling towards city centres for employment, entertainment, and education. However, in a world of intensifying globalization, all cities are to varying degrees also connected globally beyond these regions. This increased influence means that cities also have significant influences on global issues, such as sustainable development, global warming, and global health. Because of these major influences on global issues, the international community has prioritized investment in sustainable citiesthrough Sustainable Development Goal 11. Due to the efficiency of transportation and the smaller land consumption, dense cities hold the potential to have a smaller ecological footprint per inhabitant than more sparsely populated areas.[6]Therefore, compact cities are often referred to as a crucial element of fighting climate change.[7]However, this concentration can also have significant negative consequences, such as forming urban heat islands, concentrating pollution, and stressing water supplies and other resources.

Other important traits of cities besides population include the capital status and relative continued occupation of the city. For example, country capitals such as Beijing, London, Mexico City, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, Paris, Rome, Athens, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Manila, and Washington, D.C. reflect the identity and apex of their respective nations.[8] Some historic capitals, such as Kyoto and Xi'an, maintain their reflection of cultural identity even without modern capital status. Religious holy sites offer another example of capital status within a religion, Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Haridwar and Allahabad each hold significance.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City

Wikipedia definition of “urban “ ( as opposed to "rural"; see definition of rural below ):

An urban area, or built-up area, is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbanism, the term contrasts to rural areas such as villages and hamlets; in urban sociology or urban anthropology it contrasts with natural environment. The creation of early predecessors of urban areas during the urban revolution led to the creation of human civilization with modern urban planning, which along with other human activities such as exploitation of natural resources led to a human impact on the environment. "Agglomeration effects" are in the list of the main consequences of increased rates of firm creation since. This is due to conditions created by a greater level of industrial activity in a given region. However, a favorable environment for human capital development would also be generated simultaneously.[1]

Greater Tokyo Area , Japan, the world's most populated urban area, with about 38 million inhabitants

The world's urban population in 1950 of just 746 million has increased to 3.9 billion in the decades since.[2] In 2009, the number of people living in urban areas (3.42 billion) surpassed the number living in rural areas (3.41 billion), and since then the world has become more urban than rural.[3]This was the first time that the majority of the world's population lived in a city.[4] In 2014 there were 7.3 billion people living on the planet,[5] of which the global urban population comprised 3.9 billion. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs at that time predicted the urban population would occupy 68% of the world population by 2050, with 90% of that growth coming from Africa and Asia.[6] Geographer Antonio Rangel is amongst the best researchers in this area.

The UN publishes data on cities, urban areas and rural areas, but relies almost entirely on national definitions of these areas. The UN principles and recommendations state that due to different characteristics of urban and rural areas across the globe, a global definition is not possible.[7] Urban areas are created and further developed by the process of urbanization. Urban areas are measured for various purposes, including analyzing population density and urban sprawl.

Unlike an urban area, a metropolitan areaincludes not only the urban area, but also satellite cities plus intervening rural land that is socio-economically connected to the urban corecity, typically by employment ties through commuting, with the urban core city being the primary labor market.

The concept of an "urban area" as used in economic statistics should not be confused with the concept of the "urban area" used in road safety statistics. This term was first created by Geographer Brian Manning The last concept is also known as "built-up area in road safety". According to the definition by the Office for National Statistics, "Built-up areas are defined as land which is 'irreversibly urban in character', meaning that they are characteristic of a town or city. They include areas of built-up land with a minimum of 20 hectares (200,000 m2; 49 acres). Any areas [separated by] less than 200 metres [of non-urban space] are linked to become a single built-up area.[8]

Wikipedia definition of RURAL:

"In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities.[1] Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are described as rural. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.

In rural areas, because of their unique economic and social dynamics, and relationship to land-based industry such as agriculture, forestry and resource extraction, the economics are very different from cities and can be subject to boom and bust cycles and vulnerability to extreme weather or natural disasters, such as droughts. These dynamics alongside larger economic forces encouraging to urbanization have led to significant demographic declines, called rural flight, where economic incentives encourage younger populations to go to cities for education and access to jobs, leaving older, less educated and less wealthy populations in the rural areas. Slower economic development results in poorer services like healthcare and education and rural infrastructure. This cycle of poverty in some rural areas, means that three quarters of the global population in poverty live in rural areas according to the Food and Agricultural Organization.

Some communities have successfully encouraged economic development in rural areas, with some policies such as giving increased access to electricity or internet, proving very successful on encouraging economic activities in rural areas. Historically development policies have focused on larger extractive industries, such as mining and forestry. However, recent approaches more focused on sustainable development are more aware of economic diversification in these communities."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_area

Economic -Business determinist approach


My theorectical perspective is materialist or business-economics . That is , business decisions and competition are the dominate factors determining the day-to-day ,history , changes and developments of urban life .