The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology
Comprehensive Examination in Demography—Specialized Exam on
Urbanization
April 19, 2005
Answer Three Questions
1. To what extent is segregation intensifying in cities in less developed countries, and what
explains the variations in contemporary macro and micro level patterns of residential spatial
differentiation?
2. What defines a “global city”, and how useful is the term in developed and less developed
countries? To what extent and in what ways are the urban dynamics of a global city
significantly different and more exogenously driven that other large urban centers? Take an
example of a global city from the developed world and contrast its functioning with a major
metropolis of the developing world.
3. Waldringer and others have noted the persistent pull of five major US cities (New York,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco) as settlement locations for international
migrants, even when economic indicators such as costs of living and wage rates should
diminish the draw of these metropolitan areas as migrant destinations.
A. Select two of the following theoretical approaches: network theory, segmented labor
markets, neoclassical economic approaches, world systems theory.
B. Compare and contrast how each approach would try to explain the settlement pattern
cited by Waldringer and others.
C. In your opinion, which theoretical approach is best for the understanding of the
persistent pull of these cities? Why?
4.
The 1993 award-winning book American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the
Underclass, by Massey and Denton painted a fairly bleak picture of the situation in United
States cities regarding the importance of and the lack of change in segregation between the
white majority population and especially the African-American population. The data on
which these analyses were based ended with the 1980 population census reports. Since 1980,
there have been a number of changes over the next 20 years, as report in studies by Frey and
Myers, Farley and Frey, and Iceland. Write an essay on these changes addressing three
specific questions:
a) How do these changes challenge, or confirm, or alter the Massey/Denton conclusions in
their book?
b) What would you predict regarding changes in the spatial distribution by race/ethnicity in
American cities over the next 20 years?
c) Do any of these changes and predicted changes in North America have any import for
spatial distributions in Latin American cities, such as those in Brazil, and if so what
might they be (and if not, why not?)
5.
Write a brief essay on how the patterns of immigration over the past 20-30 years have
changed the patterns of labor force distribution and labor force inequality by race/ethnicity
and gender in this nation. Which groups have benefited from these patterns? Which groups
have benefited the least? Which regions of the country show the most dramatic impact from
these immigration/migration patterns?
6.
One of the “hypotheses” that came out of the debate between Massey/Denton and W. J.
Wilson some 25 years ago or so was the so-called “spatial mismatch” hypothesis. Write a
brief essay defining what this hypothesis was, and the current state of thinking on this issue,
based on the development of research over this time period. Does such an idea have any
merit of cities in Latin America? Why or why not?