GRADUATE SEMINAR IN URBAN SOCIOLOGY
SYD 6418
Fall 2011
Wednesdays 2-4:50 PM
SIPA 503
Instructor:
Matthew D. Marr, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Florida International University
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Institute for Asian Studies
SIPA 323
mmarr@fiu.edu; TEL (305) 348-4004
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 11 AM to 12 PM
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES:
This course provides an overview of the major subtopics and debates in urban sociology, with
some integration of research from urban geography and urban anthropology. We will focus
primarily on issues of importance to American cities but will bring in comparative, international,
and global perspectives where appropriate. Given the course’s cross-listing with Asian Studies,
there will be special attention to cities in the region, especially Japan. The course will provide
you with an opportunity to develop an original research project within a community or about a
major issue confronting urban societies. These projects can be in various stages at the beginning
of the course, but the point is to develop the project by engaging it with contemporary (and some
classical) research and theory in urban sociology.
Some of the questions this course will address are: How have modern cities developed? What
does it mean for culture, social ties, and subjective experience to live in a city? How are
contemporary cities transforming? What pressures are cities experiencing as a result of
heightened economic, demographic, and (neoliberal) ideological globalization? What are some
of the mechanisms and effects of social exclusion and inclusion in contemporary cities? What are
the recent trends and impacts of residential segregation? What are the experiences of recent
immigrants and their communities in cities? How have recent structural trends affected
concentrated inner city poverty? What are the causes and dynamics of homelessness in major
urban areas? What is gentrification and how is it affecting communities? What are the causes of
crime in urban areas? How have recent changes in welfare policy affected poor people in urban
areas? How have structural pressures affected the ability of local governments to provide
services? What are some of the political challenges involved in addressing contemporary urban
social problems?
URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
In pursuing these questions, we will also discuss issues of race, ethnicity, immigration and
gender, and more broadly, inequality and stratification. This is because many of these issues are
central to understanding the most pressing issues regarding life in contemporary cities across the
world. Thus, our examination of the central questions in urban sociology will also contribute to
your knowledge of other important subfields in sociology such as race and ethnicity,
immigration, gender, inequality, and stratification.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Since this seminar is designed to be student-centered, we will share responsibility in addressing
the questions above through discussion of course readings. Much of my responsibility has been
met by organizing the readings. Thus, you will be responsible for bringing this design to a
fruitful form in the classroom by engaging in the following activities.
1. “Reaction Paper” for Reading Assignments: Each week, you will prepare a “reaction
paper” for the reading assignments of that week. Although the format will vary according to
your individual style, your papers will generally contain the following components: a)
summarization of what you identify as the two or three major ideas, findings, arguments,
and/or innovations (theoretical or methodological) in the reading assignments: and b) an
articulation of at least two questions stimulated by the readings that can be used as the basis
for discussion. These should be a few to several solid paragraphs and are to be posted on-line
by midnight before to the class meets. You will be given more specifics about how to post
these at our first meeting.
2. Discussion Leading: Each week, a student (or students, depending on enrollment) will lead
the seminar discussion of that week’s readings. You should summarize your observations of
the readings and state your focal questions for discussion in about 10 to 20 minutes to allow
the class adequate time to discuss them. Since you will be doing a brief topical report on your
topic of specialization (see below), you will most likely lead a discussion on a topic that is not
your specialty.
3. Précis Reading: Each week, a student will present a summary (a précis) of an additional
reading on the topic. This should include covering the research question, theory, methods,
major findings, and contribution to the literature (argument and conclusions). You should
write this up and post it on Moodle along with the discussion reading, but as a separate file.
You will present this to the group in about 10 minutes to 15 minutes.
4. Discussion Participation: Since the quality of the seminar depends greatly on student
participation, you are to be prepared to discuss the readings assigned for each meeting. Thus,
you should have read closely all of the readings assigned for that week.
5. Brief Topical Reports (on Research Paper/Proposal): Over the course of the semester, you
will be required to prepare a relatively brief report to present to class. This report is to be
about a particular social or theoretical issue facing urban areas that you are focusing on in your
graduate studies. You should discuss the social causes of the problem or the context of the
theoretical issue and its importance to broader society. These reports are to be based on
existing sources and can draw on but should go well beyond the assigned readings. You can
use the suggested readings on the syllabus as a start. You should think of these reports as a
way to move forward your research proposal or paper. If applicable, you can include
2
URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
preliminary analysis of your own data. Each report will be presented and discussed during the
seminar meeting to which it is most relevant. Your presentation will generally follow and
compliment the course discussion of the assigned readings and will last from 15 to 30 minutes
followed by questions and discussion.
6. Research Paper/Proposal: You are required to prepare a research proposal or original
research paper depending on your stage in the research process upon entering the seminar. For
example, if you came into the seminar without an ongoing research project, you can write a
research proposal based on a theoretical or substantive issue you have learned about. If you
started the seminar with an ongoing research project you can use this as an opportunity to
write up your findings and explore what they say about a particular theoretical issue. I will use
time in the seminar to go over what the components of these proposals should be and will be
available to meet individually to discuss your efforts. In general, proposals should be around
10 to 15 double spaced pages, whereas research papers should be longer, around 25 to 30
pages, and you should have the objective of submission to a journal or a conference in mind.
This length assumes double spacing, 1 or 1.25 inch margins, and a font size of 12.
Note: A book you might find helpful for writing up research findings are:
Howard Becker (1998). Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You are
Doing It. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
SEMINAR GRADES:
Your grade for the seminar will be based on the quality of your performance with respect to the
above course requirements. The allocation of points to these requirements is as follows:
1. Reaction Papers:
20%
2. Discussion Leading:
15%
3. Discussion Participation:
10%
4. Brief Topical Report:
20%
5. Research Proposal/Paper:
35%
TOTAL
100%
SEMINAR READINGS:
Readings are available on-line through the library website either through electronic reserves (for
book chapters), electronic versions of journals (for articles), or as e-books.
SEMINAR OUTLINE:
Aug 24.
Introduction
Jane Jacobs (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York, NY: Vintage
Books. (Chapter 1)
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
Skim through the City and Community 2006 (5:3) special issue on Jane Jacobs.
Aug 31.
Development of the Modern City and Urban Sociology
George Simmel (reprinted 2000). "Metropolis and Mental Life;" in James Farganis (Ed.)
Readings in Social Theory: The Classic Tradition to Post-Modernism. Boston, MA: McGrawHill.
Robert Park (1915). "The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the
City," American Journal of Sociology. 20(5):577-612.
Louis Wirth (1938). "Urbanism as a Way of Life," American Journal of Sociology 44(1):1-24.
R.P. Dore (1958). City Life in Japan. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. (Chapters
1-3)
Précis Reading
Katherine J. Curtis White and Avery M. Guest (2003). “Community Lost or Transformed?
Urbanization and Social Ties,” City and Community. 2(3):239-259.
Suggested Readings
William G. Flanagan (1990). Urban Sociology: Images and Structure. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Sept 7. Schools of Urban Sociology-- Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles (and Miami
and Beijing?)
Ernest .W. Burgess (reprinted 1967). “The Growth of the City,” in Robert E. Park, Ernest W.
Burgess and Robert D McKenzie, Eds. The City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
David Halle, Ed. (2003). New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press. (Introduction)
Michael Dear (2002). “Los Angeles and the Chicago School: An Invitation to a Debate,” City
and Community. 1(1):5-32. (If you have time, also skim comments and responses in the issue by
Andrew Abbott and Harvey Molotch).
John Friedmann (2006). “Four Theses in the Study of China’s Urbanization,” International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 30(2):440-451.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
Précis Reading
Alex Stepick, Guillermo Grenier, Max Castro, Marvin Dunn. (2003). This Land is Our Land:
Immigrants and Power in Miami. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. (Chapter 1)
EBOOK
Suggested Readings
Robert Beauregard (2003). “City of Superlatives,” City and Community 2(3):183-199.
Allen Scott and Edward Soja, Eds. (1996). The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End
of the Twentieth Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Michael Dear (Ed.) (2002). From Chicago to LA: Making Sense of Urban Theory. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Andrew Abbot (1999). Department and Discipline: Chicago Sociology at One Hundred.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lester Kurtz (1984). Evaluating Chicago Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Martin Bulmer (1984). The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the
Rise of Sociological Research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick (1993). City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami. Los
Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Theodore Bestor (1989). Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Sept 14. Global Cities, Globalizing Cities, World Cities
Sassen, Saskia (2001). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 2nd Edition. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. (Introduction and Conclusion)
John Friedmann (1986). “The World City Hypothesis,” Development and Change. 17:69-83.
Jennifer Robinson (2011). “Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture,” International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 35(1):1-23.
Mee Kam Ng and Peter Hills (2003). “World Cities or Great Cities? A Comparative Study of
Five Asian Metropolises,” Cities 20(3):151-165.
Précis Reading
Saskia Sassen and Alejandro Portes (1993). “Miami: A New Global City?” Contemporary
Sociology. 22(4):471-477.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
Suggested Readings
Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kampen, Eds. (2000). Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. (Chapter 1 and Conclusion)
Symposium (2005). “Globalization and Cities in Comparative Perspective,” International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 29(1)
Susan Fainstein and David Gladstone (2003). “The Economies of New York and Los Angeles,”
in David Halle, Ed. New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Wanda Rushing (2004). “Globalization and the Paradoxes of Place: Poverty and Power in
Memphis,” City and Community. 3(1):65-81.
Clancey, Gregory (2004). “Local memory and worldly narrative: the remote city in America and
Japan,” Urban Studies. 41(12):2335-2355.
Hodos, Jerome (2007). “Globalization and the Concept of the Second City,” City and
Community. 6(4):315-333.
Michael Peter Smith (2001). Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishers.
Abrahamson, Mark (2004). Global Cities. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Arthur S. Alderson and Jason Beckfield (2004). “Power and Position in a World City System,”
American Journal of Sociology 109(4):811-851.
Allen Scott (2008). “Resurgent Metropolis: Economy, Society and Urbanization in an
Interconnected World,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 32(3):548-564.
Alan Smart and Josephine Smart (2003). “Urbanization and the Global Perspective,” Annual
Review of Anthropology. 32:263-285.
R. C Hill and J. W. Kim (2000). “Global cities and developmental states: New York, Tokyo
and Seoul,” Urban Studies 37:2167– 2195.
Shu, Xiaoling; Zhu, Yifei; Zhang, Zhanxin (2007). “Global Economy and Gender Inequalities:
The Case of the Urban Chinese Labor Market,” Social Science Quarterly 88(5):1307-1332.
Yulong Shi and Chris Hammet (2002) The Potential and Prospect for Global Cities in China: In
the Context of the World System,” Geoforum 33(1):121-135.
Paul Waley (1997). "Tokyo: Patterns of Familiarity and Partitions of Difference," American
Behavioral Scientist 41(3):396-429.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
Sept 21. Urban Sprawl and Suburbs
Kenneth T. Jackson (1985). Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. (246-271)
Herbert Gans (1995). "Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life" in Philip Kasinitz, Ed.
Metropolis: Center and Symbol of Our Times. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Bernadette Hanlon (2009). “A Typology of Inner-Ring Suburbs: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in
U.S. Suburbia,” City & Community. 8(3):221–246.
Thomas J. Campanella (2008). “Suburbanization and the Mechanics of Sprawl,” Chapter 7 in
The Concrete Dragon: China’s Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World. New York,
NY: Princeton Architectural Press.
Précis Reading
Jennifer Wolch, Manuel Pastor Jr. and Peter Dreier (2004). Up Against the Sprawl: Public Policy
and the Making of Southern California. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
(Chapter 1)
Suggested Readings
Allen J. Scott, Ed. (2001). Global City Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Debate on City Regions (2007). International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 33(1).
George H. Lewis (1990). "Community Through Exclusion and Illusion: The Creation of Social
Worlds in an American Shopping Mall," Journal of Popular Culture. 24(Fall):121-136.
A.J. Jacobs (2008). “Developmental State Planning, Sub-national Nestedness, and Reflexive
Public Policymaking: Keys to Employment Growth in Saitama City, Japan,” Cities 25(1)1-20.
Sept 28. Residential Segregation
Camille Zubrinsky Charles (2003). “The Dynamics of Racial Residential Segregation,”
Annual Review of Sociology 29:167-207.
Niki Dickerson Von Lockette (2010). “The Impact of Metropolitan Residential Segregation on
the Employment Chances of Blacks and Whites in the United States,” City & Community.
9(3):256–273.
Choon-Piew Pow (2007). “Securing the 'Civilised' Enclaves: Gated Communities and the Moral
Geographies of Exclusion in (Post-)Socialist Shanghai,” Urban Studies 44(8):1539-1558.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
(SKIM) A.J. Jacobs (2006). “Embedded Localities: Employment Decline, Inner City Population
Growth, and Declining Place Stratification among Japan’s Mid-Sized and Large Cities,” City and
Community. 5(3):269-292.
Précis Reading
Britton, Marcus L. (2011). “Close Together but Worlds Apart? Residential Integration and
Interethnic Friendship in Houston,” City & Community. 10(2):182–204.
Suggested Readings
Peer Smets and Ton Salman (2008). “Countering Urban Segregation: Theoretical and Policy
Innovations from around the Globe,” Urban Studies 45(7):1307-1332.
Douglas S. Massey and Mary A. Denton (1993). American Apartheid: Segregation and the
Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
William Clark (1996). “Residential Patterns: Avoidance, Assimilation, and Succession,” in
Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, Eds. Ethnic Los Angeles. Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.
David Halle, Robert Gedeon, and Andrew Beveridge (2003). “Residential Separation and
Segregation; Racial/Latino Identity; and the Racial Composition of Each City,” in David Halle,
Ed. New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Jason Henderson (2006). “Secessionist Automobility: Racism, Anti-Urbanism, and the Politics
of Automobility in Atlanta, Georgia,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
30(2):293-307.
Xavier de Souza Briggs (2007). “‘Some of My Best Friends Are...’: Interracial Friendships,
Class, and Segregation in America,” City and Community. 6(4):263-290.
Brown, Susan K. (2007) “Delayed Spatial Assimilation: Multigenerational Incorporation of the Mexican-Origin
Population in Los Angeles,” City & Community. 6(3):193-209.
Susan E. Mayer (2002). “How Economic Segregation Affects Children's Educational
Attainment,” Social Forces, Vol. 81(1): 153-176.
Ronald Van Kempen and Gideon Bolt (1997). "Turks in the Netherlands: Urban Segregation and
Neighborhood Choice," American Behavioral Scientist. 41(3): 374-395.
Camille Zubrinsky Charles (2001). “Processes of Residential Segregation,” in Alice O’Connor,
Chris Tilly, and Lawrence D. Bobo, Eds. Urban Inequality: Evidence from Four Cities. New
York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Jeffrey M. Timberlake and John Iceland (2007). “Change in Racial and Ethnic Residential
Inequality in American Cities, 1970-2000,” City and Community. 6(4):335-365.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
Oct 5. Immigration, Ethnic Enclaves, and the Second Generation
Alejandro Portes and Robert D. Manning (2001). “The Immigrant Enclave: Theory and
Empirical Examples,” in David B. Grusky, Ed. Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in
Sociological Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Robert Courtney Smith (2006). Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants.
Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. (Chapters 1 & 6).
Barry R. Chiswick and Paul W. Miller (2005). “Do Enclaves Matter in Immigrant Adjustment?”
City and Community. 4(1):5-35.
Min Zhou and Guoxuan Cai (2008). “Trapped in Neglected Corners of a Booming Metropolis:
Residential Patterns and Marginalization of Migrant Workers in Guangzhou,” in John Logan, Ed.
Urban China in Transition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Précis Reading
Kahoruko Yamamoto (2008). “Poverty and Exclusion as it Affects Migrant Workers from
Overseas: Employment, Housing and Consumption,” Chapter 10 in Masami Iwata and Akihiko
Nishizawa, Eds. Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan. Melbourne, Australia: Trans-Pacific Press.
Suggested Readings
Min Zhou and Rebecca Kim (2003). “A Tale of Two Metropolises: New Immigrant Chinese
Communities in New York and Los Angeles,” in David Halle, Ed. New York and Los Angeles:
Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Georges Sabagh and Mehdi Bozorgmehr (2003). “From ‘Give Me Your Poor to Save Our State’:
New York and Los Angeles as Immigrant Cities and Regions,” in David Halle, Ed. New York
and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Philip Kasinitz, John H. Mollenkopf, Mary C. Waters, and Jennifer Holdaway (2008). Inheriting
the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
John R. Logan (2007). “Variations in Immigrant Incorporation in the Neighborhoods of
Amsterdam,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 30(3):485-509.
Li Zhang (2001). Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks
Within China’s Floating Population. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (Chapters 1,2)
Oct 12. Concentrated Poverty
Loic Wacquant (2008). Urban Outcastes: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality.
Cambridge, MA: Polity. (Chapters 1 & 8)
Symposium on “The Ghetto.” City & Community 7(4):347-398.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
Robert Sampson (2008). “Moving to Inequality: Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet
Social Structure,” American Journal of Sociology. 114(1):189-231.
Shenjing He, Fulong Wu, Chris Webster, Yuting Liu (2010). “Poverty Concentration and
Determinants in China's Urban Low-income Neighbourhoods and Social Groups,”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 34(2):328–349.
Précis Reading
Keiko Yamaguchi (2008). “The Spatial Spread of Poverty in the Megalopolis and the State of
Segregation, 1975-2000,” Chapter 6 in Masami Iwata and Akihiko Nishizawa, Eds. Poverty and
Social Welfare in Japan. Melbourne, Australia: Trans-Pacific Press.
Suggested Readings
William Julius Wilson (1996). When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. New
York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. (Chapters 1-3)
Loic Wacquant (2001). “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh,” in David
Garland, Ed.) Mass Imprisonment in the United States: Social Causes and Consequences.
London, UK: Sage Publications.
Hannes Johannsson and Steven Shulman (2004). “Immigration and the Employment of African
American Workers,” in Steven Shulman, Ed. The Impact of Immigration on African Americans.
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Elijah Anderson (1995). "Street Etiquette and Street Wisdom," in Phillip Kasinitz, Ed.
Metropolis: Center and Symbol of Our Times. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Katherine S. Newman (1999). No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City.
New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Alford A. Young, Jr. (2004). The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility,
Opportunity, and Future Life Chances. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas (2005). Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put
Motherhood Before Marriage. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Javier Auyero (1999). "'This is a lot like the Bronx, isn't it': Lived experiences of marginality in
an Argentine slum," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 23(1):45-69.
Fulong Wu (2004). “Urban Poverty and Marginalization under Market Transition: The Case of
Chinese Cities,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 28(2):401-423.
Shenjing He, Yuting Liu, Fulong Wu and Chris Webster (2008). “Poverty incidence and
concentration in different social groups in urban China, a case study of Nanjing,” Cities
25(3):121-132.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
(Crime-related Materials)
Jock Young (1999). The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime and Difference in Late
Modernity. London: Sage.
Jack Katz (2003). “Metropolitan Crime Myths: New York and Los Angeles,” in David Halle, Ed.
New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
D. W. Miller (2001). “Poking Holes in the Broken Window Theory,” Chronicle of Higher
Education. Feb 9.
David Murakami Wood, David Lyon, and Kiyoshi Abe (2007). “Surveillance in Urban Japan: A
Critical Introduction,” Urban Studies 44(3):551-568.
Oct 19. Concentrated Poverty (Cont.), Welfare Reform, and Social Service Institutions
Katherine Newman and Rebekah Peeples Massengill (2006). “The Texture of Hardship:
Qualitative Sociology of Poverty, 1995-2005,” Annual Review of Sociology 32:423-446.
Mario Small, Erin Jacobs, and Rebekah Massengill (2008). “Why Organizational Ties Matter for
Neighborhood Effects: Resource Access through Childcare Centers,” Social Forces 87(1):387414.
Aya Ezawa and Chisa Fujiwara (2005). “Lone Mothers and Welfare-to-Work Policies in Japan
and the United States: Towards an Alternative Perspective,” Journal of Sociology and Social
Welfare 32(4):41-63.
Kam Wing Chan (2010). “The Global Financial Crisis and Migrant Workers in China:
‘There is No Future as a Labourer; Returning to the Village has No Meaning,’”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 34(3):659–677.
Précis Reading
Doug Guthrie and Michael McQuarrie (2008). “Providing for the Public Good: Corporate-Community
Relations in the Era of the Receding Welfare State,” City & Community 7(2):113-139.
Suggested Readings
Sandra Morgen and Jeff Maskovsky (2003). “The Anthropology of Welfare ‘Reform’: New
Perspectives on U.S. Urban Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era,” Annual Review of Anthropology
32:315-338.
Jeffery Grogger and Lynn Karoly (2005). Welfare Reform: Effects of a Decade of Change.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Chapters 1-3)
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
Geoffery DeVerteuil (2003). “Welfare Reform, Institutional Practices, and Service-Delivery
Settings,” Urban Geography 24(6):529-550.
Geoffrey DeVerteuil, Heidi Sommer, Jennifer Wolch, and Lois Takahashi (2003). “The Local
Welfare State in Transition: Welfare Reform in Los Angeles County,” in David Halle, Ed. New
York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Mark Levitan (2003). “The Transformation of New York City’s Poor,” in David Halle, Ed. New
York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Osamu Aoki (2007). “Perceptions of Poverty in Japan: Constructing an Image of Relative
Poverty Contrasted Against an Image of Extreme Poverty,” Journal of Poverty 11(3):5-14.
Mika Iwata (2007). “Identifying the Poor: Analysis of Impoverished Single-Mother
Households,” Journal of Poverty 11(3):29-45.
Yih-Jiunn and Yeun-wen Ku (2007). “East Asian Welfare Regimes: Testing the Hypothesis of
the Developmental Welfare State,” Social Policy and Administration 41(2):197-212.
Oct 26. Homelessness
Jennifer Wolch (1996). “From Global to Local: The Rise of Homelessness in Los Angeles
During the 1980s,” in Allen Scott and Edward Soja (Eds.) The City: Los Angeles and Urban
Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Mitchell Duneier (1999). Sidewalk. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (Chapter 2)
DeVerteuil, Geoff, John May, and Jurgen von Mahs (2009). “Complexity not collapse: recasting
the geographies of homelessness in a “punitive age,” Progress in Human Geography 33(5):646666.
Marr, Matthew D. (2011). “Pathways out of Homelessness in Los Angeles and Tokyo: The
Multilevel Contexts of Limited Mobility amid Urban Marginality,” forthcoming in International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research
Précis Reading
Murphy, S. (2009). “‘Compassionate’ strategies of managing homelessness: post-revanchist
geographies in San Francisco.” Antipode 41.2, 305-25
Suggested Readings
Barrett A. Lee and Towsand Price-Spratlen (2004). “The Geography of Homelessness in
American Communities: Concentration or Dispersion?” City & Community, 3(1):3-27.
Miki Hasegawa (2005). “Economic Globalization and Homelessness in Japan,” American
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
Behavioral Scientist, 48(8):989-1012.
Michele Wakin (2008). “Using Vehicles to ChallengeAntisleeping Ordinances,” City & Community, 7(4):309329.
Barrett A. Lee and Chad R. Farrell (2003). “Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime? Homelessness,
Panhandling, and the Public,” Urban Affairs Review 38(3):299-324.
Laura Huey and Eric Brendt (2008). “You've gotta learn how to play the game': homeless
women's use of gender performance as a tool for preventing victimization,” The Sociological
Review 56(2):177-194.
Martha Burt, Laudan Y. Aron, and Edgar Lee (2001). Helping America’s Homeless: Emergency
Shelter or Affordable Housing.
Paul Koegel, M. Audrey Burnam, and Jim Baumohl (1996). “The Causes of Homelessness,” in
James Baumohl, Ed. Homelessness in America. Pheonix, AZ: The Oryx Press.
David A. Snow and Leon Anderson (1993). Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street
People. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (especially Chapters 2, 8, and 9)
Nov 2. The Creative Class
Richard Florida (2003). “Cities and the Creative Class,” City & Community 2(1):3-19.
Jamie Peck (2005). “Struggling with the Creative Class,” International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research, 29(4):740-770.
Sasaki, Masayuki (2010). “Urban Regeneration through Cultural Creativity and Social Inclusion:
Rethinking Creative City Theory through a Japanese Case Study,” Cities. 27:3-9.
Shin Nakagawa (2010). “Socially inclusive cultural policy and arts-based urban community
regeneration,” Cities. 27:16-24.
Précis Reading
Ryan Centner (2008). “Places of Privileged Consumption Practices: Spatial Capital, the Dot-Com Habitus, and San
Francisco's Internet Boom,” City & Community, 7(3):193-223.
Suggested Readings
Melinda J. Milligan (2003). “The Individual and City Life: A Commentary on Richard Florida’s
‘Cities and the Creative Class,’” City and Community. 2(1):21-26.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
Mark Boyle (2006). “Culture in the Rise of Tiger Economies: Scottish Expatriates in Dublin and
the 'Creative Class' Thesis,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(2):403426.
Richard Florida (2005). Cities and the Creative Class. New York, NY: Routledge.
Richard Florida (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Leslie Sklair (2005). “The Transnational Capitalist Class and Contemporary Architecture in
Globalizing Cities,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29(3):485-500.
Allen J. Scott (2007). “Capitalism and Urbanization in a New Key? The Cognitive-Cultural
Dimension,” Social Forces, 85(4):1465-1482
Vincent Gallo-Lyon (2008). “Cool Cities or Class Analysis: Exploring Popular Consent (?) to
Neoliberal Domination and Exploitation,” Rethinking Marxism 20(1)28-.
Terry Flew (2006). “The New Middle Class Meets the Creative Class: The Masters of Business
Administration (MBA) and Creative Innovation in 21st-Century China,” International Journal of
Cultural Studies, 9(3):419-429.
Nov 9. Culture, Consumption, and Bohemia
Claude Fischer (1995). “The Subcultural Theory of Urbanism: A Twentieth Year Assessment,”
American Journal of Sociology 101:543-75.
Borer, Michael. 2006. “The Location of Culture: The Urban Culturalist Perspective.” City &
Community. 5(2): 173-197.
Richard Lloyd (2004). “The Neighborhood in Cultural Production: Material and Symbolic
Resources in the New Bohemia,” City and Community. 3(4):343-372.
Xuefei Ren (2008). “Forward to the Past: Historical Preservation in Globalizing Shanghai,” City & Community,
7(1):23-43.
Précis Reading
David J. Madden (2010). “Revisiting the End of Public Space: Assembling the Public in an
Urban Park,” City & Community. 9(2): 187–207.
Suggested Readings
Sharon Zukin and Ervin Kosta (2004). “Bourdieu Off-Broadway: Managing Distinction on a
Shopping Block in the East Village,” City and Community. 3(2):101-114.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
Richard Lloyd (2006). Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. New York,
NY: Routledge.
Ronald Richard (2008). “Between Investment, Asset and Use Consumption: The Meanings of
Homeownership in Japan,” Housing Studies 23(2):233-251.
Nov 16. Gentrification
Tom Slater (2008). “The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research,”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32(1):737-757.
Andrew V. Papachristos, Chris M. Smith, Mary L. Scherer and Melissa A. Fugiero (2011).
“More Coffee, Less Crime? The Relationship between Gentrification and Neighborhood Crime
Rates in Chicago, 1991 to 2005” City and Community 10(3):215–240.
Samuel Shaw and Daniel Monroe Sullivan (2011). ““White Night”: Gentrification, Racial
Exclusion, and Perceptions and Participation in the Arts” City and Community 10(3):241–264.
Jun Wang, Stephen Lau, and Yu Siu (2009). “Gentrification and Shanghai's New Middle-Class:
Another Reflection on the Cultural Consumption Thesis,” Cities. 26(2):57-66.
Précis Reading
Ellen Reese, Geoffrey DeVerteuil and Leanne Thach (2010). “Weak Center’ Gentrification and
the Contradictions of Containment: Deconcentrating Poverty in Downtown Los Angeles,”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 34(2):310–327.
Suggested Readings
Leslie Martin (2008). Boredom, Drugs, and Schools: Protecting Children in Gentrifying Communities,” City &
Community, 7(4):331-346.
Sharon Zukin (1989). Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers
U. Press. (Chapters 1-3)
Lance Freeman (2006). There Goes the Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Laura Huey (2007). Negotiating Demands: The Politics of Skid Row Policing in Edinburgh, San
Francisco, and Vancouver. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (selected chapters)
Christopher Mele (1995). “The Process of Gentrification in Alphabet City” in Janet AbuLughod, Ed. From Urban Village to East Village. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly (2008). Gentrification. New York, NY: Taylor &
Francis Group.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE SEMINAR/MARR
Liza Weinstein (2008). “Mumbai's Development Mafias: Globalization, Organized Crime and
Land Development,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32:1(22-39).
Richard Ronald and Yosuke Hirayama (2006). “Housing Commodities, Context and Meaning:
Transformations in Japan's Urban Condominium Sector,” Urban Studies 43(13):2467-2483.
Nov 23. Politics and Resistance
Charles Kadushin, Matthew Lindholm, Dan Ryan, Archie Brodsky, and Leonard Saxe (2005).
“Why It Is so Difficult to Form Effective Community Coalitions,” City and Community.
4(3):255-275.
Susan Parnell and Edgar Pieterse (2010). “The ‘Right to the City’: Institutional Imperatives of a
Developmental State,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 34(1):146–162.
Marit Rosol (2010). “Public Participation in Post-Fordist Urban Green Space Governance: The
Case of Community Gardens in Berlin,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
34(3):548–563.
Liza Weinstein and Xuefei Ren (2010). “The Changing Right to the City: Urban Renewal and
Housing Rights in Globalizing Shanghai and Mumbai,” City & Community. 8(4):407-432.
Précis Reading
Mary E Pattillo. (1998). "Sweet mothers and gangbangers: Managing crime in a black middleclass neighborhood," Social Forces 76(3): 747-774.
Suggested Readings
Robert Gottlieb, Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, and Peter Dreier (2006). The Next Los
Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Heathcott, Joseph (2005). “Urban Activism in a Downsizing World: Neighborhood Organizing
in Postindustrial Chicago,” City and Community. 4(3):277-294.
Robert Kleidman (2004). “Community Organizing and Regionalism,” City and Community.
3(4):403-421.
John Friedmann (2007). “Reflections on Place and Place-making in the Cities of China,”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(2):257-279
Sharon Hayashi and Anne McKnight (2005). “Good-bye Kitty, Hello War: The Tactics of
Spectacle and New Youth Movements in Urban Japan,” Positions, 13(1):87-113.
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URBAN SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR/MARR
Karen Kaufmann (2003). “The Mayoral Politics of Los Angeles and New York in the 1990s,” in
David Halle, Ed. New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
David Sears (2003). “Black-White Conflict: A Model for the Future?” in David Halle, Ed. New
York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, and Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Raphael Sonnenshien (1994). “Los Angeles Coalition Politics,” in Mark Baldassare, Ed. The Los
Angeles Riots. New York, NY: Westview Press.
Martin Sanchez-Jankowski (2008). Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in
Poor Neighborhoods. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Mary Pattillo (2008). Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Don Mitchell, Lynn A. Staeheli (2005). “Permitting Protest: Parsing the Fine Geography of
Dissent in America,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29(4):796-813.
Nov 30. CLASS PROJECTS DUE
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