Due Feb. 28

Readings

AUF Chapter 6, “Toward a New Economy and a Novel Urban Form, 1925,” pp. 85-91 (read to the bottom of the last full paragraph).

Starks, “The Regulated Metropolis, 1902-1931” (unpublished, 2017) (read to the end of page 18)

Key terms

Consumer economy / consumer durables / time sales

Zoning

Tower town / Terminal City

Tenement House Act of 1901 / “new law” tenements

Light court

Hendrik Hudson (apartment building)

Mathews Model Flats

Equitable Building

Shelton Hotel

Fred F. French Building

Empire State Building

Comprehension questions

1. What factors led to the centralization of the “City” in the downtown? Were there also contrary factors working toward decentralization? What are they?

3. What impact did the Tenement House Act of 1901 have on the development of New York City’s housing?

4. What is zoning and why was it adopted as a regulatory policy by the “City” in Warren and Whittemore’s book, and in New York City in particular as described in Starks?

Due date: Feb. 21

Readings

Stone, “Urban Political Machines: Taking Stock,” PS: Political Science and Politics 29:3 (September 1996)

Ch. 23, “Strenuous Life of the Tammany District Leader,” in Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (Project Gutenberg, 2013)

Comprehension questions

1. How did urban political machines use patronage to gain votes?

2. Why did political machines pay little heed to issues like clean air, parks, and crime?

3. Why does Stone say that it might be a mistake to view machine politics as a vehicle for inclusion and upward mobility?

4. Who did political machines typically exclude, and why?

5. What examples of patronage can we see in “Strenuous Life of the Tammany District Leader”?

Key terms

Urban political machine

Party organization

Patronage

Issue voting (ideological voting)

Bosses

Due date: Feb. 11

Reading

American Urban Form, Ch. 5, pp. 74-80

Sante, Part 1, Ch. II, “Home,” in Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991)

Comprehension questions

1. Who lived in streetcar suburbs? Why, where, and how did they develop in the late 1800s?

2. How and why did builders of tenements use ornamental facades to “mask” the reality of their interiors?

3. Quantify the “evils” of the 19th-century New York City tenement.

a. How many tenements were there in Manhattan in the 1870s? How many of them had inhabited cellars? How many people lived in those cellars?

b, What were the mortality rates in “single” tenements (without a rear-yard structure)?  In “double-deckers” (tenements with an extra building in the rear yard)?

c. How many water taps and bathtubs were in typical tenement buildings?

d. By the 1890s, how many people were living on a typical block on the Lower East Side? How many people does this work out to per acre?

e. How much per month did a family pay to live in a “hutch” (a caged area) under a stairwell?

4. Who was Jacob Riis? How did he bring the slums to public attention? What were his solutions to the problem?

5. Why did some “voyeurs” romanticize tenements?  On the other hand, what might some residents have appreciated about living in tenements?

Key terms

1. Streetcar suburbs

2. Organized ward and precinct politics

3. Facade

4. Double-decker

5. Jacob Riis

6. Air shaft

7. “The flag of the tenement”

Due date: Feb. 7

Reading

We will read part of a chapter from historians Sam Bass Warner and Andrew Whittemore’s book American Urban Form. This book traces the development of an imaginary “City” on the American east coast from colonial times to the present.  The “City” is supposed to be an amalgam of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and the chapters describe real historical events and changes that happened in each of these three places.

We’ll also read an essay that I have written on the evolution of downtown buildings in New York in the 19th century. By highlighting buildings that are still standing and have been preserved as historic landmarks, this reading shows us that the historical development of building technology remains visible in today’s New York City.

Both readings can be found linked from the course schedule.

Comprehension questions

Remember, these questions are not to hand in. These are for your own notes.

1. How did technologies such as mechanized production, electricity, and the telephone help transform the “City” into a downtown-centered metropolis in the late 1800s?

2. How and why was the “City” able to maintain its population by “natural reproduction” for the first time in history?

3. What were some reasons that many workers found it difficult to obtain better working conditions?

4. Trace the history of the materials and designs of downtown NYC business buildings from the A.T. Stewart Store (1846) to the Park Row Building (1899). What changes in structural materials (the parts that hold up the buildings), facades (the decorative outer walls), and height occurred, and why?

Key terms

1. Mechanized production

2. Electricity

3. Steel frame construction (also called cage construction)

4. Tenements

5. Natural reproduction

6. NYC buildings:

– A.T. Stewart Store

– Bennett Building

– Potter Building

– Park Row Building

Due date: January 31

Reading

• Read Jonas, McCann, and Thomas, Ch. 1, “Approaching the City,” in Urban Geography: A Critical Introduction (Wiley, 2013). The link can be found in the course schedule.
• The reading should be completed before class.
• There will be a short quiz at the beginning of the class to test your understanding.
• To prepare for the quiz, please see the comprehension questions and key terms.
• On the class forum, there is a reading response prompt.
  • Four times during the semester, each student must post a reading response online in response to the prompt. Sign up here to post responses: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OMm5A2DnaQYr_JzL2FWA-c2hcPZ_LKkCyqS7iyhqedw
  • Each response must be completed before class begins.
  • Responses are to be submitted in hard copy format and as a comment on the appropriate post on the forum.

Comprehension questions:

Try to answer these questions in your notes, and bring your notes to class. I will not collect these notes. However, you should expect questions similar to these to appear on quizzes and tests. These are not reading response prompts; for the reading response, see the class forum.

1) What definitions of “space” are offered in the text? What is the relationship between and among “space”, “place”, and “scale”, according to the authors?

2) What is a “socio-spatial process”?  How and why do social scientists view cities as socio-spatial processes?

3) What is the role of governmental institutions (“the state”) in shaping cities?  How do these institutions contribute to urban development?  Who benefits from the planning undertaken by these institutions?

4) What is the difference between a descriptive approach to studying cities (such as the Chicago School) and a quantitative approach (such as the bid-rent theory)?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of approach?

Key terms:

You should be able to explain each of these terms as discussed in the class.  They are likely to appear on quizzes and tests.

1) space

2) place

3) scale

4) socio-spatial process

5) elites

6) urbanization

7) commodification

8) use value

9) exchange value

10) uneven development

11) urbanism

12) planning

13) zoning

14) Chicago School

15) CBD

16) zone in transition

17) quantitative revolution

18) bid-rent theory