"politics in the metropolitian context" 

- Politics in the older central city:

established political interests, inaccessible to most

Participation limited (public hearings, election-day voting)

- Politics in newer, outlying suburbs

potential for greater participation in policy-making

fewer people, but smaller area

But different types have different needs (not all suburbs are the same)

- Problem: Localism, or competition between indepenendant suburban towns

Pushes undesirable development to other towns

- Solution" regionalism, cooperation amoung suburban governments.

Tax reform, land use reform,transportation planning  

- More people are bowling today than ever before, but they are doing so alone. 

- successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities

- Decline: labor unions, parent/teacher organizations, boy scouts 

Countertrend: enviornmental, feminish, retired persons 

Social Capital: networks of relationships among people who live and work in the same area.

- Family is the fundamental form of social capital 

Why is social capital on the decline?

women moved into workforce, automobile/suburbanization, fewer marriages/more divorces, advancement in technology 

Broken window is a metaphor for disorder within neighborhoods.

- Majority of inner city families are decent folks with "street" orientation of the police as unworthy 

- Streets contain both regulars and some drunks 

- "social disorder may precede more serious crimes in the area" 

- Link between order maintenace and crime prevention was forgotten 

Level of actual influence by community members varies from none to heavy 

- Manipulation/therapy (non-participation)

- Informing/Consultation/Placation (degrees of tokenism)

- Partnership/delegated power/citizen power (degrees of citizen power) 

(see page 281)

"Meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" 

Recognizes: 

- Need for development, economic growth

- need for social equity, fairness (benefits/costs not equally shared)

- Limitations on the enviornment (decisions have consequences) 

Public Policy: Laws and regulations (waste/landuse), Programs (recycling), Funding (transportation)

1. Nature and enviornment are complex

2. Humans and cities are not outside system, rather part of it

3. Our choices have impacts 

Smarter Cites (Sub. Speaker)

Technology is a tool, not a solution 

- Data can improve decision making

-Smart cities must find a way to bring everyone along

- Technology is reshaping urban mobility 

Classifying smart cities 

- Clockwork City: management focused, operational efficiency, top-down, business is running city

- Open city: citizen focused, government is enabler, operational transparency

- Emergent city: city-as-a-system, government as one of the many, multiple stakeholders, self-organizing

1. Build solid data foundation

2. Leverage technolgy + design for better transportation

3. Create partnerships for more shared services

4. Support 

-Redining "space" as "everyday space"; trivial, obvious but invisible, everywhere and nowhere... MOBILITY IS THE DEFINING ELEMENT! THE CAR!

- Everyday space is public space, too 

-ordinary space: garage sales, street vendors 

- temporary or overlappign of public and private boundaries 

- Poeple need both, and in between: Continuum of private to public activities and settings 

1. Eyes on the street

2. Continuous use

3. Clear divide between public and private 

- Its complicated 

Private activity/private life can overlap with public activity/public life.

- Street Ballet 

-Fifth migration back to the city (rediscovering opportunity)

- Gentrification = form of neighborhood change 

transition of an older neighborhood 

- Physical transition is welcome: older buildings renovated, new buildings

- Socio-economic transition is suspect: influx of new people, increase in rent, taxes, economic pressure

Benefits: realatively easy, usful to test assumptions 

Activies: look, watch, listen, skech, diagram, note, count, list

Sources: places, build enviornment, people, behavior

- Observation of enviornment: data sources

-Observation of people and behavior 

-Considerations: observer, timing, site/place, subjects 

- Primary school was central instituation to which nuclear families with young childeren related. Most important factor on where to live. (school should be community center)

1. Size: population sized for elementary school 

2. Boundaries: formed by wide arterial streets

3. Parks: Open spaces scattered throughout

4. Institutions: schools and neighborhood services at center

5. Shops: to serve neighborhood, but located at edge

6. Internal streets: facilitate movement, but discourage thru-traffic 

"community without proximity" 

1. Assemble rather disperse

2. Integrate rather than segregate

3. Invite rather than repel 

4. Open rather than close 

- People need and want human contact in outdoor places 

-"third places": cafes, coffee shop, bookstore

Physical enviornment: 

1.Necessary activites

2. Optional activites

3. Social activites 

Costs of Crime (Gottdiener)

US housing industry inability to provide affordable housing and bank industry have been and remian as the root cause of the curent economic recession 

It is likely that many suburban communities are less safe than many city neighborhoods 

1. Different types of crime exist; even minor one can affect urban life

   2. The built enviornment can help or hurt (use of space)  3. Attempts to prevent crime through design can negatively affect disadvantaged social groups 

When? 

- After decades of suburbanization and its effects 

physical sprawl and automobile dependance 

economic and lifestyle dependance 

Social isolation (bowling alone) 

Enviornmental decline/loss of open land 

Why? Advantages of the city 

- For business: existing public works, transportation, nearby population/labor pool, central location to the region

-For residents: cheaper housing, existing parks, public buildings, vibe, sense of place

Where?

-Business districts: "downtown" offices

- Industrial: factories, warehouses, workshops

-Shopping: commercial buildings, storefronts

- Residential: housing, duplexes, apartments 

Who? 

-Whos there? some residents, certain buisineses

-Whos coming? new residents, new businesses

- Government? seeking tax revenues, enforcing regulations

- Institutions? lenders, banks 

-Back to the city: two main functions 

1. Business: economic engine, jobs 

2. Residents: who lives where/

newcomers (middle class), locals (working class, immigrants, minorities) 

- Newcomers tend to be yound, hip 

- Location: located in what should be economically valuable areas.

- Local Market Demand: immediate opportunity for inner-city based entrepeneurs and businesses 

- Integration with regional cluster 

- Human resources: jobs available 

Community: 

- Place: Organizational focus (government, school, church, business) 

- Size/scale varies

Neighborhood

-Place: residential focus 

What do they have in common?

-Community: Place/organizational

-Neighborhood: place/residential

-Both: place/people/interactions 

We are in the 4th migration: people are moving from city to the suburbs. (because of technology)

Prediction of 5th migration: people are going to repopulate the city core. 

- Downtown reurbanism

-Immigrant reurbanism 

-Black reurbanism

-While middle-class reurbanism 

- need to improve public health by sanitation measures and the use of trees to combat air quality 

- There is no reason thousands should not come everyday where hundreds come now to use them 

Nature is: primitive, individual, divine, restorative, moral, healthy, natural 

- New York is one of the greenest communities in the US 

-Spreading people out increases the damage to the enviornment (Owen moved out of city and saw how much more he polluted and needed to live) (expansion of ecological footprint) 

- Dense cities are scalable while sprawling suburbs are not 

- New York was created by merchants that were interested in economic efficiency 

- Oil consumption is the worst pollution we do to our planet (the car stands between conceivable solution and our energy nightmare) 

- public transportation: less travel by car// decrease in trips by auto and increase in public transit 

- Big buildings and situtated in Manhattan = green (many uses for one building/many companies)

-Urban sprawl in effect 

-Lots of signs (security signs, sale signs)

- Gentrification in progress: mostly all repairs were done so privately, no government interference noticed

- Parking was an issue (student living/college in surrounding area) 

-Focused on observation, better analysis with two observers instead of one

- Why do research? show problems/issues with enviornment (build and space) 

- The amount of sitting space is much more important than the total space 

- Gender difference in how men and women use ubran space 

(high proportion of women in park = good park)

- Supply creates demand 

- A good open space will not saturate demand, but increase it 

- Most difficult thing to change: the location of the space and its relationship to the street 

(interior park and exterior park: walls ruin the enjoyment and trap people in )

- We live in a fortress city brutally divided betwen fortified cells of affluent society and places of terror where police battle the criminalized poor 

- Wealthy are using an armed response

-New architect is negatively keeping out the "street person" 

Fortress LA: 

Crime prevention = exuse for dividing urban space, private places for wealthy elites/dominate class, class mix is discouraged 

Forbidden City: 

The exclusive form of downtown building, high level of privacy and security, excluding others who dont fit in, little change of social mixing