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Answer to q. 1
Cities in the United States have problems brought on by years of neglect and deterioration. Poverty, crime, racism, sexism, homelessness, inadequate public school systems, alcoholism and other drug abuse, gangs and guns, and other social problems are most visible and acute in urban settings. Since World War II, a dramatic population shift has occurred in this country as thousands of families have moved from cities to suburbs.. Suburbanization has created a territorial division of interests between cities and suburban areas.
Some analysts suggest that residential segregation reflects discriminatory practices by landlords, homeowners, and white realtors and their agents, who engage in steering people of color to different neighborhoods than those shown to their white counterparts. New urban fringes (referred to as edge cities) have been springing up beyond central cities and suburbs in recent years. Edge cities initially develop as residential areas; then retail establishments and office parks move into the area, creating the unincorporated edge city. Lower taxes are a contributing factor to another recent development in the United Statesthe growth of Sunbelt cities in the southern and western states. Four reasons are generally given for this population shift:
(1) more jobs and higher wages; (2) lower taxes; (3) pork-barrel programs that funneled federal money into projects in the Sunbelt, creating jobs and encouraging industry; and (4) easier transitions to new industry. The largest cities in the United States have faced periodic fiscal crises for many years.
Answer to q. 2
b
Answer to q. 3
d
Answer to q. 4
Symbolic interactionists examine the experience of urban life. According to sociologist Georg Simmel, urban life is highly stimulating, and it shapes people's thoughts and actions. Urban residents are influenced by the quick pace of the city and the pervasiveness of economic relations in everyday life.
He suggests that attributes such as punctuality and exactness are rewarded but that friendliness and warmth in interpersonal relations are viewed as personal weaknesses. Sociologist Louis Wirth suggested that urbanism is a way of life. Urbanism refers to the distinctive social and psychological patterns of life typically found in the city. According to Wirth, the size, density, and heterogeneity of urban populations typically result in an elaborate division of labor and in spatial segregation of people by race/ethnicity, social class, religion, and/or lifestyle.
From Wirth's perspective, people who live in urban areas are alienated, powerless, and lonely. A sense of community is obliterated and replaced by the mass society a large-scale, highly institutionalized society in which individuality is supplanted by mass messages, faceless bureaucrats, and corporate interests.
Sociologist Herbert Gans suggested that not everyone experiences the city in the same way. According to Gans, there are five major categories of adaptation among urban dwellers: cosmopolites, unmarried people and childless couples, ethnic villagers, the deprived, and the trapped.
Answer to q. 5
c
Answer to q. 6
a
Answer to q. 7
Conflict theorists argue that cities do not grow or decline by chance. Rather, they are the product of specific decisions made by members of the capitalist class and political elites. According to sociologists Joe R. Feagin and Robert Parker, three major themes prevail in political economy models of urban growth. First, both economic and political factors affect patterns of urban growth and decline. Second, urban space has both an exchange value and a use value. Third, both structure and agency are important in understanding how urban development takes place. According to political economy models, urban growth is influenced by capital investment decisions, power and resource inequality, class and class conflict, and government subsidy programs. Members of the capitalist class choose corporate locations, decide on sites for shopping centers and factories, and spread the population that can afford to purchase homes into sprawling suburbs located exactly where the capitalists think they should be located. One of the major results of these urban development practices is uneven developmentthe tendency of some neighborhoods, cities, or regions to grow and prosper whereas others stagnate and decline. The growth of gated communities subdivisions or neighborhoods surrounded by barriers such as walls, fences, gates, or earth banks, along with a secured entranceis an example to many people of how developers, builders, and municipalities have encouraged an increasing division between public and private property in capitalist societies. From this perspective, urbanization reflects the workings o f not only the political economy but also of patriarchy.
According to the sociologist Lynn M. Appleton, different kinds of cities have different gender regimesprevailing ideologies of how women and men should think, feel, and act; how access to social positions and control of resources should be managed; and how relationships between men and women should be conducted. As a result both private patriarchy and public patriarchy develop.
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