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Urban theory describes the economic, political and social processes which affect the formation and development of cities.
Theoretical discourse has often polarized between economic determinism [1] and cultural determinism [2] with scientific or technological determinism adding another contentious issue of reification. Studies across eastern and western nations have suggested that certain cultural values promote economic development and that the economy in turn changes cultural values. [3] Urban historians were among the first to acknowledge the importance of technology in the city. [4] It embeds the single most dominant characteristic of a city; its networked character perpetuated by information technology. [5] Regardless of the deterministic stance (economic, cultural or technological), in the context of globalization, there is a mandate to mold the city to complement the global economic structure and urbanomics gains ascendancy.
Lewis Mumford described monumental architecture as an "expression of power" seeking to produce "respectful terror". [6] Gigantism, geometry, and order are characteristic of cities such as Washington, D.C., New Delhi, Beijing and Brasília. [7]
The Industrial Revolution was accompanied by urbanization in Europe and the United States in the 19th century. [8] Friedrich Engels studied Manchester, which was being transformed by the cotton industry. [9] He noted how the city was divided into the wealthy and working class areas, which were physically separated so that one could not see any of the latter from the former. [10] The city was therefore a function of capital. [10]
Georg Simmel studied the effect of the urban environment on the individuals living in cities, arguing in The Metropolis and Mental Life that the increase in human interaction affected relationships. [8] The activity and anonymity of the city led to a 'blasé attitude' with reservations and aloofness by urban denizens. [11] This was also driven by the market economy of the city, which corroded traditional norms. [11] However, people in cities were also more tolerant and sophisticated. [11]
Henri Lefebvre argued in the 1960s and 1970s that urban space is dominated by the interests of corporations and capitalism. [12] Private places such as shopping centres and office buildings dominated over public space. [12] The economic relations could be seen in the city itself, with wealthy areas being far more opulent than the run-down parts of the poor. [12] To fix this, a right to the city needed to be asserted to give everyone a say on urban space. [13]
In fact, urbanomics can spillover beyond the city parameters. The process of globalization extends its territories into global city regions. Essentially, they are territorial platforms (metropolitan extensions from key cities, chain of cities linked within a state territory or across inter-state boundaries and arguably; networked cities and/or regions cutting across national boundaries) interconnected in the globalized economy. Some see global city-regions rather than global cities as the nodes of a global network. [14]
The rules of engagement are built on economic sustainability – the ability to continuously generate wealth. The cornerstones of this economic framework are the following ‘4C’ attributes: (1) currency flow for trading, (2) commoditization of products and services in supply chain management, (3) command centre function in orchestrating interdependency and monitoring executions and (4) consumerization. Unless, decoupling the economy from these attributes can be demonstrated; symbolic capital expressions as legitimate as they may be; must accept the domineering status of urbanomics.
Arguably, the culprit of this economic entrapment is the high-consumption lifestyle synonymous with affluence. The resolve may well be that ‘less is more’ and that true welfare lies not in a rise in production and income. As such, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is increasingly being questioned as inaccurate and inadequate. GDP includes things that do not contribute to sustainable growth and excludes non-monetary benefits that improve the welfare of the people. In response, alternative measures have been proposed such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) [15] and the Index of Sustainable Welfare - ISEW. [16]
Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which is studied in schools are urban sprawl, urban redevelopment etc. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social interactions and the environment through qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Cultural bias is the phenomenon of interpreting and judging phenomena by standards inherent to one's own culture. The phenomenon is sometimes considered a problem central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Some practitioners of the aforementioned fields have attempted to develop methods and theories to compensate for or eliminate cultural bias.
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how power is distributed and changes throughout and amongst societies, political sociology's focus ranges across individual families to the state as sites of social and political conflict and power contestation.
Zygmunt Bauman was a Polish sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. He emigrated to Israel; three years later he moved to the United Kingdom. He resided in England from 1971, where he studied at the London School of Economics and became Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds, later Emeritus. Bauman was a social theorist, writing on issues as diverse as modernity and the Holocaust, postmodern consumerism and liquid modernity.
Sociology as a scholarly discipline emerged, primarily out of Enlightenment thought, as a positivist science of society shortly after the French Revolution. Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of knowledge, arising in reaction to such issues as modernity, capitalism, urbanization, rationalization, secularization, colonization and imperialism.
The concept of reflexive modernization or reflexive modernity was launched by a joint effort of three of the leading European sociologists: Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Scott Lash. The introduction of this concept served a double purpose: to reassess sociology as a science of the present, and to provide a counterbalance to the postmodernist paradigm offering a re-constructive view alongside deconstruction.
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes and phenomenological method. Subject matter can range from micro-level analyses of society to macro-level analyses.
David Lyon is a retired Scottish sociologist who directed the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He previously held a Queen’s Research Chair position and appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Faculty of Law at Queen's University.
Rue Es-Siaghine is a street in Tangier, Morocco. Under Roman Empire rule it was the decumanus maximus, the main thoroughfare of the city. The street led to the harbor through the south gate. Today the street is lined with cafes and bars and souvenir shops, and leads down into the Petit Socco in the medina of Tangier.
The Hotel Continental, built in 1870, is one of the oldest hotels in Tangier, Morocco. The yellowing pages of the 19th-century guestbook refer to notable residents, Edgar Degas, Winston Churchill, and the Beat poets among them, and Bernardo Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky was partly filmed here. It is located in the Medina area of the city and some of the rooms overlook the harbor.
Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance is a text on globalization by Paul Hirst, Grahame Thompson and Simon Bromley, published in 1996 by Polity Press.
Minifigures is a 2010 Lego theme based on a set of collectible Lego minifigures. Each figure is an original character with new clothing and facial designs, and most contain previously unseen accessories. Each series usually contained 16 different minifigures; however, some series contain as few as 9 minifigures, while others contain up to 22. Since 2021, the number of different minifigures for a series is set to 12.
This bibliography of sociology is a list of works, organized by subdiscipline, on the subject of sociology. Some of the works are selected from general anthologies of sociology, while other works are selected because they are notable enough to be mentioned in a general history of sociology or one of its subdisciplines.
Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, as well as scholars of law.
Lego Legends of Chima was a Lego theme that was introduced in 2013 and discontinued in 2015. The product line was based on the storyline of Legends of Chima, a 3D animated television series, which was produced to coincide with the Lego theme. The storyline was set in the fictional realm of "Chima", a fantasy world inhabited by various warring tribes of anthropomorphic animals that battle to collect a substance called "Chi". Alongside the television series and several shorts based on Lego Legends of Chima. The theme also produced a range of associated media, including theme park attractions, video games, apps, and publications.
Cultural homogenization is an aspect of cultural globalization, listed as one of its main characteristics, and refers to the reduction in cultural diversity through the popularization and diffusion of a wide array of cultural symbols—not only physical objects but customs, ideas and values. David E. O'Connor defines it as "the process by which local cultures are transformed or absorbed by a dominant outside culture". Cultural homogenization has been called "perhaps the most widely discussed hallmark of global culture". In theory, homogenization could work in the breakdown of cultural barriers and the global assimilation of a single culture.
Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that assumes that a society's technology progresses by following its own internal logic of efficiency, while determining the development of the social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have originated from Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist and economist. The most radical technological determinist in the United States in the 20th century was most likely Clarence Ayres who was a follower of Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey. William Ogburn was also known for his radical technological determinism and his theory on cultural lag.
Gellner's theory of nationalism was developed by Ernest Gellner over a number of publications from around the early 1960s to his 1995 death. Gellner discussed nationalism in a number of works, starting with Thought and Change (1964), and he most notably developed it in Nations and Nationalism (1983). His theory is modernist.
Urban informatics refers to the study of people creating, applying and using information and communication technology and data in the context of cities and urban environments. It sits at the conjunction of urban science, geomatics, and informatics, with an ultimate goal of creating more smart and sustainable cities. Various definitions are available, some provided in the Definitions section.