Study Questions for chapter 1
- Provide three definitions of the term city, making sure you include in your definition properties that characterize cities: one cultural and one sociological, one economic and one administrative. Choose some other source if you cannot find satisfactory definitions in the text. (cite your source(s).
- What did Robert Park say abut the city as a social laboratory? Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not?
- What is a cultural definition of a city?
- What is meant by the term “combined and uneven development used by Sociologists when describing differing types of developments?
- What is meant by agglomeration and how do cities exhibit economies of agglomeration?
- What is the legal definition of a suburb?
- What is meant by the term agglomeration economy and the statement that a city exhibits economies of scale? Cite example of your definition for both a city as well as a corporation.
- What is meant by the term urban-rural continuum?
- Define and/or discuss the rank-size order or rank size rule. Cite two or three examples of this hierarchy of cities.
- What is meant by the statement that city are “nodes”?
- What is a global economy and what role do cities play in the hierarchy of cities or system of cities?
- What is the definition of primacy in an urban system and what is a primate city?
- Who is Walter Christaller? Who coined the term central-place theory? What did he mean by this? Discuss how and why cities provide central place functions. You may city examples.
- What was the largest city in America in 2007 and how many people did it have? What is the largest city in America today (2021) and how many persons live in it?
- What is OMB and what does it do with respect to how they view or define cities and/or urban areas? What is considered urban by OMB?
- What is the legal definition of a core-based statistical area? What is the difference between a metropolitan area and a micropolitan area? Cite a couple of examples.
- What is the difference between a “central county and an outlying county? Using The Atlanta Metro area and Savannah-Chatham, provide examples of these concepts.
- What is a metropolitan division? How are the communities in these areas related to one another? Name a well known metropolitan area in the United States that is divided into four metropolitan divisions. Identify each.
- Prior to 2003, what was the name given to a metropolitan division?
- What is a census statistical area, (CSA)? Give a well known example. Prior to 2003, what was a CSA called by OMB?
- Who is Jean Gottman? Who coined the term “megalopolis” and what kind of urban agglomeration does it define or encompass? Give two areas in the world that fit this definition?
- What did the author of this book have in mind when he titled the book
cities, change, and conflict? - What did Winston Churchill say abut building in cities? Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not?
- Who is Mike Davis and what did he mean by the term “The Forbidden City?” What city was he referring to? What is the City of Quartz described by Davis and how did he derive this term?
- How does the old downtown Los Angeles compare to the New down town LA?
- What did renown city planner Frederick Law Olmstead place emphasis on regarding how cities should be planned?
- What does Criminalizing the homeless mean? Should homelessness be considered a crime?
- What is the term which refers to aggressive panhandling?
- What are the four approaches to addressing homelessness in America as described by the NLCHP (The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty?
- Identify about 10 common practices in American Cities to deal with or combat homelessness?
- What are some of the prohibitions as well as innovative approaches to deal with homelessness in cities like Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Cincinnati ,Phoenix, Arizona , Portland, Oregon, Miami, Florida?
- What is meant by the term Environmental Racism?
- What conclusion did Bryant and Mohai reach regarding the level of environmental hazards in American Cities?
- Describe the environment Justice Movement in America. What is environmental Justice?
- What is Cancer Alley and where is it located? Why is it called cancer alley?
- What is lead poisoning and how prevalent is it in American cities? Which racial groups are more adversely affected? Explain.
- Why are hazardous landfills and toxic landfill more likely to located in predominantly African American communities in American?
- What was the experience regarding locating a toxic landfill in a predominantly African American town in North Carolina in 1982?
