1. The City and Citizenship1

2. “Optimo” – The ideal small town Southwestern county seat laid out on grid Courthouse (“ponderous, barbaric and imposing”) at center Has minimal park (which blocks traffic) Has courtrooms and other government offices Ugly, but nevertheless a source of civic pride Not a “civic center” off on its own Denton, Texas Pontiac, Illinois Typical elements Stores near Courthouse Square, tailing off quickly into residential areas Residential areas typically one-story frame houses Socializing on Saturday nights (pickups, gossip, etc.) Courthouse square v. plaza Building at center v. public buildings surrounding open plaza (e.g. Zocalo)Zocalo Celebration of democratic institutions Cf. Federal plaza and Daley plaza in Chicago February 15, 2016The City and Citizenship2

3. Denton County Courthouse February 15, 2016The City and Citizenship3

4. Neighborhood, District, Corridor Neighborhood “urbanized areas with a balanced mix of human activity” (p. 193) Mix of residential, commercial, public, etc. District “areas dominated by a single activity” (193) Functionally specialized, e.g. theatre district Distinct from “single activity zones of suburbia” (196), e.g. office parks because other (support) activities occur (e.g. restaurants) Corridor “connectors and separators of neighborhoods and districts” (193) Combination of “paths” and “edges” (Lynch) Can be natural or man-made (rail, sidewalks, bike paths) Inherently civic because heavily used February 15, 2016The City and Citizenship4

5. Principles of ideal neighborhood design Has a center and an edge Center is locus of public buildings (cf. courthouse square) Edge can be natural or man-made (forest, infrastructure) Quarter mile from center to edge Walkable in five minutes Residents in walking distance of most daily needs May commute to work via mass transit Balanced mix of activities Dwelling, shopping, working, schooling, worshipping, recreating Decreases stress of commuting Less need of cars means can buy “more” house Fine network of interconnecting streets v. suburban pattern of cul-de-sacs and collectors Encourages pedestrian traffic Gives priority to public space Public buildings “represent community identity and foster civic pride” (195) Summary: neighborhoods can be designed to replicate the advantages of “Optimo” February 15, 2016The City and Citizenship5

6. Neighborhoods v. Sprawl Duany, et al paint a grim picture of sprawl “cookie-cutter houses, wide, treeless, sidewalk-free roadways, mindlessly curving cul-de-sacs, a streetscape of garage doors – a beige vinyl parody of Leave It to Beaver. Or, worse yet, a pretentious slew of McMansions” Sprawl built by insisting on segregation of the five key components Housing subdivisions Shopping centers Office and business parks Civic institutions Roadways End result: “an uncoordinated agglomeration of standardized single- use zones with little pedestrian life and even less civic identification, connected only by an overtaxed network of roadways.” That is, sprawl the result of planning designed to “make cars happy” February 15, 2016The City and Citizenship6

7. Globalization and cities Modern cities have been porous Economically linked to state, region, nation, world Culturally linked (especially thru immigration) to world Modern cities also significantly limited Economically – mostly control land use, not flows of labor or capital Politically Subordinate to state and to nation Enmeshed in metropolitan region Culturally – don’t control immigration, etc. Post-modern cities more porous, less limited? Economic and cultural links to other cities enhanced (especially for “global cities”) Global cities even more important (as centers of innovation, culture, etc.) Affects spatial characteristics of cities (different forms of “centrality”) February 15, 2016The City and Citizenship 7

8. The Global(ized) city Sassen: global cities continue to be centers “producer services” (e.g. marketing, design) still benefit from “agglomeration” Cf. Florida: “creative class” (especially core) concentrated in (global) cities Different forms of “centrality” Physical centers Central business district (CBD, the traditional urban core) persists Recentralizing peripheral areas La Defense in Paris Bunker Hill/Figueroa corridor in L.A. (cf. Davis) Nodes of business activity technocities and technoburbs Linked to old regional grids, especially highways (cf. Aurora, Schaumburg) Transterritorial – links between global cities (e.g. financial centers) Virtual – cyberspace per se as a center of politics, economics, etc. February 15, 2016The City and Citizenship 8