URBANIZATION AND THE POOR: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE INDUSTRIALIZED WEST UPA Package 3, Module 1 URBANIZATION AND THE POOR: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE INDUSTRIALIZED WEST

Urbanization Process General urbanization model Concepts of urban, urbanization, city Origin and growth of pre-industrial cities Western experience in urbanization Pre-industrial period: mercantilism Industrialization and urbanization Post industrial urbanization

Socio-spatial Structuring of Cities and its Impact on the Poor Mercantilist port cities and mill towns Full-scale industrialization and the formation of slums Post-industrial restructuring and further marginalization of the poor

Approaches to Housing the Urban Poor Co-location of workplace and residence in the mercantilist city Privately provided company housing Public housing garden cities new towns

Urbanization Urbanization Defined Process whereby a place becomes urban, i.e., it ceases to be rural, experiences a large concentration of population that is changing from rural to urban way of life. (G. Chadwick) Proportion of the total population concentrated in urban settlements. (P.M. Hauser)

Urban Place or City (G. Sjoberg) As contrasted to a rural community or village, is characterized by larger size Greater density Heterogenity and presence of significant number of full time specialists, literate groups, and inhabitants engaged in non-agricultural activities

Urban Place or City (T.A. Hartshorn) A concentration of people with a distinctive way of life in terms of employment patterns and lifestyles; With a high degree of specialized land uses; Has a wide variety of social, economic and political institutions that coordinate the use of facilities and resources.

Urban Settlement Defined (J.H. Johnson) Large population size and/or density Dominant occupation is non-rural (NOT agriculture, fishery, forestry) Large enough to have more than local influence Provides links with similar settlements elsewhere Urban Settlement Defined (J.H. Johnson)

The Pre-Industrial City Pre-conditions Prior to the Industrial Revolution, a place may become a town/city if there is presence of: a favorable resource base an advanced technology a complex social organization (G. Sjoberg, summarizing G. Childe) 3.1.1 Urbanization and the Poor: Perspectives from the Industrialized West

The Pre-Industrial City Functions Usually small, sometimes walled, serves as residence of political, religious and intellectual elite secondarily as commercial center storage for accumulated social surplus protection of citizens against their enemies Minimum specialization in land use; a single site serves multiple functions

Characteristics Technology simple, meager facilities for credit and capital formation Production of goods and services involves little specialization Main economic unit is the guild Pricing not standardized, haggling is the norm Elite dominate government posts Educational system serves the elite

Socio-spatial Structure Social structure Elite Lower Classes Outcastes < Priests, administrators < Urban commoners: craftsmen, bureaucratic personnel < Lower than lower classes: perform tasks essential to the system but outside the pale of respectability

Socio-spatial Structure Elite resided in or near the center Lower classes fanned out toward periphery Occupational and ethnic distinctions define allocation of places Family is primary socializing agency; the chief determinant of one’s occupational position

Stages in the Urbaniztion of the Industrialized West Urbanization during the mercantile period Urbanization and the Industrial Revolution early industrial phase Later industrial phase Urbanization in the post-industrial era deindustrialization phase economic restructuring

Mercantile Phase Closes the pre-industrial age and transits to the industrial age Transition to industrialization was slow due to unwillingness of merchant capitalists to invest in manufacture (considered 4th best option behind trade, land and public works) shortage of suitable areas where water power is available The poor started to be more visible in the city

Characteristics Period of petty commodity production Production system dominated by independent artisans and small masters Landscape predominantly agricultural Shortage of free-laboring population willing to work in new factories

Socio-spatial Structure Social organization consists of three distinct classes:

Socio-spatial Structure At the city center clustered churches, public buildings and the homes of the most prominent and well-to-do citizens. Nearby lived lesser merchants and leading craftsmen whose residences intermingled with commercial buildings. Principal focus of activities were the dock, the wharf, the countinghouse, and the warehouse.

Co-location of place of work and place of residence. Stores or workshops are the same for artisans, small masters and even great merchants (work place on 1st floor; living quarters on 2nd) Junior partners, journeymen and apprentices “lived in” as part of the employer’s family. Some wage laborers lived close to the town center, accessible by foot.

Housing for Workers Industrialists hired entire families and built housing for workers Industrial housing was substantial, oriented about the mill Industrialists took care to build proper social life among the workers by Imposing social and moral order in boarding houses for female workers

Housing for Workers (continued) nurturing the workers’ cultural and intellectual life No housing provisions for casual day workers who lived in shanty towns at the outskirts (See description of a mill town by Richard A. Walker)

Transition to Industrialization Industrialization agglomeration made possible by conversion of water power to steam power. Industrial location shifted from near waterfalls to coal fields. Urban development now focused in “Coketowns”, (See Charles Dickens’ description)

The Industrial City Features of the Industrial Revolution Changes in motive power from water to steam and finally to electricity Advances in machine production and heavy engineering Improved transport technology, especially shipbuilding and railway construction Investment shift from working capital to fixed capital

Investment shift is facilitated by Increasing engine speeds Using specialist merchant houses for continental export trade Wage-saving measures through machine substitution Child labor

Industrialization and Urbanization In general, industrialization begets urbanization British, European: Industrialization was the catalyst for Urban Growth ‘Factories gave rise to towns’ New World (America): Industrialization followed urbanization ‘Towns gave rise to factories’

Factors that Hastened Urbanization (Europe) Unprecedented population growth in the countryside Mechanization, rising productivity, and labor-shedding in agriculture City-ward migration rural population as continuous supply of factory workers rural population as source of domestic help

Factors that Hastened Urbanization (U.S.) Agricultural revolution took place side by side with industrial revolution Migration of redundant farm labor from the south to northern cities Immigration of Europeans to “empty lands of the earth”

Socio-spatial Structure Concentration of production and distribution in the city center or inner cities Capital-intensive, materials-oriented industries located along rivers, canals, and near railway yards and sidings Alteration of social relations of production

New Social Class Structure (Generic) Capital Labor < Owns the means of production < Propertyless and dependent on wages

Industrial Capitalist New Capitalist (From labor) Later Social Class Structure (U.S.) Industrial Capitalist New Capitalist (From labor) Labor < Landlords Real estate operators Builders < Workers, all types

Social Class Structure, Victorian England

Social Segregation led to Spatial Segregation Higher social classes distanced themselves from the lower by reorganizing the labor process, replacing the workshop systems with the factory system separating work place form residence Higher classes fled to the suburbs leaving behind the working classes in the central areas Some indutrialists built workers’ barracks near their factories

Why the working class crowded in or near the city center It is the locus of employment They needed to be close to their work because they cannot afford the cost of commuting they have long and irregular work hours They needed to be close to casual employment The presence of other workers serves as social support network

Formation of Slums, contributory factors: Working class housing became separate from their place of work Workers were cut free by employers to fend for themselves Poor immigrants crowded together near factories resulting in appalling housing conditions

The Industrial City Free market in housing gave rise to housing providers among workers themselves who allowed congestion and poor sanitation to make quick money. [See New York Slums in box]

Displacement of Urban Poor (U.K.) Demolition of overcrowded rundown working class accommodation in central areas gave way to Railway expansion Dock development Piecemeal and small-scale conversion to commercial development General urban improvement, slum clearance, and street widening

Responses to Workers’ Housing (public sector) “Gas-and-water socialism”: local government provision of clean drinking water, sewerage and drainage to prevent diseases. Construction of high-rise workers tenements at the outskirts of the city. Garden cities to house workers in suburban areas. New towns to catch overspill population of metropolitan areas.

Responses to Workers’ Housing (non-government sector) Charitable societies (Peabody Trust, Octavia Hill) rehoused slum dwellers in converted houses Philanthropic capitalists’ built workers’ housing, e. g. Pullman railway workers’ housing, Illinois, U.S.A. Noisel-sur-Seine built by Menier, France Agenta Park by Van Marken Yeast and Spirit Works, Delft, The Netherlands Port Sunlight by the Lever Brothers, Liverpool, U.K. Krupp workers’ housing in Essen, Germany

The Industrial Age of Urbanization: A Summary The patterns of development during the industrial age are characterized by Concentration of production and circulation in and around the central area with interwoven concentration of working class housing. Rise of suburbanization, first by upper class residents and later by industries and working classes, produced giant conurbations or metropolitan areas.

The Late Industrial Age (Close of 20th Century) Old central cities have declining shares in regional wealth and population. Environmental pollution, traffic congestion, racial and ethnic discrimination, and financial crises afflict many urban cores. Sharpened distinction between the rich and the poor as seen in gentrified neighborhoods adjacent to low-income-areas.

The Post-Industrial Age The period of economic restructuring from the 1970s to the present is characterized by declining industrial centers plant closures and relocation to other regions and to Third World countries deskilling / re-skilling of labour

Rise of the service economy (tertiary and quartenary) preemincence of the professional and technical class emergence of a new intellectual technology centering on information and information processing Prominence of global cities

Socio-spatial Structure Dominant urban form is the metropolitan urban region with redeveloped urban cores as nodes. Former functions of old CBDs now distributed among suburban work complexes (technology parks, shopping malls). Stylish and expensive residential developments near CBDs or far on the periphery.

New residential developments fully enclosed, separating the homogeneous community within from the more diverse population without. Increasing distinction between the core city and outer areas new colonization of the central city by professional and managerial classes quartered in low density single-family estates the poor kept in high density public housing blocks in accelerating disrepair

Distinction between the affluent and the poor within the inner city, a juxtaposition of new middle class enclaves in private housing with stringent security measures and rundown high-rise tenements in public housing Revitalization of urban core and inner cities results in gentrification, displacing the poor

Post-Industrial City, Impacts on the Poor Recent redevelopment programs emphasize leveraging private investment and deemphasize provision of housing and services to low-income residents. Growth primarily benefits highly skilled professionals and offers little for displaced workers in manufacturing and low-paid service sector jobs. Restructuring and contraction of social benefits produce a widening income gap.