Analysis Of The Metropolis And Mental Life

Life in the city is often chaotic and fast-paced. It is as quick as a television dinner. Often, people are forgetting the art of appreciation. Things go unnoticed like a pebble under a shoe, like sparkling windows on corporate buildings. Now, people are typically giving more time to their technological devices- which is not necessarily a terrible thing. If anything, it speaks more of an imbalance. There is a wider disconnect in every day social interactions (communications) and public spaces (location). It has been noted by a creator of public spaces, Goldberger, that people are “there but not there”. They have closed themselves off from experiencing what is right in front of them. For example, the average adult spends seven hours on a technological

Urban studies aims to develop an understanding the modern city metropolis. As Savage et al. have pointed out, the urban encompasses far more than just the physical city itself; understanding the city help us to understand many aspects of modern life (2003, pp.4). Many of its features, such as mass media and public transport systems have spread throughout society over the past century. Sociological studies of urban life began with the landmark publication of 'The City' in 1925 by sociologists Robert Park, Ernest Burgess and Louis Wirth from the University of Chicago, students of Georg Simmel who shared his belief that the urban environment changed man's

. . took on, over time, the nature of one more hillock in the dramatic rise and fall of the coastal landscape.” (141) Expressed in this statement is the idea that although the Larkins experienced a tragedy that held the town‘s interest for a period, adversity is a natural part of the unpredictability and ups and downs of life. In other words; tragedy and adversity are part of the landscape of life.

The lavish provision of public parks, baths, and free libraries promotes the health, happiness and culture of the industrial orders. Far seldomer than before do we hear the murmur of popular descontent. Sickness and mortality have been reduced to anextend that is almost incredible.” The city of Manchester was unattractive as shown in document eleven. The photograph the bridge over the River Irwell.

The Industrial Revolution not only changed business and economics, but urban lifestyle. The changes occurring were mostly negative, however, and constructed a need for reform. These were times where the product and consumer demand drove business, not socialist working reforms This is all best seen in Manchester where worker’s living conditions deteriorated to improve the business until they were initially met with meager reform, all while the city kept expanding to accomodate. The worker’s living conditions largely deteriorated as Manchester was forced to expand.

The technology, over time, has created a dull, lifeless setting. Even the cement “vanish[es] under flowers and grass”. (Bradbury 174) The city has no passion to care for the natural world-it’s cracking and dying. Its elements have been disturbed, some removed-including the very human itself. The city has no sound, no life. Leonard can even “imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, a windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry riverbeds, for company.” (Bradbury 174) The long, silent, empty street is described as lifeless, indicating that only elements of the dystopian society

Hitchcock’s notoriously elaborate Rear Window set (under the art direction of J. Macmillan Johnson and Hal Pereira) is so significant because it contains the entirety of the movie. The rest of the city is a mere suggestion, hinted at by cars and pedestrians passing by a narrow strip of alleyway. Therefore, the real analysis of city life that Rear Window explores is that of the relationship between neighbors. In his essay The Metropolis and Mental Life, Georg Simmel comments that the city dweller must avoid overstimulation by practicing “reserve” among others and that,

It is no secret that homelessness is quickly becoming an epidemic in the United States, but the homeless population is not one secular demographic. For every person in the US living on the street, there is a unique story of how they got there; nonetheless, that is not to say that many of these stories are without some commonalities. Along with homelessness, there is another issue plaguing American cities, but this issue is much more covert, and exists under a guise of improvements like fancy apartments and trendy restaurants. Gentrification is defined as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste” (Erikson); but what that definition fails to mention is the discourse it has on the

While explaining his new daily routine, he expressed his views on the city, “I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the contrast flicker of men and women and machines give to the restless eye” (56). When he says this, his tone is a tinge of sadness but mostly acceptance. It doesn’t seem to affect or bother him that he feels solitary in a big city. He admits that he feels lonely, but he also believes other people in New York feel lonely as well. Showing that even though a big city can be exciting and filled with opportunities, it’s not always as grand as people make it

“It got to be easy to look at New Yorkers as animals, especially looking down from some place like a balcony at Grand Central at the rush hour Friday afternoon.” (Tom Wolfe). “O Rotten Gotham” argues that New Yorkers are in a state of behavioral sink. It would not be long before a “population collapse” or a “massive die off”.

Cities are generators of economic life and source of changes in the world. Thereby, Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities puts into relief the role of cities on the social and economic levels, while denouncing the disastrous consequences of urban renewal programs. To that extent, in chapters 2 and 3, she discusses "The Uses of Sidewalks”, arguing that over all people need safety and trust in their city. Therefore, first she claims the necessity of keeping streets and sidewalks safe because they are the “vital organs” of cities (29). Secondly, she argues that the functioning of cities should be organized in order to foster human interaction in which “casual public

The intensification of rapidly changing stimulations in the city requires the individual to “create a protective organ” manifesting itself in a “matter-of-fact attitude”. This attitude rather than concerning itself with emotions takes on a rational mentality and gives rise to intellectualism. In other words, instead of letting constant encounters with unexpected smells, objects, actions, noises, events, people agitate the nerves and react emotionally, the individual approaches everything in a logical manner. This rational mentality of a purely intellectual individual inevitably leads to a blasé mind set, an apathetic outlook to that which is happening around them. This blasé attitude is a necessary response against the threat of individuality.

In Jane Jacobs’s acclaimed The Life and Death of Great American Cities, she intricately articulates urban blight and the ills of metropolitan society by addressing several binaries throughout the course of the text. One of the more culturally significant binaries that Jacobs relies on in her narrative is the effectively paradoxical relationship between diversity and homogeneity in urban environments at the time. In particular, beginning in Chapter 12 throughout Chapter 13, Jacobs is concerned greatly with debunking widely held misconceptions about urban diversity.

As individuals in the city, we preserve our individuality. People are enslaved to time, working under the clock. Structure of the city makes the people have less time for themselves. Everything is moving and it's either you leave or get left. Simmel suggest that To becomes a true individual you must face all the struggles. Mark abolishing all the trials and tribulation. City life was just too fast paced for people to have time for interaction or time to stop and explore the environment. too many complex groups and relationships, as are found in the city, can increase the level of stimuli and contribute to the blasé metropolitan attitude. That reveals that the blasé attitude is a defense mechanism to help us preserve emotional energy. The city

This report will focus on the text ‘The Metropolis & Mental life’ by Georg Simmel and the key arguments of this primary text. It will start off with a key biography of himself and the influences which he had then will go onto explaining the contribution this key author makes to social theory.