Reflection About Metropolis

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

Urbanization is inevitable, whether we want it or not. Opposers are constantly bickering about the political and moral consequences of gentrification. This topic is indeed mind boggling and complex. However, there is a need to observe this multi-faceted phenomenon in a different angle. Change is the force of diversity, safety and

Bigio, G and Dahiya, B, (2004) “Urban Environment and Infrastructure towards Livable Cities.” The World Bank, USA.

Looking back in the past century in the history of the United States, the nation has experienced a tremendous amount of urban growth with the creation of numerous large mecca cities, interconnected highways and a boom with the ever-changing technology that becomes more available to society. While technology has simplified and helped our nation tremendously, this is just one aspect of the issue of urban sprawl in big cities across America.

Every settled nation will at some point go through urbanization – the mass movement to urban areas. In the United States, one of the largest examples of urbanization was in the time period 1865 to 1910. By 1900, almost forty percent of all Americans lived in urban towns and cities. This rapid movement brought about substantial change in all aspects of the country. Some aspects were altered more than others, for example society as a whole, the economy, and city government. Urbanization has had a substantial impact on city government, the economy, and society in the time period 1865 to 1910 through various contributing factors in each area. However, this impact was not always beneficial, and many times contributed to the detriment of the

Edward Glaeser, an economics professor at Harvard, is a scholar of the economy of cities and their various problems and regularly writes about this in his famous blog of The New York Times Economix . In The Triumph of cities , it offers a valuable insight into the advantages of large cities and makes a thorough and rigorous analysis of the strategies of some successful cities that can serve as an example for the development of its strategic plan outlining.

Urban sprawl has affected three major cities in many different ways. It has affected the city of Portland with wildlife being cut down for new growth. Secondly it has affected the city of Toronto with run down buildings in its urban core and the speculation on the cost of money to create things. Thirdly it affected the city of Atlanta with air pollution, people were moving out and working in the cities so that created a lot of air pollution. In this essay it addresses three cities and how urban sprawl affected them.

This increase in the quantity and geographical sprawl of cities, as well as our dependence on them characterizes what we commonly know as urbanization. In his article, “Urbanization, Mental Health, and Social Deviancy,” Anthony Marsella provides a more comprehensive definition, claiming that urbanization causes an increase in population which impacts the way individuals in an area interact with one another, resulting in behavior changes among the population such as “differentiation, segmentalization, segregation, and marginalization” (625). Due to the implementation of “city limits,” and due to the link that exists between urbanization and the development of cities, the beginning and end of “urban” areas appears to be well

Annotated Bibliography Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler, A Psychological History of German Film. Princeton University Press, 1947. Retrieved from https://monoskop.org/images/1/12/Kracauer_Siegfried_From_Caligari_to_Hitler_A_Psychological_History_of_the_German_Film.pdf Siegfried Kracauer, a 1940s film analyst, was the first to make the argument that German expressionist films like Metropolis shaped Adolf Hitler's totalitarian propaganda. German expressionism was a cultural movement in protest to the bourgeois culture in Germany prior to World War II.

Over the past 20 years the 100 largest US urbanized areas have sprawled an additional 14,545 square miles according to the US Bureau of Census on Urbanized Areas. That was more than 9 million acres of natural habitats, farmland and other rural space that were covered over by asphalt, buildings and housing of suburbia. A major controversy in the efforts to halt the rural land loss is whether land-use and consumption decisions are the primary engines of urban sprawl, or whether it is the nation’s growing population boom that is providing the driving expansion. A good example of this rapid sprawl is the city of Chicago. It has had astonishing growth in the past years bringing about

I think the United States can also build biophilic cities and integrate more nature into urban design and urban planning. Building biophilic cities is of great important for cities, residents, and the nature. Unsustainable urban sprawl damages open space and disturbs the function of the nature. Biophilic cities help us solve many environmental problems, such as climate change, air pollution, and decreasing biodiversity. For example, if we integrate more nature into the urban fabric, there will be more trees, animals, and rivers in cities. The urban heat island effect can be relieved and more air pollutants can be absorbed by trees. Rivers can help solve increasing floods and droughts.

A megacity is a relatively new term that stands to be defined. A megacity is more elaborate than an average city in my areas of interest. It exceeds the characteristics of an average city in population, infrastructure, culture, and poverty. Although megacities may look rather attractive to an individual that resides in a rural area, megacities come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. They may seem like modern day utopias yet they also have their flaws. Even so, megacities have dominated this planet and we can surely predict the growth of more megacities to come.

An emerging issue is that of urban sprawl. While some aspects of urban sprawl has been seen since ancient times, this phenomenon has started gaining the most momentum in the past century, aided by the advancement of technology, especially with the rise of mass produced automobiles, houses and highway systems. Many people unknowingly contribute to this environmental problem, as is the nature of it. Urban sprawl deals with the growth of the suburbs, the area between the urban and rural areas of a city. Most of America’s largest cities and states, in terms of population, are prime examples of urban sprawl. Opponents of urban sprawl usually cite the government as a major cause of sprawl. The government may be a major catalyst of

Georg Simmel was born in Berlin (Germany) in 1858 and died in 1918. He delivered and then published one of his most famous pieces of work ‘The Metropolis & Mental Life’ in 1903 in New York. Habermas (1996) described Simmel ‘as a critic of culture is in a peculiar way both near to, and far away from us’ (Frisby, Featherstone 1997). Simmel was a well known sociologist, his family was business oriented and Jewish. Weber, Friedrich and Kant (He became interested in the philosophy of his work) all had a key influence on Simmel when he combined all of his ideas together. Massimo Cacciari made a bold claim that ‘the problem of the Metropolis, as a problem of the relation between modern existence and its forms, is the point from which all of Georg Simmel’s Philosophy develops’ (Frisby, D 2013). When Simmel talks about living in the city and what the social structure and economics are like, this is very similar with the analysis Weber uses (Rationalization).

Cities are places which have huge amount of gathering of people, collection of economic activities and complex infrastructure for people which all together are supported by transport systems.