PS 32 511

New York City and Los Angeles: Contrasting Politics in the Global City

Prof. Dr. Mayer

Fr 16 – 18.  Raum 201. Start:19.04.02

This seminar deals with the politics in and of New York and Los Angeles in a comparative perspective. The two cities/metropolitan regions will serve as our cases to learn about the importance of urban politics in an era of globalization. After familiarizing ourselves with the concept of the so-called "Global City", with relevant theories of urban politics, with the structure of federal/state/local relations, and with the specific historical development and political-economic situation of the two cities, we will compare the cities' approach to different policy areas (such as immigration/ethnicity, policing/security, housing and (re-)development, community organizing, welfare/workfare etc.) We will make use not only of secondary sources but also of the New York Times, the LA Times and other local sources available through their web sites.

Requirements.

Besides regular attendance and your participation in a working group making regular presentations about your homework and current events reading to the class, you will be expected to write up a report of one class session, a response paper/summary to a text (like this model book review), as well as a 10 page term paper dealing with a topic to be negotiated with the professor.

 

26.04.2002 -- Global Cities in the US Minutes

*Ed Soja, "Poles Apart: Urban Restructuring in New York and Los Angeles," Chapter 14 in:
Mollenkopf/Castells, Dual City: Restructuring New York. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991.
Janet L. Abu-Lughod, "Comparing Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles: testing some world city hypotheses," in: Paul L. Knox/Peter J. Taylor (Eds) World Cities in a World System. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1995.
Roger Keil, "Urbanisierung und Internationalisierung," Chapter 1 in: Keil, Weltstadt - Stadt der Welt. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 1994.
John Friedman/Goetz Wolff, "World City Formation: an Agenda for research and action", International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 6/3 (1982): 209-344.
Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy, Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi: Pine Forge Press, 1994. Ch.2.
David Harvey (1998) "Cities or Urbanization?," In: City, Vol. 1/ 2 (1989): 38-61.

 

03.05.2002 -- Global City New York Minutes

*John Mollenkopf/ Manuel Castells (Eds) Dual City: Restructuring New York. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991. Introduction.

Janet L. Abu-Lughod, "The New York Region: Expanding, Contracting, and Restructuring," Chapter 10 in: Abu-Lughod, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1999.

Matthew P. Drennan, "The Decline and Rise of the New York Economy," Ch.1 in: Mollenkopf/Castells (Eds.) Dual City, 1991.

 

10.05.2002 -- Global City Los Angeles Minutes

*Edward W. Soja, "It all comes together in Los Angeles," Chapter 8 in: Soja, Postmodern Geographies, London: Verso, 1989.

Edward W. Soja/Rebecca Morales/ Goetz Wolff, "Urban Restructuring: An Analysis of Social and Spatial Change in Los Angeles," Economic Geography 59 (1983): 195-230.

Janet L. Abu-Lughod, "The Los Angeles Region Transformed," Chapter 12 in: Abu-Lughod, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1999.

 

17.05.2002 -- Urban Politics Minutes

*Margit Mayer, "Post-Fordist City Politics," in: Ash Amin (Ed.) Post-Fordsim - A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.

Roger Keil, "Globalization makes states: perspectives of local governance in the age of the world city," In: Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 5/4 (1998): 616-646.

 

24.05.2002 -- Urban Form - Sprawl vs. Core/Suburb Minutes

*Robert Fishman, "Die befreite Megalopolis: Amerikas neue Stadt," in: ARCH+, 109/110 (Dezember 1991)

Robert Fishman, "Re-imagining Los Angeles," in: Michael Dear et al. (Eds.) Rethinking Los Angeles. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage.

Joel Garreau, Edge City. Life on the New Frontier. New York: Doubleday, 1991.

USC Southern California Studies Centre, "Sprawl Hits The Wall," A downloadable version of the Atlas is available online through the following URL: http://sc2.usc.edu/sg/atlas3.html

Global Sprawl: Urban form after Fordism? (Editorial) Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Vol. 12 (1994): 131-136.

 

31.05.2002 -- Inner City/ "Ghetto" Minutes

*Peter Marcuse, "The Enclave, the Citadel, and the Ghetto: What has Changed in the Post-Fordist US City." In: Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 33/2 (1997): 228-264.

*Cynthia Hamilton, "Apartheid in an American City. The Case of the Black Community in Los Angeles," Labor Community Strategy Centre, n.d.

Allen J. Scott/Richard Brown (Eds) South-Central Los Angeles: Anatomy of an Urban Crisis. Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, UCLA, Working Paper Series 1993. Chapter I & II.

 

07.06.2002 -- Homelessness Minutes

*Peter Marcuse, "Space and race in the Post-Fordist City: The Outcast Ghetto and Advanced Homelessness in the US Today." In: Enzo Mingione (Ed) Urban Poverty and the Underclass. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

Ralph Nuñez, "Family Homelessness in New York City," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 116/3 (2001): 367-380.

Susann M. Ruddick, Young and Homeless in Hollywood: Mapping Social Identities. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Madeleine R. Stoner, "The Globalization of Urban Homelessness," in: Michael Dear (Ed) From Chicago to L.A.Making Sense of Urban Theory. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: 2002.

 

14.06.2002 -- Gentrification Minutes

*Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London: Routledge, 1996. Chapter 1&2.

*Peter Marcuse, "Abandonment, gentrification, and displacement: the linkages in New York City," in: Neil Smith/Peter Williams (Eds.) Gentrification of the City. Winchester, MA: Allen&Unwin, 1986.

 

21.06.2002 -- Security, Surveillance, "Zero Tolerance"

*Mike Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space," in: Michael Sorkin (Ed.) Variations on a Theme Park. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.

*Neil Smith, "Which New Urbanism? New York City and the Revanchist 1990s," in: Robert Beauregard, Sophie Body-Gendrot (Eds.) The Urban Moment. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage, 1999.

Frederick E. Siegel, "The Politics of Public Order, " in Siegel: The Future Once Happened Here: NY, DC, LA and the Fate of America's Big Cities. New York: The Free Press, 1997.

 

28.06.2002 -- Immigrant Worlds Minutes

*John R. Logan et al., "Minorities in Global Cities: New York and Los Angeles," In: Mingione, Urban Poverty and the Underclass. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

Jerome Straughan/ Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, "From Immigrants in the City, to Immigrant City", ch.7 in: Michael Dear (Ed) From Chicago to LA: Making Sense of Urban Theory. Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi: Sage, 2002.

Thomas Bailey/Roger Waldinger , "The Changing Ethnic/Racial Division of Labor," in: Mollenkopf/Castells (Eds.) Dual City. The Restructuring of New York. New York: Russell Sage, 1991

Mike Davis, Magical Urbanism. Latinos reinvent the US City, London: Verso, 2000

Lawrence D. Bobo et al., "Prismatic Metropolis. Inequality in Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage, 2000. (Check also the review thereof by Michael Dear in LA Times Book Review Feb 11, 2001)

John R. Logan, "Still a Global City: The Racial and Ethnic Segregation of New York," in: Peter Marcuse/Ronald van Kampen (Eds.) Globalizing Cities. A New Spatial Order? Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.

 

05.07.2002 -- Welfare / Workfare

*Jamie Peck, "Workfare in the sun: politics, representation, and the method in U.S. welfare-to-work strategies," in: Political Geography, Vol. 17/5 (1998): 535-566.

*Frederick E. Siegel, "The Welfare Explosion. A Case of Malign Intentions," Ch. 4 in: Siegel, The Future Once Happened Here. NY: Free Press, 1997

Jamie Peck, "'Help and Hassle': means, motive and method in local workfare strategies". Paper presented at theconference Model USA: social justice through growing employment? Freie Universität Berlin, 19-20 November 1998.

John Krinsky, "Election Affinities: Union Symbolism and Organization in the Fight Against Workfare in New York City." Paper presented at the meetings of the International Sociological Association, Montreal, Canada, 26 July-1 August 1998.

 

12.07.2002 -- Urban Activism

Andrew Van Kleunen, "The Squatters: A Chorus of Voices... But Is Anyone Listening?" in: Janet Abu-Lughod et al., From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York's Lower East Side. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994

Kelly Candaele / Peter Dreier, "LA's Progressive Mosaic," The Nation, August 21, 2000.

Gilda Haas/Allan David Heskin, "Community Struggles in Los Angeles," in IJURR 5/4 (1981): 546-563.

Jacqueline Leavitt, "Los Angeles Neighborhoods Respond to Civil Unrest: Is Planning an Adequate Tool?" in: W. Dennis Keating et al., Revitalizing Urban Neighbourhoods. U of Kansas Press, 1996.

 

19.07.2002 -- Evaluation Minutes

 

Resources

New York Times

Los Angeles Times

The Village Voice

LA Weekly