Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place"You can learn a lot by figuring out how cities get built. That is the fundamental assumption of Urban Fortunes. Compared to some other approaches to an urban sociology, we get physical. We study the land and how real estate becomes a commodity that people put buildings on. We want to learn how the configurations of houses, offices, and factories make some people better off and others worse off. We explore not only how benefits and costs accumulate for individuals but also how they aggregate to create durable differences among places. We try to determine what this then means to people on the ground making a life in the homes and neighborhoods created in this process. That was our goal when we first wrote the book, and here we have a chance to reflect on what we tried to do and how it looks in retrospect and to offer the reader a revised guide to the chapters that follow." -- from Preface p. vii. |
Contents
Places as Commodities | 17 |
The City as a Growth Machine | 50 |
Exchange and Sentiment in | 99 |
How Government Matters | 147 |
Overcoming Resistance to Valuefree | 213 |
The Dependent Future | 248 |
Common terms and phrases
activities affluent American Sociological American Sociological Association Angeles areas benefits Beverly Hills build California capital capitalists centers central cities Chicago community organization competition corporate costs ecological economic effects elites entrepreneurs environmental ethnic example exchange values factors federal firms fiscal gain gentrification ghetto goals groups growth machine housing increase industrial infrastructure institutions interests internal investment issues labor land land-use less levels live localities Los Angeles Marxian ment Metropolitan mobility Molotch needs neighborhood nomic officials owners pattern percent places planning political poor population production programs projects racial rates real estate regions rent rentiers residential residents result Richard role Santa Barbara social Sociology spatial strategy structure suburban suburbs sunbelt tion towns United University of California University Press urban renewal urban sociology World York York City zoning Zunz