GEOG 340: Day 14

1. GEOG 340: Day 14 Finishing Chapter 12

2. The neighbourhood assignments are due today. Anyone want to offer any observations on things they learned? • Tara’s going to present on social distance today. • I sent out some suggested readings, and have a couple of copies of excerpts from the previous textbook for anyone who’s presenting next week. • Today we’ll finish up Chapter 12. Housekeeping Items

3. From my perspective, class divisions are very much interrelated with gender, ‘race’ (largely social construct, as pointed out), and ethnicity (including religion). • Class structure is shaped by a division of labour (think of how the University functions, to take one small example) • Institutional barriers to social mobility; in the past women didn’t become university presidents; they still don’t become presidents of the most nations, and it’s only recently that a Black man became president of the U.S. • System(s) of authority, and • Dominant consumption patterns in specific times and places (elite residential neighbourhoods in Vancouver, for instance, were uncomfortable with wealth Asians moving, especially when their housing styles didn’t match with more traditional WASP models). Class Structuration

4. Wealthier neighbourhoods typically have better-resourced schools, partly because nowadays parents have to supplement school board and expenditures, and also because different school boards have access to different tax bases. This makes a huge difference in children’s future prospects. Indeed, better and safer schools was one motivation for middle-class and white flight to the suburbs. • They also have more parkland per capita. Class Structuration

5. While ‘race’ and ethnicity are slowly becoming less of a factor, people usually marry within the same class or educational level. • What do you think about the authors’ argument about the ‘neighbourhood effect’ that people tend to take on the characteristics of “group norms, attitudes, values, dress codes, speech styles, and standards of comportment” of those they are exposed to on a daily basis? Does it apply in the artificial neighbourhood of the campus? • In cities, where people do not always have access to other cultural groups, people often develop stereotypes based on limited or mis-information. Where do these stereotypes tend to get broken down? • Nowadays, families with two parents – one working, stay-at-home, and one to four kids are rarely the norm. Single parent families are common as are DINKs – Double Income No Kids, ‘empty-nesters,’ same-sex couples, extended families, singles, and other possible mutations (such as ‘blended families’ and people living communally). Changing Household Structure

6. The authors talk about “charter” populations who have tended to dominate in the past, even if not always the most numerous – groups such as White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. ‘Minority groups’ tend to be segregated from the dominant group. • Other groups – arguably many Chinese-Canadians – have worked their way up into the establishment, and may even be becoming a new charter population.. • Other groups that used to be looked down upon – such as the Jews and the Irish – have improved their standing • In Europe, North African, Near Eastern, and African immigrants are often severely segregated, even for more than one generation.. • See the discussion on p. 300 as to the value for ethnic groups of congregating, at least initially. • Residential segregation can occur on the basis of lifestyle, including familists, careerists, and consumerists (and one could probably add as a category overlapping with the last two, people who like to party and socialize. Ethnicity

7. I ran out of steam in covering the rest of the chapter, but if we have time we will cover next week. • Topics include: the Chicago School of Urban Human Ecology and its critics; residential and economic structure in European cities; new divisions of labour, household types, and lifestyles; race and suburbia; dominant occupations on metro areas; ethnoburbs; the new materialism; social polarization and spatial segregation; ‘lifestyle’ communities; using GIS to locate new Starbucks, and specific social landscapes, as defined by the Nielsen Company. The Rest of Chapter 12 (pp. 304-321)

9. A relatively short streaming video on innovative living spaces: http://digital.films.com.ezproxy.viu.ca/PortalViewVideo.aspx?xtid=30651 • New York: A Documentary Film by Ric Burns (8 episodes in the library) Additional Resources