GEOG 340: Day 5

1. GEOG 340: Day 5 End of Chapter 3, Start of Chapter 4

2. Housekeeping Items • A reminder that the meeting to protect Linley Valley West is on for tomorrow evening at 7:00 at the Kin Hut in Departure Bay. The bulldozers have already started to roll….

3. Housekeeping Items (cont’d) • Please join us to watch the award-winning documentary film SHIFT CHANGE at Vancouver Island University’s Cowichan Campus on Friday, September 20.  The film examines employee-owned businesses that compete successfully in today's economy while providing secure, dignified jobs in democratic workplaces and growing healthy communities. Visiting the 50-year old network of co-operative businesses in Mondragon, Spain---and many thriving examples of such businesses in the USA—SHIFT CHANGE shares the on-the-ground experiences, lessons and observations from the worker-owners on the front lines of the new economy.   Check out this short trailer to learn more about the film: http://shiftchange.org/video-clips/We will be screening SHIFT CHANGE at 7:00 pm in VIU’s main lecture theatre on the Cowichan Campus. Admission is by donation. 

4. DRAFT SCHEDULE FOR 340 PRESENTATIONSNOTE: Weeks are subject to change

5. Finishing Up Chapter 3 • The only major point left out in the discussion of the pre-Fordist era was the phenomenon of filtering in the residential sector. Relatively well-off people build houses that are thoroughly modern for their time. When they become obsolescent – functionally, appearance-wise, or locationally – then people lower down the socio-economic ladder take over and the affluent move on to new houses and neighbourhoods. This is an ongoing process even today. • Can you think of any examples of that in your experience?

6. Fordist era • “Fordist” era of 1920-1945 brought great changes to changes to cities, especially to the U.S. • Fordism refers a whole variant on traditional capitalism originally associated with Henry Ford: --mass production of consumables, --economic horizontal and vertical integration, and --higher wages for workers (so they can become consumers). • This was linked to a gospel of efficiency known as “Taylorism” after Frederick Taylor who figured out how to optimize the division of labour in manufacturing and tract the most productivity. This filtered over into the notion of how cities should be planned – i.e. to maximize their efficiency for the economy.

7. Fordist era • As mass production industries exploded in the U.S. and Canada, epic migrations occurred, especially in the U.S. Huge numbers of Afro-Americans migrated from the South, where conditions were harsh, to work in the factories – beginning during World War I when there was a shortage of manpower. • As they were not welcome in white neighbour-hoods, they created their own ‘ghettos’ (does anyone know where the term originally comes from and was first applied?). • In 1929, a variety of factors contributed to the beginning of a worldwide Depression and a quarter to a half of the population became unemployed.

8. Fordist era The “dirty Thirties” were a period of poverty and strife

9. Fordist era The “dirty Thirties” were a period of poverty and strife

10. Fordist era • The eventual response of capitalist governments was to apply Keynesian measures – increased public works expenditures to provide jobs, the beginnings of a welfare state, controls on capital, recognition for workers’ rights, encouraging collaboration between labour and capital. • Roosevelt’s “New Deal” was a much more robust version of this, but Canada did some of the same under W.L.M. King • Prior to the Depression, in the affluent ‘20s, car ownership exploded and suburbanization proceeded apace.

11. Fordist era • By the end of World War 2 and, especially afterwards, the car was to completely transform North American cities and, indeed, cities all over the world. • Governments began to subsidize the car industry by building roads and free- ways (controlled access parkways and expressways) • Mass transit after the war was systematically run into the ground through a cons- piracy entered into by GM, Firestone, and Standard Oil.

12. Fordist era • By the end of World War 2 and, especially afterwards, the car was to completely transform North American cities and, indeed, cities all over the world, and with it there was a huge rise in housing starts (see chart on p. 82). • As noted before, the sprawl of cities matched the predominant mode of transportation (see diagram on p. 79). Slowly, lot size grew (initially suburban lots were small), and densities fell. • After the war, the Fordist (mass production) approach was applied to building suburbs – Levittown on Long Island (12,000 homes and 80,000 people) and Don Mills in Toronto (its 2006 population was 25,435). • Housing starts in the U.S. went from 90,00 in 1933 to 350,000 pre-war to between 1.5 and two million until the recent meltdown. • In both countries, mass ownership was facilitated by government-backed mortgages and the GI Bill in the U.S.

13. Fordist era

14. Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn • Before the Levittown model took hold, Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye and a number of progressive architects formed a group in 1923 called the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA). They tried to the buck the trend towards the “efficient city” by putting more of the emphasis on humanist values. • They developed Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, using the “superblock” concept (large interior spaces for lawns and gardens without roads) and Radburn in New Jersey, with its street hierarchy and neighbourhood concept. • Clarence Stein, one of their members later designed Kitimat, B.C. • Unfortunately, some of these ideas were distorted in future subdivision planning, and as suburbs expanded so did destination malls with an often disastrous effect on CBDs.

15. Regional decentralization and sprawl • In the first period (1945-1973), we have a number phenomena: • unprecedented growth in the economy • close to full employment • the “baby boom” with the ‘classic’ nuclear family • urban sprawl and massive expansion of the freeway system (a little less so in Canada) • explosion in the consumer culture • automobile-oriented culture – car representing unlimited mobility, freedom for teenagers, services catering to cars (drive-through restaurants, banks, drive-in movies –and even churches!), destination malls and strip malls. • huge expansion in air travel.

16. “Anywhere, North America”: the multiplication of ‘blandscapes’

17. Regional decentralization and sprawl • All these affect cities. Can you think of how? Because of the haste with which I write these lectures, I don’t credit my picture sources usually. Please do in your assignments. • The interstate freeway system in the U.S. was the most massive public works project ever undertaken in history. It was initiated in part for national defense purposes. • The same period saw the massive expansion of air traffic with key nodes emerging.

18. Regional decentralization and sprawl • While the manufacturing belt in the U.S. remained relatively stable until 1970, there was a gradual drift towards to the south and west, with New York, LA, Chicago, and Atlanta becoming increasingly the focus for ‘higher order’ functions. • Even manufacturing began to move to the lower-wage regions of the South – somewhat ironic of the fact from the ‘teens to the late ‘40s and beyond, Southerners (especially Blacks were moving north) to get the relatively good-paying jobs, and were bringing their culture (including their music with them).

19. Regional decentralization and sprawl • While the manufacturing belt in the U.S. remained relatively stable until 1970, there was a gradual drift towards to the south and west, with New York, LA, Chicago, and Atlanta becoming increasingly the focus for ‘higher order’ functions. • Even manufacturing began to move to the lower-wage regions of the South – somewhat ironic of the fact from the ‘teens to the late ‘40s and beyond, Southerners (especially Blacks were moving north) to get the relatively good-paying jobs, and were bringing their culture (including their music with them).

20. Regional decentralization and sprawl • Another phenomenon are the industrial parks, typically one-storey, often located by freeways on the urban periph- ery on cheap land. • In general, industry has been decanting from the centres of cities to “edge city” locations. • Cities, which have relied on the jobs associated with them have had to fight to hang on to industrial land, that is if they make it a priority, because condos pay better.