Sofea's Urban Sociology Blog 2022

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The Finale: Urban Sociology in a Semester

One of the best decisions I made this semester was to get enrolled in this class. It’s my first formal Sociology class, and I’m so happy to have learned more about cities in the United States and the developing world. It was such a foreign concept for me initially because most of the terms used in the class were unfamiliar to me as an international student, given that there are limited discussions about ideas like suburbanization and inner cities in my home country.

Reflecting on the semester, the course has helped me to develop a good understanding of the challenges that come with urbanization, such as urban sprawl, the mushrooming of inner cities, suburbanization, and the race divide due to housing policies. I learned a lot of new things that I would otherwise not have had exposure to, such as redlining and how this has caused racial segregation in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia. My interest in understanding more about the impact of redlining on urban poverty led me to research it as part of my final paper. As we discussed a lot about housing policies, I’ve also tried to draw connections with the issues surrounding race-based affirmative actions in Malaysia. I love how this course pushed me to connect things that I just discovered through the course with what I already know.

I love travelling. Over the years, I’ve visited a number of cities with varying economic statuses. From the populous city of Kathmandu surrounded by Himalayan mountains to the historic city of Paris, I’ve seen for myself how cities differ from one another. I believe that my next travel adventure will be more exciting given that I’ve equipped myself with good knowledge about cities and urbanization through SOCI 1090. It will be a challenge for me to see the cities I will visit next through a sociological lens!

Overall, this course has informed my perspective on urbanization and its sociological impacts. Given how my other classes are business/analytics oriented, SOCI 1090 provided a refreshing escape for me from all things finance and analytics this semester, and I’m grateful for that. I look forward to applying what I have earned from this class in my future career and even in my life as I work towards becoming a more informed citizen. 

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Blog Post #9: Migration and Sacrifices

One of the things I found very interesting during our class discussion last Tuesday was the Hukou System in China. Hukou is a household registration system in China that divides the population into two classes: rural and urban. This division determines where citizens can receive public services. The system aims to control the migration of citizens from rural areas to cities. 

However, there is a huge implication with the implementation of such a system: the widening inequality gap between rural and urban residents. When residents of rural areas migrate to cities to secure better employment with higher incomes, they either leave their children behind or bring them together without guarantees of better education. With a rural resident status, these migrants have limited access to public goods like healthcare, housing funds, and education. The disparity in access to public goods that comes with a rural-urban migration exacerbates the wealth inequality between the rural and urban groups.

When we talked about the left-behind children in class, I was reminded of the stories I’ve heard from Indonesian, Filipino, and Bangladeshi migrants in Malaysia who leave behind their children and families to earn a living. Malaysia depends a lot on migrants from nearby Asian countries for low-skilled labor. Some did not even have the chance to raise their kids for working abroad for too long. I remember a conversation I had with a migrant who worked as a cleaner in my office building. She has been working in Malaysia for over 20 years now, and back in Surabaya, Indonesia, she has two kids who are now adults. I could sense how painful it must be to be separated from her family for such a long time, but she was grateful for it because, with the money she earned, she could send one of her kids to college. There are indeed a lot of people who make huge sacrifices to climb the mobility ladder and break intergenerational poverty, signifying how unequal our world is today.

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Blog Post #8: Slums in the Developing World

This week's class discussions about Globalization and Cities interest me as someone born and raised in a developing country. The picture that was shown at the end of Thursday's class on Urbanization in Latin America struck me the most. It shows a slum or shantytown area against a backdrop of skyscrapers, referencing the juxtaposition of the "first" and "third" worlds.

The images of slums in the US that I have in mind differ from those in developing countries. In the US, when we talk about slums, I imagine poorly managed brick buildings in one part of a town with high poverty rates. I've seen slums in my travels to big cities in the developing world like Jakarta, Bandung, and Kathmandu, Nepal and even in my own city, Kuala Lumpur. In developing countries, slums offer worse living conditions with non-standardized houses, sometimes just made of non-permanent materials like wood, plastics, and boards. They are sometimes smacked in the middle of the center city, just as pictured in the juxtaposition of the "first" and "third" worlds slide.

While some may say that the people who live in slums near cities might feel inspired by the city to improve their lives, I think it could get quite demotivating for these people. This is because it's almost impossible for them to attain well-paying jobs in one of the office buildings they see every day without a certain level of education. People who live in slums are often part of the intergenerational poverty cycle. Unless governments take significant actions to ensure most kids raised in the slums are given tertiary education, families will find it hard to break out of intergenerational poverty and continue to live in slums.

In Chapter 14 of Palen's book, he mentioned "kampongs" as another term for squatter settlements. This is a word in my native language, Malay, and it actually means village or countryside. I would personally disagree that "kampongs" mean squatter settlements. We often refer to slums as "setinggan" instead. But his usage of the term ""kampongs" made me think about an area I love visiting in Kuala Lumpur called Kampung Bharu. It is not a slum. All landowners there own the property rights to the land. Kampung Bharu is a village that still stands firm in the heart of Kuala Lumpur despite the rapid development surrounding it. It's now a very vibrant area with local restaurants on the streets, crowded by Malaysians and tourists almost every hour of the day. There have been a lot of issues surrounding the development of Kampung Bharu. The land where most village houses in Kampung Bharu stand today is worth millions of Malaysian Ringgit. Authorities favor buying them from the landowners for development, but most residents are hesitant given how much sentimental value the houses there have. Some families have lived there for about 100 years. I feel like Kampung Bharu should be maintained as it is right now. It is such a unique area in Kuala Lumpur where heritage meets modernization. I'm attaching some pictures of Kampung Bharu from my visit over the summer!

Pic 1: Kampung Bharu in the day. This picture is taken from a Malay cuisine restaurant. In the background, we can see part of the revolving KL tower (covered by the coconut tree).

Pic 2: A village-style house in Kampung Bharu with the KL twin towers in the backdrop.

Pic 3: Kuala Lumpur Twin Tower at night.

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Blog Post #7: Covid & The Future of Work

Last Thursday’s discussion about the future of work in cities after Covid-19 made me think about how I was affected by the pandemic during my internships. I agree with Edward Glaeser’s point in the video we watched in class about how important connection is in building creativity and long-term innovations in workplaces.

I had my first internship during the first wave of the pandemic in August 2020. It was a challenging learning experience because I only went to the office once for onboarding. While I received the guidance I needed from my supervisor and other department members, I feel that the experience would be much better if I were physically present at the workplace. After two months of interning there, I did not make as many valuable connections as I had hoped to.

My previous internship over the summer gave me a taste of the hybrid working experience. We were only required to work from the office three times a week. This is a good working arrangement, but still, I prefer going to work physically as someone who was going through a steep learning curve as an intern there. But it certainly helps that the office I was working in has a lot of co-working spaces and phone rooms to take on Zoom calls with working-from-home colleagues.

I personally think Zoom and other video meeting platforms can be an occasional tool, but they should not be the primary tool to connect with people in a company. I do not discount the fact that the flexibility of working from home increases the productivity of those who must go through long commutes to offices. I talked about this with a friend who had to commute 3 hours a day or more to go to work (I was so surprised when I learned this. The place where he is commuting from has last-mile issues for public transportation, and traffic is also a problem if he drives instead). He said that he often felt tired when he reached the office; it just felt like a cycle of home-work-home. So, he preferred working from home. In cases like this, the hybrid model of working makes sense.

Working outside of a company’s designated working spaces does increase productivity for some people. Still, in the long term, this working arrangement might not be as sustainable as we think. Discussing, brainstorming, and learning from each other in the same physical location can certainly help team dynamics for more successful idea generations. Cross-team interactions are also more valuable when they are done face-to-face. Therefore, in moving forward, as mentioned by Glaeser, cities should not be planned to have empty working spaces.

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Blog Post #6: My Thoughts on Pruitt-Igoe

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth documentary is heartbreaking. It is a beautiful compilation of stories of the good and bad times experienced by the people who used to call Pruitt-Igoe their home. Despite the big issues surrounding Pruitt-Igoe, which eventually led to its demolition, it was still heartwarming to see how some families found their community there and formed lifelong friendships through Pruitt-Igoe. While the documentary mainly framed the structural changes occurring within St. Louis as the bigger story behind Pruitt-Igoe’s failure (which I agree with), I feel that we should also not discount how modernist architecture might have contributed to its failure. The stories from Pruitt-Igoe’s former residents made me think about how the design of public housing, both its physical and administrative system design, impacts how people live.

I see several problems as the main reasons behind the downfall of Pruitt-Igoe. An important reason is, of course, the structural changes within the city of St. Louis post-war. The city’s residents and economic activities were moving out of the city. The Housing Act of 1949 encouraged contradictory policies. There were incentives for urban renewal projects and, at the same time, subsidies for residents looking to move to the suburbs. Because of this, there was a mismatch between where the jobs are and where people who needed the jobs the most were forced to live. Besides that, the fact that the maintenance fees were sourced from the tenants’ rents was also a big reason behind the failure of the housing project, and this became worse when vacancy rates increased over the years.

When thinking about the architectural design of public housing, I think that it’s essential to have the residents’ quality of life in mind while designing public housing units. One successful example of public housing is the Savonnerie Heymans Public Housing in Brussels. It provides 42 low-energy social housing units. Various communal facilities are offered within the complex, including a game library, playground, and park, to bring residents together as a community. These housing units are also low-rise which I think plays a role in preventing isolation among residents. Going high rise might have increased alienation for the residents in Pruitt-Igoe. One great example of low-rise housing projects is Seattle’s High Point under HOPE VI. It replaced 716 units of distressed public housing and now includes a mix of income levels and housing types that feature low-impact sustainable design. High Point used to be an area with high crime and vacancy rates due to a lack of public housing maintenance. When it was redeveloped under the HOPE VI program, the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) ensured that everyone with very low income could return to the area if they wanted to, so the redevelopment replaced the old units with 800 units of market-rate housing and 56 units for low-income homebuyers.

While the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe was upsetting, it also taught many lessons for future public housing developments and redevelopments.

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Blog Post #5: Boston’s Italian North End

Our discussion about immigrant enclaves and how immigrants established immigrant communities in the late 19th and early 20th century reminded me of my trip to Boston’s Italian North End over fall break. My friends and I wanted to try the famous cannoli from Modern Pastry, a family-owned Italian pastry shop which has been there since 1930. It was fascinating to learn that the Picariello family (owner of the pastry shop) came from Italy with ambitions to share their culture and recipes. 

The North End is, in fact, Boston’s oldest and most iconic immigrant neighborhood. Due to its proximity to the waterfront and the city’s downtown markets, it was the first entry point for many immigrants from German, Ireland, and Russia in the early 1800s. However, Italians were the dominant immigrant group in the late 1800s, which subsequentially makes North End known as Boston’s Little Italy until today. It makes so much sense why these ethnic immigrants sought to live among themselves. Immigrant neighborhoods like North End provided them with a sense of familiarity and support as ethnic businesses and social organizations sprung in the neighborhoods. In a short history article about Boston’s North End, I learned that, in 1930, the neighborhood was 100% Italian. There were 28 Italian physicians and 6 Italian dentists, which might have helped Italian immigrants adapt better, given that language is consistently a barrier for immigrants seeking health services. 

I also discovered a few organizations that helped the Italian immigrants in North End transition to a new country. The first one is the North End Union, a settlement house which provided food and aid to immigrants. Another interesting one is the “Saturday Evening Girls” library club, which aimed to advance the education and well-being of Jewish and Italian young women. The existence of these kinds of organizations might have helped the immigrants form social capital within the neighborhood, establishing trust for more personal relationships like lending money to other immigrant families and looking out for each other’s children. 

In class, we also talked about how certain ethnic neighborhoods tend to be associated with immigrants and were therefore viewed as dangerous. North End was not excluded. It began to attract negative public attention for its criminal reputation with the rise of organized crimes like “Mafia” and “Cosa Nostra”. However, this is no longer the case now, and I wonder what led to North End’s transition to the very safe neighborhood that it is today. In fact, it is now one of the best neighborhoods to stay in in Boston. 

Over the recent decades, gentrification made life increasingly unaffordable for North End’s older residents. It is now still home to more than 41% Italian Americans, but many have moved out to other areas. However, it is still remembered as a place which provided a sense of community for early Italian immigrants. North End’s vibrant Italian character still lives on with Italian restaurants and bakeries on its streets, some of which started from humble beginnings in the early 1900s. 

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Blog Post #4: Harsh Realities of City Life

Massey’s and Denton’s Chapter 2 of the American Apartheid made me think about the problem of gentrification in West Philadelphia. An example would be the UC Townhomes, which is home to many Black families. Residents were given one year to move out from the UC Townhomes when many families have lived there for generations. These residents value the townhomes more than a dollar sign—it’s where they feel most secure to raise their families (some for decades) and they have found their community there. The displacement of these residents could also potentially damage their upward mobility. It is heartbreaking to see how powerful entities are prioritizing profit over the lives of the residents, who could possibly become homeless post-eviction or move to a more crowded, violent neighborhood for lower rents.

In an interview article I read about the fight to save the UC townhomes, a resident expressed that her neighborhood (50th and Cedar Street) has become increasingly violent as gentrification continues. She quoted how gentrification is pushing the West Philadelphia residents into a bubble, which reminds me a lot about how ghettos were formed in the first place. In Chapter 2 of the American Apartheid, Massey and Denton wrote that, due to the limited housing supply, “new black arrivals were accommodated by subdividing housing within the ghetto’s boundaries”. This implies the increasing population densities within ghettos, thus leading to an increased black spatial isolation, removing Black people from the rest of the American society. This stage in the formation of a ghetto, as described in the American Apartheid, seems to have a close resemblance to what might happen to the residents of the UC townhomes post-eviction. Many might choose to live in really crowded ghettos with high crime rates for cheaper rentals, pushing them further and further into a smaller bubble. This whole idea of ghetto formation seems like a cycle to me. When I looked up about how West Philadelphia became a predominantly Black area, I found out that it was because of the out-movement of residents with greater means to the suburbs in the early 20th century, leaving the neighborhood filled by Black families with low incomes. Then, when the area became more developed with the expansion of University City, many more Black families were displaced under the pretense of “urban renewal”.

The displacement of the Black families from the UC Townhomes symbolizes the effect of gentrification on a particular racial group. In fact, the reason why the UC Townhomes exist in the first place is because of the development of University City in the 1960s, which forced Black West Philadelphia residents to move out from their neighborhood (then known as Black Bottom). It is also essential to understand why many Black families are concentrated in West Philadelphia in the first place, mainly for increased economic opportunity and the potential of homeownership. I hope to learn more about the migration of African Americans to West Philadelphia and how redlining in Philadelphia affected their decisions on where to live. 

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Blog Post #3: A Look into an Urbanized Japan

This week's readings and class discussions drew me to reflect upon my family trip to Japan in 2019, right before the Covid-19 pandemic. Given how efficient the transportation system in Japan is, we mostly commuted from one place to another by trains (Shinkansen and JR Trains) while we were there.  We visited three different cities, namely Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto.  Japan is a place with such a fantastic culture and history, and it just amazes me how old and traditional Japanese cultures coexist harmoniously with the modernization in metro areas.

I was amazed to observe the codes of urban behaviors in Japan, which I believe is part of what defines city-living there.  One striking observation I saw was how there is a distinct difference between regions regarding escalator etiquettes. In train stations especially, Japanese people stand on different sides of the escalator depending on which city the station is in.  Commuters in Tokyo will stick to the left side while those in Osaka stand on the right side. However, it was a little different in Kyoto. I saw that there is no fixed side to stand on the escalators, and people tend to stand on both sides. Well, I believe most people there just follow what the people in front of them do. I had the chance to ask our Airbnb host about the inconsistent standing position in Kyoto. She said that the inconsistency might be due to the increasing number of foreign tourists in Kyoto, and some people might not be familiar with the local etiquette. Still, the difference in escalator etiquette in Japan struck me as a unique feature of the country since in other places like England, the golden rule to escalator etiquette is that the slow lane is on the right-hand side of an escalator, and this is quite consistent throughout the country, unlike Japan. The escalator etiquette is an example of an unwritten or informal rule that made coping in big cities so much easier, given that there are so many hurried people in these cities, particularly during peak hours.  It symbolizes how courteous the people in Japan are in making way for those who are in a hurry by leaving one side of the escalator empty. 

However, Japan's fast-paced city life is not all sunshine and rainbows. Another strong observation I saw in the cities I visited in Japan is the low visibility of the homeless on the streets.  This was very surprising to me since I've witnessed way more homeless living on the streets in other big cities I've visited. However, the low visibility of homeless people on the street does not mean that homelessness isn't a social issue in Japan (It is just not as bad as other countries, with a low homeless population rate of about 0.003% in 2020). Most of the very few homeless I saw on the streets of Tokyo were older men. In fact, the average age of homeless people in Japan is 63.6 years old, and some have lived on the streets and at parks for decades. It might be difficult for these elderly homeless to reintegrate into the mainstream society, especially with the rising costs of living in metro areas like Tokyo. Based on my readings on the Internet, part of the reasons why the homeless people in Japan are less visible is due to the emphasis on politeness in the Japanese culture. The homeless tend to feel ashamed of themselves, so they try to stay out of the public's way. Panhandling is not a common sight in busy areas. The fact that we do not really see the homeless on the streets poses a challenge for those trying to reduce the number of homeless in Japan.

The observations I made in Japan prompted me to think of our discussions in class about how we behave in cities where unwritten rules govern urban behavior, the extent of homelessness, and even how homeless people behave in crowded areas of different cities. I see culture as a determining factor in people's behavior and interactions with strangers.

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Blog Post #2: A Piece of Indonesia in South Philly

I had a quick visit to South Philly with a friend last Wednesday to get Indonesian food from a restaurant called Hardena. Since my country Malaysia shares many cultural similarities with Indonesia, I was excited to know that there’s a highly integrated Indonesian diaspora community in the neighborhood. While waiting for our food, we talked to a lovely Indonesian couple dining next to our table. They recommended a few other Indonesian stores and cafes in the area. I was surprised to know from them that about 5,000 Indonesians live in South Philly. There is even a particular neighborhood which residents call “Kampung”, which means village in the Indonesian language.

Our conversation with the couple reminded me a lot of the discussions in class about "ethnic villagers". As Palen described in The Urban World, "ethnic villagers" exhibit a high degree of social interaction between each other and the neighborhoods which they reside in often reflects the family and peer orientation of a homogeneous small town than the attitudes of an impersonal large city. I observed a very tight relationship between residents of this area while I was in the restaurant. Most of the customers at the time of my visit seem to know each other and the owner of the restaurant. However, it was also interesting to see how the restaurant attracts not just the Indonesian diaspora, but even local Philadelphians.

We later decided to walk around the neighborhood near Hardena and visit some of the other Indonesian stores recommended by the friendly couple we met. One of the stores that we went into was Pendawa which is a store that sells food, snacks, spices, and groceries from Indonesia. Most of the Indonesian businesses are just a walking distance from each other, giving me the impression that there is indeed demand for Indonesian-related food and items in that area.

When I got home that day, I looked up on the Internet to learn more about the Indonesian community in South Philly. I learned about Modero & Company, a traditional and modern dance community promoting Indonesian culture through dance. Having discussed the idea of social capital in Putnam’s Bowling Alone book in class, Modero struck me as an example of how people can come together and build social capital through culture. I find it so interesting how this community of dancers thrive in a city with deteriorating social capital.

While the presence of this Indonesian neighborhood in South Philly is not as obvious as an area like Chinatown or Little Italy, it clearly binds the Indonesian community together with the existence of businesses selling Indonesian-related goods and community groups. However, I still wonder how the interactions between these “ethnic villagers” are changing over the recent years and whether they experience declining social capital too. I look forward to returning to South Philly and learning more about the people there and its culture!

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Blog Post #1: The Discontinuous Cores of Los Angeles

The Los Angeles School discussed in class compelled me to recall my recent experience travelling to Los Angeles with my best friends. With a focus on postmodernism, the Los Angeles School suggested a new urban model defined by fragmented and split urban growth and the decline of metropolitan centers. This hypothesis offers a different way of viewing city growth compared to Burgess’s Concentric-Zone Hypothesis (a product of the Chicago School), which suggested that industrial cities grew radially through a series of concentric zones.

One thing that struck me while planning my trip to Los Angeles is how Los Angeles has multiple core areas in the periphery and not strictly in Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA). It seems like a city composed of a sum of disconnected cores, each with its unique character, and devoid of traditional city centers. I could see how automobiles must have been an essential factor in the development of Los Angeles, given that I find it particularly difficult to commute from one core area or suburb to another with public transport. I also recall how amazed I was to see how incredibly diverse and multicultural Los Angeles is. This is consistent with what Charles Jencks said about Los Angeles, whereby “No single ethnic group, nor way of life, nor industrial sector, dominates the scene.” (Palen’s book, p. 76)

As I walked on the streets of DTLA during my trip, I noticed that office buildings, banks, and hotels dominate most spaces. While there are still a few departmental stores left like Macy’s, in my eyes, the retail scene is not as vibrant as I would have imagined in a big city. This observation aligns with our discussion in class about the out-movement of offices, manufacturing, retail trade, and people from the center city to the periphery areas (i.e., suburbs). The opening of large shopping centers like Valley Plaza and Lakewood Center was widespread in the county as massive suburbanization took off after World War II. By the 1960s, Los Angeles residents didn’t find the need to go to DTLA anymore to shop.  

Decentralization of economic activities and housing to locations outside of DTLA have certainly taken place in the City of Angels. Take Anaheim on the outskirts of Los Angeles, for example. While it is still part of Los Angeles County, it is a core area of its own and is popularly known for its theme parks. Another example that is integral to the Los Angeles School Hypothesis is Santa Monica which boasts itself of being the home to the headquarters of many businesses, tourist attractions, shopping districts, and real estates, despite being quite a distance from DTLA. Century City is also an example of an edge city that is a thriving business and commerce city outside of DTLA. It is anchored by a 1.3 million-square-feet outdoor shopping mall called Westfield Century City and is very much automobile-dependent.

While the Los Angeles School of Thoughts might be a better representation of the urban sprawl in Los Angeles today, this video showing the growth of Los Angeles from 1877 to 2000 made me think about how Burgess’s Concentric-Zone Hypothesis might have come into play in the city, especially in the early 20th century. Some articles I read also confirmed that the small towns that emerged in the early 1900s centered around the economically booming DTLA. Eventually, a 1,100-mile streetcar system came into the area, establishing an urban footprint there. I remember walking from our hotel in DTLA to Little Tokyo and observing how the buildings were gradually shorter as we walked further away from the financial district of DTLA. The financial district of DTLA can be best described as Zone I—the Central Business District. On the other hand, neighborhoods like Chinatown, Koreatown, and Little Tokyo are reflective of Zone 2—the zone in transition—since they were “immigrant settlements”. I believe that, in the early 1900s, there might be the influence of an urban growth pattern similar to the one described by Burgess when Los Angeles was a relatively small area. However, it was fascinating to see how, in the video, there seems to be concentric growth from different cores in Los Angeles (not necessarily the center city), especially after the 1940s, affirming the Los Angeles School of Thoughts Hypothesis.

As I reflect on this week’s and last week’s readings, I wonder what led to the emergence of these core areas in Los Angeles and how the simultaneous development of different core areas was possible. I look forward to learning more about the sustainability of cities and suburbs whose development was not dependent upon the conventional center cities and how these areas build economic independence.