Cities 07

In the various texts we have read, there are ranging ways of viewing the urban environment. I am interested in the difference between Wirth’s account and Du Bois’ account of the city. In comparison to Wirth’s vague description of the city dweller, Du Bois’ excerpt from The Philadelphia Negro is the ethnographic detail that builds a clear image of an explicit experience in Philadelphia. Therein lays its beauty. Each community is diverse and contains a tapestry of communities with in itself. Despite the variety of subcultures, Du Bois identifies a common dilemma for the populations of Philadelphia: the issue of race and class within an urban neighborhood.
Wirth describes the typical American city as having “glaring contrasts between splendor and squalor” and as consisting of “personal disorganization, mental breakdown, suicide, delinquency, crime, corruption, and disorder” as if it were natural to the urban environment. He explains that these problems derived from factors such as the population density, the heterogeneity, and the large population within the city. I would argue that the density, heterogeneity, and spatial construction of big cities may illuminate the omnipresent problems such as crime, corruption, and disorder, but they do not inherently cause such “personality types” to exist.
Wirth only mentions the social divides briefly, and focuses more on the differences between rural and urban populations rather than the various experiences and perspectives people have in particular cities and communities. Wirth also generalizes that there are “substitutes for the bonds of solidarity [in the city] that are relied upon to hold a folk society together”. He sees the urban environment as instable, anonymous and mechanical. In contrast to Wirth’s generalizations of city folk, Du Bois explains in detail the fundamental problems African-Americans faced in Philadelphia.
The “economic survival” of African Americans was the largest concern for people of the seventh ward of Philadelphia during the late 1800’s. The “economic survival” was deeply connected to the daily conflicts African-Americans faced in education, social intercourse, family life, poverty, and housing. Du Bois states that these conditions were visible in the city of Philadelphia due to the polarization of race- and the institutionalized discrimination as well as personal prejudice that maintains this split. He describes the environment in units of streets and blocks that represent the complex communities within the Seventh Ward. What connects the communities within the seventh ward may be the general environment, the daily experiences of the “worst Negro slums of the city”.
Du Bois describes an experience within the urban setting of Philadelphia. He points out that the situation is not identical in Southern cities. The physical environment of Philadelphia facilitates the problems of the seventh ward, but more importantly, the social hierarchy determines whether this “corruption and disorder” exists or not. He concludes by describing the interactions between the privileged and the oppressed, the systemic discrimination leading to personal hatred—“L----- was a first-class baker; he applied for work some time ago near Green street and was told shortly, “We don’t work no niggers here”.
Personal Note: Perhaps it is the poetic and symbolic style that Du Bois uses, but I find his text about the Seventh Ward in Philadelphia to be much more interesting, thoughtful, and critical.
Chrissi