Cities 07

In Melvin Webber’s article “The Post-City Age”, he discusses his idea that urbanism no longer depends on location, but rather technology to make it successful. It is described that technology allows people to be “independent of the city” and spread out due to the accessibility of long distance phones and faster travel. These commodities place a division between classes due to the expenses of technology. Overall I feel that Webber addressed the “post-city age” in a futuristic manner that proved to be true; today technology does represent a large portion of everyday life. I would like to look further into his idea of how a city will be represented and why people would live in certain areas.
Webber noted that city folk used to strangers to rural folk and rural folk used to be confused by city folk, but now urbanites and ruralites are intermingling because of the influence of technology. It seems that Webber assumes that people living in the country use all of the technology provided (i.e. national newspapers, magazines, and television). People that live in different areas have their own communities and influence each other, therefore it does not matter the amount of technology but how the community interacts. For instance, at University of Wyoming (located in Laramie, WY), they have the same technology as Minneapolis, MN but live a very different live. Both are college towns that are filled with young adults that have grown up in the technological age, but differences can be seen that one is rural and the other is urban. There is no public transportation, lack of vehicles and no attraction or activity to do in comparison to Minneapolis. When my friend and I traveled there people could tell that we were from a completely different area. We talked differently (accent and word choice), dressed differently, and discussed different issues within the news. Granted a small rural area across the country is not the best example, there are still differences that show rural and urban communities. Because of this, technology allows for a better knowledge of larger issues outside of the physical realm, but communities discuss issues in different ways.
In “The Post-City Age”, Webber discusses his belief of communities. He stated that social reference groups are based on occupation and in turn create communities. This can be seen in families that travel a lot, such as military families and scientists. These families job position relocate to give them the needs to keep their job and make money. For example, technology allows scientists to gather information from other areas to collect data. These communities of scientists create their own social group that influences every day life. Production of ideas and information, as Webber would say, is sold and location does not matter. Because of this idea I wonder is urbanism created through an occupation. If a city or location is convenient for work and work creates a community and transformation of ideas for work needs technology, this new information age needs technology and produces communities based on occupation.
Webber’s belief on technology creating new and combined urbanism was an amazing prediction of cities today. New equipment allows people to travel away from their home or communicate to another area from their home. There are still differences between rural and urban communities, but in general occupation creates a community of its own based off of new information.
Abby Schultz