Cities 07

I just want to establish, I know basically nothing about Jewish anti-semetism and its connections to blood-libel or Islam and its connections to terrorism. However I did read an article by Muhamood Mamdani called, "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim--An African Perspective." In the article he argues that you can not generalize about a culture or a group of people because culture is always changing and there will always be somone deviating from the definition. Anyway his argument isn't important, the article highlights treatment of Islamic people and the catagory of, good or bad, which society classifies them into since 9/11. Finally what I thought would be interesting is the parallels one could draw between the treatment of Jews during anti-sematism times, and Islamic people now. For instance, as Stansell wrote, blood libeling was beleived to be true even though now we laugh and think to ourselves did people really believe that. The interesting part would be to look at the things that are being portrayed to us about Islams and how in ten, twenty, thirty years we'll be thinking how rediculous people were for believing such things. If anyone knows about this I would be interested in reading your thoughts.

I like this analogy between the anti-Semitism during the Dreyfus case in France and the Anti-Islamic sentiment that has crept into political discourse today in the USA. To hear it from FOX you’d think the entire country believes all Muslims are terrorists hiding out in caves and awaiting their chance to take away our hard won freedom. My guess is that most people understand the difference between mainstream Islam and the brand of fundamentalist Islam that is practiced by terrorists. Likewise, I have a hunch that most people during the Dreyfus case didn’t think he was participating in child sacrifice. I don’t want to say we cannot make connections between dominant representations of Jews, Muslims, people, things, and how people actually think about Jews, Muslims, people, and things at any particular place and time. But that we need to be careful when doing so. But what of this question “why does the past look so silly to us?” I think this is an important sociological question; one that should lead directly to “what will today look like to those in the future?” Maybe societies go through a maturing process somewhat similar to humans. It could be that we are slowly getting more knowledgeable about societal matters and that as we grow, we look back at how we were in our adolescent stage and think “Wow we were dumb back then.” This is a bit optimistic, I know, but I’d hate to think we haven’t made any progress in the past few hundred years. The Life of Emile Zola is a wonderful movie about a famous author who had a great impact on the Dreyfus case. It’s a fun watch and shows the complexity of living in a society that seems out of step with what should be common sense.

I just wanted to say that I thought the Cafe in the Sky was a really effective way to understand more about the writers we've been reading. I personally didn't agree with Engles, who we were portraying, but I agreed with the Bohemian people and would have probably been able to represent them better.

Not in any sort of attempt to attack or single anyone out, but a trend that I’ve noticed from some of the posts that I’ve perused is that almost every time the suburbs are mentioned so far in this class they are typically in very negative and somewhat stereotypical terms. While I grant that many of the comments are most likely tinged with sarcasm, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that the general sentiment, well, from those who have mentioned the “burbs”, is that anyone who lives in them are predominately scared white people suckling at the clusters of corporate teets (i.e. strip malls/old school malls/out door malls, etc.) who only venture out of their fortresses of solitude to maintain their landscaping or restock on whatever they need (see? even I can't resist slamming suburbanites). I'm not sure about this piece of info, but I've heard that some of the poorest sectors of metro areas are the first-ring suburbs. The prevalence of low-income residents most likely causes property values to drop and makes development unappealing to anyone but the deep-pocketed corporate chains that populate these areas. This also seems to mirror the landscape of your average exurb as well; they all have the same cluster of stores, just in different orders: you have your Blockbuster, your Quiznos, your Home Depot, I could go on and on.

What my point is I guess is that are those who live in the suburbs really these conservative folk we portray them as, or are they just the spillover of those who are not really that much better off than those in poverty-ridden sectors of the city? If so, then are the conceptions of the potential for a unique cultural experience that one can find in the slums of the city exclusive to the city anymore? I don’t really have any sort of solid idea if that is even remotely true, but I thought it’s something worth mentioning. Is this just an uneducated rant that someone can better elaborate on? Or does this idea of a unique culture arising from a suburban context have any validity?

I just want to amend that previous post by saying that obviously not all suburbs fall into any sort of comparison with city slums, but some of the inner-ring suburbs definetly do not fit the stereotype in terms of racial and class demographics. I think the issue of space and density, as Wirth said, will affect how cultural expressions come about, but part of my point was to avoid presumptuous conceptions of any part of society, whether rural, urban,or suburban.

I think you're making a great point, Justin. I too think of the richer brand of suburbs when I think of them, but you're right about first ring suburbs. There are higher rates of poverty and much more socio-economic and ethnic diversity among residents than most of us seem to be thinking. I went to school in Columbia Heights and while there were some upper middle class students, I think most of us were closer to the working class. There's a big difference between places like Brooklyn Center and Edina( About Emile Zola and the Dreyfus case> There's currently a small exhibit on the 4th floor of Wilson library called "The Birth of Celebrity in the City of Lights" and it includes some articles and cartoons/propaganda about Zola and the Dreyfus case as well as some interesting things about Sandra Bernhardt. If you like looking at old newspapers, books and print art you'll really enjoy it!

I’m glad we are problematizing our concept of the suburbs. As Tavia mentioned, Brooklyn Center is a good example of a suburb that doesn’t follow the normal formula in terms of class or racial features. But to me it still seems to be set in the same physical formula, i.e. a conglomeration of malls and big box stores in close proximity to a highway. Is their something different about these inner-city suburbs as compared to the suburbs a bit further out besides their more diverse population?

I think that affordable housing and rental properties are more common in suburbs that are closer to the city, but I have no concrete evidence to back that up. Does anyone else?

Maybe this is irrelevant and for sure it is random, but what are peoples opinions of condominiums? I feel like I do not know enough about them...I mean, environmentally they seem like a really great idea, and yet, the gentrification (if I'm thinking of the right term) of them seems to contrast the benefits for society…(because it forces low income families out of their homes?)

To add on to the last post. Gentrification is something that I am very interested in. I have seen first hand how this has happened in Minneapolis where all of the high rises and housing projects have been torn down inorder to build these condiminiums. The results have been an exodus of sorts into St. Paul and more and more low income families moving into apartments in the suburbs. One positive is that schools in the suburbs are better but I predict that suburbs will become more and more like mini cities as aposed to the monoethnic (is that a word?) and upper middle/ upper class "safe haven's for the more civilized" (I quote myself because I'm nice like that) that they have become a symbol of. I recently read that in a number of suburbs in the twin cities have seen a 100% increase in the number of people visiting their food shelfs which can largely be attributed to gentrification. It seems the rich want their downtown and surrounding areas back and don't care who they may misplace and disinfranchise to do it. THIS HAS BEEN A JAMES CANNON KNOWLEDGE DROP HOLLA AT YA BOY!

Good point made, James. HOLLLLLA!!

Thanks for the knowledge drop James. This is a good example of the space of flows taking over the space of places in the cities.