Exam 9: Comparative Urbanism: the City and Culture

For the city dweller during the Industrial Revolution, the most important change was

Which city did Louis Mumford describe as "a far richer efflorescence of human genius than history anywhere else records, except perhaps for Renaissance Florence"?

refers to conformity to opinions that supposedly reflect group consensus.

Visitors to Beijing today find a city displaying

Based on historical and comparative evidence, argued that the city has been at the center of Western civilization from its beginnings.

As Greek civilization entered the Golden Age, the gods themselves became more abstract and less like human beings.

The text points out that much of the population of the city initially came from the

As a means of livelihood, capitalism is relatively new.

Ming Peking was based on

Oswald Spengler spoke of the " " of the city.

There is little difference between the northern and southern regions of Beijing.

Ming Peking is an example of a city's ability to intensify culture.

In 1976, Deng Xiaoping and his followers deemphasized the more extreme elements of Maoism.

Oswald Spengler contended that cities ultimately dominate a society and maintain this dominance for all time.

Perhaps the most important link between city and countryside is the reciprocal shaping of lifestyles.

The text uses a small town in upstate New York as an example of urban dominance in a more subtle fashion. The pseudonym for this community is

Daniel J. Monti believes cities have become "sinkholes of civic indifference."

From Mumford and Spengler, we learn that although the city and civilization are not precisely synonymous, the city has a unique power to intensify and symbolize culture.

Friedrich Engels spoke of which English city with these words: "...it is a city in which one can roam for hours without leaving the built-up area and without seeing the slightest sign of the approach of open country"?

Modern sociologists generally view Spengler's contribution to urban sociology as extremely significant.