de Blij 8 Going to the city

3/6/2013

Well, let's get started! Interesting stuff about the tremendous force of urbanization and its influence in the lives of people. Remember to follow these steps.
1. Survey the chapter - how is it organized? what are the sub headings? what do the maps and images portray?
2. Start an outline, chart or web using the same organizational structure as de Blij.
3. Separate main ideas/analysis (commentary) from supporting data (concrete details)
4. Connect every detail to a main idea. Make sure your outline/chart/web shows this relationship.
5. Look up every unknown word or location and write a definition or description in the margin of the book.
6. Read through the chapter focusing on the main ideas. Update or rework the outline/chart/web as you go.
7. Repeat step 6 as many times as you need to based on your experience with these tests.
8. Talk to someone about the chapter focusing on the main ideas, things that you found interesting, things that you didn't know before.
9. Read through your outline/chart/web slowly, quietly and thoughtfully the morning of the test.
10. Kill the test!

31 Comments

Kyana Washington

3/14/2013 06:07:07 am

For some reason I'm really struggling in the 1st section. I don't really see the point De Blij is trying to make regarding the milestone for the population of the world.

Bingham

3/14/2013 07:11:00 am

Well, your question is a bit too general, but I'll try. De Blij just wants you to see that there is a relationship between urbanization (this is a chapter about cities) and globalization- the subject of the book.

Kathryn King

3/16/2013 04:21:40 am

Are we still going to discuss the chapter in class? That was really helpful.

Bingham

3/16/2013 04:57:54 am

Sure! But I'm not going to do all the work. I'll answer specific questions based on the studying you guys have done. We can talk about how you have organized your notes and stuff like that too.

jaylon black

3/16/2013 09:42:49 am

if im not mistaken this chapter is a vocab chapter such as mega rural urban urbanite cities......am i close?

Bingham

3/16/2013 11:20:52 am

Good call Jaylon! Yeah, lots of vocab. Remember conurbation? Did you look up egalitarian?

paris bezanis

3/17/2013 04:17:40 am

What does De Blij mean in Toward an Urban World, page 186, when he says "the comparatively early showdown of the rural population explosion in territorially large countries with relatively modest populations" when talking about South America?

Paris Bezanis

3/17/2013 04:29:50 am

So what De Blij is saying in Toward an Urban World is that the urbanization explosion is going to affect the periphery mostly, and that the core metropolitan areas won't change much, and the big question is how to deal with the imminent chaos of rapid clustering of people in these mega-cities and how that chaos is going to turn out?

Bingham

3/17/2013 09:57:43 am

Yeah, pretty much. But to put a bit of a finer edge on it, he's identifying differences in the impact of urbanization with regard to globalization between the periphery and core.
And in the passage you quoted above (and the surrounding narrative) he's explaining that Latin America is unique. It had an early urbanization experience due to colonialism and it's aftermath; not a result of industrialization as in the core or from globalization and population growth as in most of the rest of the periphery.
While urbanization is often associated with globalizing processes as with the "Asian juggernauts", Lagos stands out as a perfect example how it doesn't always.
Note also how he lays the blame for many of the problems of urbanization with a failure of the state - at the national level. He's clearly blaming the state in many cases (Lagos, Rio) for example.
Yeah, pretty much. But to put a bit of a finer edge on it, he's identifying differences in the impact of urbanization with regard to globalization between the periphery and core.
And in the passage you quoted above (and the surrounding narrative) he's explaining that Latin America is unique. It had an early urbanization experience due to colonialism and its aftermath; not a result of industrialization as in the core or from globalization and population growth as in most of the rest of the periphery.
While urbanization is often associated with globalizing processes as with the "Asian juggernauts", Lagos stands out as a perfect example how it doesn't always.
Note also how he lays the blame for many of the problems of urbanization with a failure of the state - at the national level. He's clearly blaming the state in many cases (Lagos, Rio) for example.
Remember from earlier chapters, urbanization is the "momentous process" that is truly changing the world. Here, he's pointing the finger at political systems. If you can separate out urbanization from globalization, you'll reveal a major point of this book. What's wrong with the "flat world" theory, among other things, is misunderstanding that the city IS powerful - in good and bad ways, but it isn't synonymous with globalization. AND that the political structures and their endemic corruption are the enemy of "good" globalization.

Kathryn King

3/17/2013 10:26:32 am

What is the urban spiral mentioned at the bottom of page 184 of momentous milestone?

Andrew Han

3/17/2013 10:46:04 am

I think de Blij is just referring the process of urbanization

Bingham

3/17/2013 11:59:58 am

De Blij is just using that turn of phrase to point out that while population growth will slow and that political borders are now well established, urbanization continues and will continue at a rapid pace.

Andrew Han

3/17/2013 10:42:54 am

I have begun reading the chapter and was wondering if this is the thesis or is there more or is this just a main idea, "If there is a force that can vanquish a city, it is natural, not artificial."(page 182 line 3)

Bingham

3/17/2013 12:05:08 pm

More to it dude.

Emily Soice

3/19/2013 02:32:09 pm

By what we've discussed in class, is the thesis of the chapter urbanization is not synonymous with globalization?

Marisa Rinchiuso

3/18/2013 10:08:15 am

I just wanted to make sure I'm on the right path.
Momentous Milestone is pretty much just saying the world is growing very rapidly but a lot of our information isn't reliable because many countries can't afford huge surveys, countries have different standards for boundaries, and growth is very difficult to pinpoint an exact number.
Is that a good sum of the section?

Bingham

3/19/2013 08:05:18 pm

Not just that population is growing, but that the nature of life is shifting as we become more urbanized.

Briana Sanchez

3/19/2013 03:38:13 am

I think there's more to Momentous Milestone. It seems like its more focusing on the different countrys' standards of urbanization by population then by size. The census part and boundaries are important but I think its emphasizing the number of people it takes to make a village a town. The Momentous Milestone is the human population. "...There is no doubt that the Earth's human popultion passed a momentous milestone around the turn of the present century..." pg 186, this is also mentioned in the begining of the section, "...television reports around the world announces that a significant moment had come and gone: the planet's urban population, for the first time in human history now exceeded 50 percent of the total.) Pg 184. Even with the example of Chongqing, de Bliji notes the size of the city but its population is no more than 7 million people.

Kathryn King

3/19/2013 01:00:49 pm

I am confused by what de Blij means when he is talking about the primacy of a megacity. When I looked it up, I got the definition: The fact of being primary, preeminent, or more important. Then, Jefferson refered to the megacities as "primate" cities. I looked up the word to see if there was a definition other than monkeys and, besides the chief bishop or archbishop of a province, there was no other definition. What did Jefferson mean and how is it relevant to what de Blij is saying?

Bingham

3/19/2013 08:02:35 pm

Your first definition is the most useful. Primate cities are those that represent power and influence in a region. Not all megacities are primate cities though.

Emily Soice

3/19/2013 02:25:04 pm

I'm just posting Mr. Bingham's answer to a question I had today on gateway cities.

me: Mr.Bingham,in Asian Juggernauts, de Blij writes that gateway cities allow foreign companies to come and link with domestic multinational companies. What does this mean? What are domestic multinational companies?

Mr. Bingham: Domestic multinational companies are just companies in multiple nations. An example of a gateway city linking a domestic multinational company and the global world is a Columbian coffee company. The company may not have access to a gateway city to sell thier wares in their own city, but say its headquarters are in Mexico City(a gateway city in Mexico). This way, they can sell their product to a foreign global audience. That is a very important point de Blij is making in that section.

Emma Lyon

3/20/2013 08:37:39 am

What does De Blij mean when he says, " the city in the global periphery was the locus of authority and transculturation." in relationship to what his previous point was. It's on page 183

Lillian Evans

3/20/2013 11:40:11 am

Locus- a center or source, as of activities or power
Transculturation- the introduction of foreign elements introduced into an established culture
I think that DeBlij may be saying that the city on the outer edges of being global holds a lot of power because of the introduction of foreign elements introduced into the culture.

jaylon black

3/20/2013 11:35:39 am

This is an easy one but I'm still not getting the big picture and point be blij is trying to make...any help ps: so much vocab!!

Sam Molina

3/20/2013 01:37:29 pm

Hey Jaylon!
If I can help, I think the big picture of this chapter is that as urbanization throughout the world increases, which also increases the globalization process, there will be increasingly sharper and consequential diversity between the rich and poor, causing rich to strive and poor to suffer. This won't make the future world flat, but it will make it even rougher!

Kate Ham

3/20/2013 02:03:01 pm

On pgs200-202 de Blij talks about how the poor are worse off because of globalization, but I fail to see where he proves his point with this, especially because he does not talk about life before globalization booms. In fact he even goes on to say what I originally perceived as a main perk to globalization which is the availability of jobs, contradicting his previous assertion. Can someone please explain I'm lost.

Also, on an unrelated note, did anyone catch the slap in the face to Friedman on 198 or the flattening pun between 203-204? I thought they were amusing hehe

Victoria Cashman

3/20/2013 03:36:33 pm

So for the gist of momentous milestone I understand that de Blij is saying it is almost impossible to calculate how rural or urbanized a population is in a given area and that now more than ever, more people live in urbanized areas, which changes the nature of life, as Mr. Bingham said. But how exactly does this all relate directly back to the thesis of the chapter? Or as stated above, does it only serve as a point for de Blij to emphasize that urbanization and globalization are different?

Andrew Han

3/21/2013 12:05:57 pm

On page 194 on the last line de blij is talking of Lagos and says,"a city often referred to as the Calcutta of Africa" what exactly does he mean by the Calcutta of Africa?

Robinh Nguyen

3/21/2013 12:21:01 pm

Calcutta (now Kolkata) had a population of 5,000,000 million+ is also a port city, and so is Lagos. de Blij then says it lacks Kolkatas charm, which was how it was industrialized, so I think he's saying that
Although it is huge and has the decent jobs a port city has, the predecent government failures of Lagos emphasizes how this megacity lacks power and that not all mega cities portray power.

Maklin Ramirez

3/21/2013 01:23:04 pm

Ok so is a primate city the same as metropolis "mother city"?

Robinh Nguyen

3/21/2013 01:51:51 pm

Metropolis is a chief city in a region or country. A primate city influences the region or country. I don't think they're the same thing but they're close, or they aren't always the same thing.

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de Blij 8 Going to the city

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