The New Urban Sociology

Citation

Gottdiener, M., Hohle, R., & King, C. (2019). The New Urban Sociology (6th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The sixth edition has fourteen chapters in about 460 pages. Routledge describes the book as an introduction organised around the sociospatial perspective, which examines how social factors such as race, class, gender, lifestyle, economics and culture shape the development of metropolitan areas, and which integrates social, ecological and political economy approaches. The publisher calls this edition a major overhaul: the sociospatial approach is extended to give racism a central place in the formation of the urban landscape, urban social problems (including public health and affordable housing) are treated in spatial terms, there is a new chapter on urban social movements, and there is new material on immigrants, the LGBTQ community and the gendered meanings of space. The chapter titles below are from the publisher's contents list; the notes describe only what the titles and the publisher's description show.

Chapter 1: The New Urban Sociology

The opening chapter introduces the book's approach, the sociospatial perspective that the rest of the chapters apply.

Chapters 2–3: The Origins of Urban Life and Urban Sociology; Contemporary Urban Sociology

The publisher highlights a concise history of urban life and a clear summary of urban social theory. These two chapters supply that background, first on origins and then on current approaches in the field.

Chapters 4–5: Urbanization in the United States; Suburbanization, Globalization, and the Emergence of the Multicentered Region

The first chapter on development concerns the United States. The second links suburbanization and globalization to the multicentred metropolitan region, a form that the reviewer Joe Feagin, quoted by Routledge, credits the book with explaining.

Chapters 6–7: Urbanization in the Developed Nations: Europe and Japan; Urbanization and Mega Regions in the Developing World

Two comparative chapters take the discussion beyond the United States, to Europe and Japan and then to the developing world, where the title points to mega regions.

Chapter 8: Urban Social Problems: Racism, Poverty, Affordable Housing, Crime, and Public Health

A chapter on urban problems that names racism, poverty, affordable housing, crime and public health. Racism and the spatial side of problems such as public health and housing are among the publisher's headline changes in this edition.

Chapters 9–10: Neighborhoods and Communities: Differential Groups and Spatial Location in the Metropolitan Region; The Revitalization of the Historical Inner City: Gentrification, Theming, and Uneven Development

These chapters move to the scale of neighbourhoods, communities and the inner city. They cover how different groups are located in metropolitan space, and the revitalisation of historical centres, where gentrification, theming and uneven development are named in the title.

Chapters 11–12: Metropolitan Planning and Urban Issues; Metropolitan Social Policy

The planning and policy chapters address how metropolitan regions are, and might be, managed.

Chapters 13–14: Shifting the Focus to Results: Urban Social Movements and NGOs; Conclusion

The new chapter on urban social movements and non-governmental organisations is followed by a conclusion.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3

• Sociospatial perspective: the book's integrated paradigm, which treats social factors and space as shaping each other.
• Ecological, political economy and cultural approaches: the three traditions the book integrates.

Chapters 4–7

• Multicentred region: the metropolitan form that emerges from suburbanization and globalization.
• Urbanization in different world regions: the United States, Europe and Japan, and the developing world.

Chapters 8–14

• Urban social problems: racism, poverty, affordable housing, crime and public health.
• Gentrification, theming and uneven development: the terms in the title of Chapter 10.
• Urban social movements and NGOs: the subject of the new Chapter 13.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A single organising perspective. The sociospatial perspective ties the chapters together, and the publisher presents it as giving students a cohesive conceptual framework for cities and urban life.
• Broad scope. The contents list moves from history and theory through US urbanization, Europe, Japan and the developing world to problems, neighbourhoods, planning and social movements.
• Current in important respects. The sixth edition adds racism to the sociospatial approach, treats affordable housing and public health, and adds a chapter on urban social movements. Angie Chung, quoted by Routledge, calls it a refreshing alternative to the traditional urban-suburban approach of most urban textbooks.

Limitations

• One authors' paradigm. The book is built around the authors' own sociospatial perspective, so it is less a neutral survey of schools of thought than an argument for one way of integrating them. A reader wanting the schools set out separately should add a theory-focused text or reader.
• Weight toward the United States. Chapter 4 is devoted to the United States, and Joe Feagin, quoted by Routledge, frames the book's value in terms of US urban development; the rest of the world gets one chapter on developed nations and one on the developing world.
• Large and dense. At about 460 pages and fourteen chapters, it is long for a single-semester course unless chapters are selected.

Where It Fits in the Course

Among the urban sociology books on this site, Gottdiener, Hohle and King is the full textbook. Parker's Urban Theory and the Urban Experience is a student introduction to the main traditions of urban theory that links each to everyday experience of cities, and is a gentler way into theory before the sociospatial argument. Lin and Mele's The Urban Sociology Reader supplies primary readings, from Simmel and Wirth to Sassen and Harvey, of the kind a textbook summary of urban theory draws on.

Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a close-observation critique of mid-century planning, which connects to the planning chapters here; Sassen's The Global City is an in-depth study of how globalisation concentrates command functions in a few cities and sits alongside Chapter 5; and Sampson's Great American City presents Chicago-based research on neighbourhood effects that pairs with Chapters 8 and 9.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for undergraduates in sociology and urban studies; an introductory sociology course helps, and no prior urban studies is required.

• Core: Chapters 1–5 for the framework, history, theory and US development.
• Choose by topic: Chapters 6–7 for comparative material; Chapters 8–10 for social problems, neighbourhoods and gentrification; Chapters 11–13 for planning, policy and movements.
• Practice: pick one metropolitan region and apply the sociospatial perspective, asking how economics, politics, culture, race, class and gender have shaped it. Use Lin and Mele to read the original theorists behind Chapters 2–3.