HIST 360 The American City in the 20th Century

Course Description

Instructor: William Toll Office: 340X McKenzie
Office Phone: 346-4826 email: <bill_toll@yahoo.com>
Office Hours: MWF 10:15 - 11:30 & by appointment

Introduction:
This course should introduce students to the social, economic and political history of the American Urban System in the 20th century. The focus will be on how and why cities are hierarchically related, on the major spatial and functional patterns of urban expansion, and on the changing governance of cities. We will also examine how technological innovation as well as class, ethnic and racial conflict have influenced the allocation of space, and the structures of government.
The major hubs of the city system-- New York, Chicago and more recently Los Angeles-- will receive much of the attention, but so will cities whose functions and spatial patterns provide key models, like Philadelphia, or have been the sites of significant innovation or decline, like Detroit, Phoenix/ Sun City, Las Vegas and Miami/ Miami Beach. Where feasible, illustrative examples will be used from Portland.

Course Organization
The course is organized chronologically, focusing first on the developing structure of the city system between 1880 and 1920. These years were marked by intensive industrialization, heavy immigration, the beginnings of assembly-line production, and high mass consumption, all of which determined how urban space would be allocated and social classes related to one another. We will then examine the origins of extensive black migration from the rural South , and how it affected on-going patterns of urban living. For the 1920s, when population shifts made the United States a predominantly urban society, we will examine how the automobile elevated specific cities within the urban system, dramatically changed relationships between sections of cities, and accelerated the acceptance of zoning to provide a rudimentary order to urban land use. We will also examine how cultural tensions between Nativists and immigrants that led to major changes in immigration and personal behavior.
The segment on the New Deal and World War II will focus on the new relationship between the federal government and city planning. We will look particularly at the growing complexity of inter-governmental ties because of federal expenditures on public housing and general urban renewal. Here we will look especially at Chicago, New York, Detroit and Portland/Vanport.
The segment on the mid-20th century will examine the relationship between the great African American urban migration beginning in 1941, deindustrialization of cities like Detroit, and the expansion of white suburbs beyond the borders of major cities. We will also look closely at the unique social welfare options developed in New York city, and at those slum clearance projects, federal civil rights laws and anti-poverty programs that dramatically changed the urban landscape and reshaped its politics.
The last segment of the course will examine how American cities have been affected by both the aging of the American people and the new positioning of the United States in a more intensively linked global economic system. This has been reflected in federal policies, especially the Medicare and Immigration Reform legislation of 1965, and by the more open trade laws of the 1990s. Here we will look at the consequences of these changes in Detroit; Phoenix/Sun City; Las Vegas, Miami--Miami Beach, New York City; and Los Angeles.

Learning Objectives
The course is designed to require students to coordinate lectures with readings. The lectures are intended to provide a context for understanding the assigned readings. The essay assignments require the student to use material from readings and lectures as evidence to verify clearly constructed arguments. Witold Rybczynski's City Life is intended as an informal text that touches on many of the themes developed in this course. His perspective, though, is that of a city planner, concerned most with how the city appears as a landscape and how urban planners or other elites intervene from time to time to make cities function more efficiently, at least as they see it. The lectures cover the same time period, but from the point of view of a social historian, who is concerned most with how changing patterns of investment, work and residence, and changing governmental relationships alter relations between people and generate political tensions.

Course Policies

Assignments
(1) Students should expect to write three critical essays based on the lectures & assigned readings. Each essay will be worth 25% of the student's grade. The due dates for these writing assignments will be spaced fairly evenly through the quarter, and they are indicated on the schedule of lectures. Students knowing that they will be out of town on a date when an assignment is due must make arrangements in advance to turn the assignment in to me on time. This can be most easily accomplished via email as an attachment. Assignments turned in late will lose half a grade or more, unless a student makes prior arrangements with me or has verification of extenuating circumstance.
(2) In addition, students will prepare a term project in a media of their choosing (not an essay), based on one of the major themes in 20th century American urban history. The project will be worth 25% of a student's grade. A memo on the project accompanies this syllabus.

Memo on the Term Project
This project should allow students to utilize their individual skills to demonstrate knowledge of, or make critical judgments about, an event or theme in the history of American cities in the 20th century. Your project will be worth 25% of your grade. Two students may collaborate on a project, and the grade will be the same for both students.
A proposal for the project must be given to me, in a written format of one type-written page, on Monday of the fourth week of class. A list of the items or persons that will be consulted must accompany the proposal. Students should read through the schedule of lecture topics and look through the packet of readings to get ideas for the project. No project will be accepted unless a proposal that has been approved by me.
The projects can be on almost any theme--architecture, city planning, neighborhood organization, ethnic and cultural life, political leadership, transportation, housing, education--and can be presented in any format agreeable to both the student and the instructor. The simplest format has been a large poster illustrating a theme, event or personality. More imaginative formats (likely to receive higher grades) include crafted artifacts like sculpture, photo essays, dioramas, video taped interviews with pertinent authorities or subjects, children's books, etc. Most projects should be completed and brought to class or to my office during office hours on Monday of the next-to-last week of class. Some projects, depending on the media and the interests of the individual student, should be presented to the class on the last day of class.

Required Texts

(available at U of Oregon Bookstore)
Witold Rybczynski, City Life
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle
Fred Siegel, The Future Once Happened Here
Packet of Readings

Course Schedule