The Urban Experience Fischer, Chapter 3, Urban Life: the Physical Setting

• Chapter 3 emphasizes that the urban experience is plural.  There is no single urban experience. This diversity of contemporary urban experience is compared to the preindustrial city. What was its structure?
• In comparison to the preindustrial city, American urban historians suggest that the modern city differs in at least three major ways. Explain each of the following: 1) We now have two systems of land-use distinctions (home and work place are now separate); 2) Social classes have become more separated, as have age groups; 3) The relation between centrality and social rank has been partly reversed, largely due to changes in transportation.
• In general, industrial American cities developed along the concentric-circle pattern of land use.  Explain.
• Urban neighborhoods typically differ from one another along three lines: 1) economic status; 2) family stage; and 3) race and ethnicity.
• Fischer offers a general economic explanation of the urban ecology. He adds a list of noneconomic social considerations as well (page 49). Explain this list of cultural factors that shape urban development.
• The chapter explains the differences between North American urban ecology and that of European metropolises. Explain the following traits: 1) The degree of spatial differentiation that we see in American cities seems to exceed that in most modern societies. 2) Governmental planning of land use is minor in comparison with the influences of private property owners and the marketplace.
• Putting up with crowds is an indelible image of urbanism. However, the evidence of daytime crowding suggest that this is only a factor during limited commuting periods. Moreover, only a minority of urbanites commute by mass transit. The overall "crowding" of U.S. cities has been declining since 1900. With respect to nighttime crowding, the evidence suggests that in terms of number of persons per unit, urban residences are less crowded that nonurban ones. Thus, household crowding is not intrinsic to the urban experience, even if public crowding may be more common in cities. Explain.
• Chapter Three details the physical urban environment. Contrary to popular opinion, cities are "not getting worse." Preindustrial cities may not have consumed the amount of natural resources that modern cities do, but they were vastly fouler environments. Moreover, rural villages of the Western past were not arcadias. Peasants often shared their home with their most valuable possessions, their animals.
• However, cities do tend to produce "heat islands." One byproduct is increased rain, including acid rain. When factoring in industry, automobiles, and home furnaces, one finds that cities are notably warmer than surrounding countrysides. The consequences are mixed: winters are milder, but summers more uncomfortable.
• The connection between urbanism and severe noise is real but may not have demonstrable health effects. Explain.
• A third environmental issues is pollution. However, cities tend to fare better with regard to sanitation than do rural areas. On the other hand, air pollution is 15 times greater in cities than in rural areas. The effects of air pollution are costly in terms of materials, cleaning, and illness.
• Historically, urban life has seemed hazardous to human health. However, the urban-rural difference in mortality has disappeared, even perhaps reversed in favor of city dwellers. This may in part result from the improved health care opportunities of urbanites. Explain.
• On the average, the following is true of urban housing: 1) Metropolitan housing consists of apartment & rental housing more often than does nonmetropolitan housing. 2) Number of rooms per unit and of persons in these units do not differ much between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan locations. Between city and suburb, however, center cities have smaller households. 3) One is more likely to find overcrowded units (homes with more people than rooms) in nonmetropolitan areas. 4) Metropolitan housing units, on the average, are in slightly better physical condition than nonmetropolitan units. These statistics do not reveal the diversity of urban living but do cast doubt on the pervasive tenement image.
• Given the above statistics, it is important to note that in the United States, the single-family home is an almost universal ideal, whereas this preference is not found throughout other world cultures. Despite the American dislike for apartment living, no studies show that apartment life has negative effects on social life or psychological states. American folk wisdom, however, believes that apartment living leads to higher crime rates and personal isolation. Explain the evidence which counters this belief.
• One popular image of urban life turns out to be true: the image of the immense variety of services and facilities a city can provide is accurate. Whatever the service--retail stores, specialty goods, religious denominations--the more urban a place, the greater number and variety of services, particularly specialized ones. Fischer presents a chart of the city size necessary for the certain presence of specified services from electrical supplies to zoos. Retrace this chart and the notion of "Critical mass."
• Fischer traces the consequences of this plenitude of services and facilities.  What are the consequences, esp. for ethnic groups?

• Christopher summarizes the visual antecedents of film noir: German Expressionist films of the 1930s, French poetic realism of the late thirties, postwar Italian Neo-Realism, urban paintings of Hopper, Kline, O'Keefe, and others. Explain one of these influences in greater detail.
• The mythological antecedent of film noir is that of the city as labyrinth. This myth operates on several levels in film noir: 1) the actual physical maze of the city; 2) the human condition of the film which produce amazement; and 3) the labyrinth of the hero's inner workings. Explain each of these manifestations in terms of the kinds of cinematic details found in film noir.
• Film noir operates in the mythic underworld. As in Greek mythology, this underworld is often a place of spiritual testing, a transition from the material to the psychic point of view. Explain the following insight: "In film noir, the hero's descent in to the labyrinth of the city parallels (indeed, is) a descent into the self."
• In  film noir, the city is a character, revealed to us incrementally, plane by plane, prism by prism, in the way of a cubist construction. Explain.
• An astonishing number of films noir begin with one of two images behind their opening credits: 1) a cityscape at night, stationary or panned by a moving camera, or 2) a train or locomotive hurtling through the night.
• Christopher argues that film noir springs from the images of foreign cities (Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki) on World War II newsreels. The possibility of mass destruction creates a range of subliminal messages in film noir: 1) the simultaneous glorification of and disgust with violence, glamour, and power; 2) the belief that fear, itself, can be an explosive force in a populace; and 3) human angst, alienation, and duplicity. Explain these traits against the social context of the post-war United States.
• Christopher argues that film noir's effects have been profound: they have changed the way we looked at and felt about our cities. "The city is the seedbed of noir." Explain. (p.37)
• The titles of films noir reflect several strains: 1) adjectives of emotional distress (Abandoned, Desperate); 2) single-word nouns of disaster (Whirlpool, Crack-Up); 3) the word city (The Naked City, The Captive City); 4) the word street (One Way Street, Scarlet Street); 5) the word night (Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Nightmare); 6) city addresses (711 Ocean Drive, 99 River Street); 7) telephone numbers (Call Northside 777, Southside 1-1000); 8) names (Laura, Mildred Pierce), with a special subset of Johnny (Johnny Angel, Johnny Apollo); and 9) the purely aesthetic, grisley-erotic titles (Born to Kill) with a subset around the word Kiss (Kiss Me Deadly, Kiss of Death).
• These films present a "stark, dark vision of American urban life." While they represent the "apoge of black-and-white film making, with stunning visual style and technical virtuosity," they are concerned with the  moral terms of "the greys." Explain. (p 44-45)
• The three forces behind film noir narrative are violence, sex, and dreams. Christopher links this to the self-denial of the war years. The desire for glamour, recklessness and personal freedom is connected to the tremendous postwar boom in consumer goods and luxury items. How is noir linked to the "wildfire acquisitiveness and gaudy commercialism of the 'freedom-at-any-price' ethos?"
• The French New Wave critics insisted that film noir was never a film genre at all but, rather, a way of seeing the world. These "black" films of post-war America reflect the massive sea change of our cultural history. Explain.
• Christopher comments briefly on the influence of Fritz Lang's Metropolis on film noir. Compare his comments to your observations. (p. 65)
• Christopher traces several thematic fascinations in film noir. One of these concerns mass-produced electronic devices of the post-war era (telephone, radio, television) esp. the dictaphone recorder (which becomes a central "character" in Call Northside 777). These gadgets make urban man [sic] an information gatherer. Trace the in-depth discussion of the telephone in film noir. Why is this "personal and impersonal" device so important and critical to so many noir films? (pp. 88-92)
• Trace the role of the automobile in film noir. (pp.92-95)
• Explain the prevalence of subways and railroads in film noir. (pp.95-98) (You might want to rent the out-of-print Union Station (1950) which uses Chicago's train terminal, el tunnels, and elevated lines.)
• The office building, esp. the skyscraper, is omnipresent in film noir. Office buildings represent power, status, and an implicit sort of perspective. These structures, as presented in film noir, share several characteristics, esp. their enormous scale. Keep Christopher's analysis in mind when viewing the many scenes in Chicago's Tribune Tower in Call Northside 777.
• The text argues that film noir is the most psychologically oriented of all film genres. For the first time in American film, sexual preoccupations, obsessions, and perversions are explicitly dealt with. These fascinations are presented as linked to the urban milieu. Explain.

• The Third Man, although of British origin, represents a model film noir. Our viewing focuses on the scenes immediately preceding the "tunnel sequence." Break your analysis into two segments: 1) above ground before the descent, and 2) the underground scene.
• How are the above ground moments before the descent structured?  Pay close attention to the stylistic innovation of the film (light, shadow, scale, perspective, camera use, and sound). What kind of ambiance is created ? How are the distortions and disorientations typical of film noir? How is the location of Vienna presented and used in this segment?
• Once the film moves to its ground-breaking tunnel sequence underground, note the stylistic details. How is light, camera, shadow, and esp. sound used by Reed? How is the "underworld" created on film? What are the tensions of the chase scene and Harry Lime's (Orson Welles') death? How are water and the final staircase used? How does the sewer create a "moral setting" for the drama? (Lime's character is found to be diluting penicillin for profit, resulting in deaths and deformities in sick children.)
• When time permits, screen this exceptional film in its entirety. Most recommended is the biting dialogue written by novelist Graham Greene.