SOCIOL 110 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Urban Sprawl

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCIOL 110
• Professor: Noa Milman

Document Summary

The rise and fall of mass rail transit. Corporations found common cause in organizing transportation to suit their interests, and the romance of americans and their cars began a new chapter. Some us cities became multinucleated (major commercial, industrial, and residential areas are far from each other) Auto-related industries provide a large portion of all jobs in the country (this is decreasing in the last 2 decades due to car stigmatizing) One quarter to half the land in central cities is used for moving/storing motor vehicles. Social scientists attributed this growth to americans" love for cars (the public freely chose the car as democratic technology) Conventional explanations focus on the response of the market to these consumers. Ecologists and social scientists view shapes of cities as determined by technological developments in transport (which are not examined in terms of economic context, history, and possible technological alternatives)