Handout (PDF): On "reading" the city: Ruskin and Engels. Other
than normative ideas and methods for obtaining "goodness" in the
form of cities, there is a body of systematic work since the
19th century in urban social science which attempts to explain
what cities "are" rather than what they "ought to be." This
class is a summary of the major categories of this work. In the
first instance, the city is regarded as a unique historic
process. There is a rich literature of urban histories
explaining cities as derivative from their own very specific
culture. Stress is placed on observation, "reading" as Ruskin
conceived of it, and the "reading" of Venice (Ruskin) is
compared to that of Manchester (Engels), as well as to those of
Benjamin, Norberg-Schulz and Rasmussen. In the second, the city
is regarded as an ecology of people, each social group occupying
space according to economic position and class. Derivative from
general propositions of the sociology of the city (Weber, Simmel
and Spengler), the work of the Ch