This reading makes clear the fact that cities were essential to the North American economy from the late 17th century to the early 20th century because they were centers for the production of goods. Originally intended to be sources of income for their mother countries in Europe, the cities quickly became independent and kept the money they made. One reason they became so populated was that many people were required to maintain these centers of commerce, and these people wanted to be close to their jobs. Today, however, transportation and communication have been greatly improved. Macionis and Parillo discuss this in the reading and it made me wonder about the fate of the North American city.

Once it became possible for people to live in the suburbs and commute to their jobs in the city, this became the goal for most city dwellers. The upper middle class people living in the cities moved out to the surrounding suburbs, leaving the poor behind (along with the very rich, who controlled the city and profited from it). Those who could afford it would rather commute to the city for work rather than live there, and it seems that this was the beginning of the decay of the cities. Table 3-3 shows a population decrease for every city except New York (where the population remained approximately the same) from 1950 to 1970. This makes sense because in the 1950s and 60s, transportation became easier, allowing people to live farther from their place of work. Today, however, living far from one’s place of work is even more prevalent because of phones, the internet, and the nature of the work conducted in cities. Cities are no longer centers of manufacturing; rather, many of them are centers for business. This trend towards white collar work means that people do not need to be physically present to do their job, as they had to be in the 19th century. Furthermore, people can remain in constant contact with each other via the internet, and working from home on certain days of the week is becoming increasingly common for white collar jobs.

This shift implies that the population in big cities should decrease while the population of the surrounding suburbs increases. The anti-city sentiment described by Macionis and Parillo is not completely absent from today’s society, and virtually every city has bad areas. This could cause even more people to leave cities, increasing the population of suburbs and “edge cities.” Of course, some may prefer to relocate to the Sunbelt, but even that area is starting to suffer the same fate as the Snowbelt cities. It seems that cities suffer from a vicious cycle of implosion and explosion, with people moving farther and farther away. What used to hold cities together was the fact that people needed to be near their work. That is no longer as big an issue, so what does this mean for cities? Much of the revitalization in cities is government funded, and even so, gentrification has its drawbacks in that makes the cost of living skyrocket. Cities are now entering the postindustrial era, and their futures remain uncertain.

Discussion question: What attracts people to cities now? What does the future hold for North American cities?