Katz’s article of “What is an American city?” only explains what has been defined as the American city and different interpretations. I do not think it is hard to notice the disparity between those who are rich and those are poor in the city. Every time I go on the 6 train station, there is always at least one homeless person sleeping on the ground. While a city can mean different things, the definition that stuck out the most to me was global center.
In New York City, many people all of the world come here. From Asia to South America, people come here as tourists or to perform business transactions or make a living. In our day and age, more and more businesses are going global instead of sticking to their national or regional economy only. Technology has given has that ability. It wasn’t emphasized in the article as much as I thought it would be but I believe cities are the ones that are experiencing the most technological growth. With a city like NYC, which is an area of many businesses, businesses must keep up with clients from all over the world and as a result must keep up with technological developments whether it is a computer to help do quantum modeling or a laser printer to print documents.
A part of the article I was astonished to hear about were the percentages of families living in the suburbs decreased over the years and that the number of single young people living there started to go up. I always thought the suburbs were a place for families to raise their children. I never thought that any single people live in the suburbs. I am very surprised by these statistics.
When I imagine a single person or two people living together, I never imagine them wanting to go to the suburbs. The suburbs are quiet, and far away from the city. I imagine young people would want to live in the city or the boroughs. The reason is because they have easy access to the subway to go to the city for nightlife activities. If these statistics are true, then what I consider to be the suburb really does change.
Instead of a research paper, I thought the author might give us his opinion of the American city. However he mostly gathers other people’s opinions for the article and compares and contrasts them. My question would be what does he think is a American city? If the answer is it depends how we look at a city (ex. Political perspective or economic perspective) what does he think are the right characteristics of a city? If he cannot answer that, among the definitions given, what does he identify as the best definition from the article?
