The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology

Comprehensive Examination in Demography—Specialized Exam on Urbanization

April 19, 2005

Answer Three Questions

  1. To what extent is segregation intensifying in cities in less developed countries, and what explains the variations in contemporary macro and micro level patterns of residential spatial differentiation?
  1. What defines a “global city”, and how useful is the term in developed and less developed countries? To what extent and in what ways are the urban dynamics of a global city significantly different and more exogenously driven that other large urban centers? Take an example of a global city from the developed world and contrast its functioning with a major metropolis of the developing world.
  1. Waldringer and others have noted the persistent pull of five major US cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco) as settlement locations for international migrants, even when economic indicators such as costs of living and wage rates should diminish the draw of these metropolitan areas as migrant destinations.

A. Select two of the following theoretical approaches: network theory, segmented labor markets, neoclassical economic approaches, world systems theory.

B. Compare and contrast how each approach would try to explain the settlement pattern cited by Waldringer and others.

C. In your opinion, which theoretical approach is best for the understanding of the persistent pull of these cities? Why?

  1. The 1993 award-winning book American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, by Massey and Denton painted a fairly bleak picture of the situation in United States cities regarding the importance of and the lack of change in segregation between the white majority population and especially the African-American population. The data on which these analyses were based ended with the 1980 population census reports. Since 1980, there have been a number of changes over the next 20 years, as report in studies by Frey and Myers, Farley and Frey, and Iceland. Write an essay on these changes addressing three specific questions:

a) How do these changes challenge, or confirm, or alter the Massey/Denton conclusions in their book?

b) What would you predict regarding changes in the spatial distribution by race/ethnicity in American cities over the next 20 years?

c) Do any of these changes and predicted changes in North America have any import for spatial distributions in Latin American cities, such as those in Brazil, and if so what might they be (and if not, why not?)

  1. Write a brief essay on how the patterns of immigration over the past 20-30 years have changed the patterns of labor force distribution and labor force inequality by race/ethnicity and gender in this nation. Which groups have benefited from these patterns? Which groups have benefited the least? Which regions of the country show the most dramatic impact from these immigration/migration patterns?
  1. One of the “hypotheses” that came out of the debate between Massey/Denton and W. J. Wilson some 25 years ago or so was the so-called “spatial mismatch” hypothesis. Write a brief essay defining what this hypothesis was, and the current state of thinking on this issue, based on the development of research over this time period. Does such an idea have any merit of cities in Latin America? Why or why not?