Deck 9: Comparative Urbanism: the City and Culture

Question 1

Which city did Louis Mumford describe as "a far richer efflorescence of human genius than history anywhere else records, except perhaps for Renaissance Florence"?

A) Ming Peking
B) Hellenic Athens
C) 18th-century Rome
D) Present-day London

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Classical Athens stood as a monument to

A) free citizens participation in government.
B) an all-powerful god.
C) a ruling family.
D) a police state.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Friedrich Engels spoke of which English city with these words: "...it is a city in which one can roam for hours without leaving the built-up area and without seeing the slightest sign of the approach of open country"?

A) Manchester
B) Birmingham
C) Leeds
D) London

Answer 3

D

Question 4

In his writings, Charles Dickens used a phrase that summarized what worried Engels about the capitalist city: that it reduced everything in life to objective facts and quantity. This phrase is

A) "You know what a horse is."
B) "Give me your definition of a horse."
C) "He has no business to it."
D) "You are never to fancy!"

Question 5

Now a city of 22 million people, Beijing was formerly called

A) Tokyo.
B) Athens.
C) Ibadan.
D) Peking.

Question 6

The text uses a small town in upstate New York as an example of urban dominance in a more subtle fashion. The pseudonym for this community is

A) "Springdale."
B) "Levittown."
C) "Harrison."
D) "Mountain Home."

Question 7

Sociologically, Fiorello La Guardia was a marginal man who lived on the edge of many cultures.

Question 8

In the 5th century B.C.E., the city of Athens had a population of roughly

A) 50,000.
B) 100,000.
C) 350,000.
D) a little more than one million.

Question 9

For the city dweller during the Industrial Revolution, the most important change was

A) the suburban movement.
B) the invention of the factory.
C) the exurban movement.
D) widespread pollution.

Question 10

Cities are almost always completely self-defining.

Question 11

For all intents and purposes, large-scale industrialism began in England about

A) 1550.
B) 1650.
C) 1750.
D) 1850.

Question 12

The text points out that much of the population of the city initially came from the

A) suburbs.
B) exurbs.
C) countryside.
D) highlands.

Question 13

Based on historical and comparative evidence, argued that the city has been at the center of Western civilization from its beginnings.

A) Robert Merton
B) Lewis Mumford
C) Oswald Spengler
D) Herbert Gans

Question 14

What does Daniel J. Monti argue about cities?

A) They have become "sinkholes of indifference."
B) They lack a civic culture.
C) They are static entities.
D) They inspire a public spirit

Question 15

Oswald Spengler spoke of the " " of the city.

A) heart
B) brain
C) soul
D) bones

Question 16

According to Daniel J. Monti, in the urban way of life, the many different types of people have found an appropriate form of public behavior that enables them to get along with each other. Monti refers to this as

A) the countryside.
B) civic culture.
C) urban dominance.
D) civilization.

Question 17

Shakespeare noted that the ways of the country and of the city are often quite different.

Question 18

refers to conformity to opinions that supposedly reflect group consensus.

A) Groupthink
B) Group conformity
C) Group polarization
D) Group identity

Question 19

Visitors to Beijing today find a city displaying

A) a communist philosophy.
B) a rising consumerism.
C) Marxism.
D) socialism.

Question 20

Ming Peking was based on

A) elaborate Chinese cosmology.
B) Cartesian logic.
C) Buddhist rationalism.
D) Eastern existentialism.

Question 21

As Greek civilization entered the Golden Age, the gods themselves became more abstract and less like human beings.

Question 22

Oswald Spengler contended that cities ultimately dominate a society and maintain this dominance for all time.

Question 23

From Mumford and Spengler, we learn that although the city and civilization are not precisely synonymous, the city has a unique power to intensify and symbolize culture.

Question 24

The cultures that prevailed in classical Athens and in Ming Peking were very similar.

Question 25

Perhaps the most important link between city and countryside is the reciprocal shaping of lifestyles.

Question 26

It was the expansion of capitalist nations and their cities in the 19th century that made it possible for the Communists to gain control of China.

Question 27

In 1976, Deng Xiaoping and his followers deemphasized the more extreme elements of Maoism.

Question 28

Modern sociologists generally view Spengler's contribution to urban sociology as extremely significant.

Question 29

Urban dominance is a central pattern of the modern world, but not the historical world.

Question 30

As a means of livelihood, capitalism is relatively new.

Question 31

Daniel J. Monti believes cities have become "sinkholes of civic indifference."

Question 32

Ming Peking is an example of a city's ability to intensify culture.

Question 33

Athens' moment at the pinnacle of urban history was undermined eventually by the culture's own egocentrism and exploitative practices.

Question 34

Louis Wirth's principal achievement as a United States urbanist was his articulation of the role of culture in cities.

Question 35

There is little difference between the northern and southern regions of Beijing.

Question 36

The very success of Greek city-states led to the aristocrats' downfall.