Deck 15: Social Capital and the Resilience of Cities

Question 1

Social capital refers to…

A)money for infrastructure investment.
B)the value added to people's labor through education.
C)the social glue that holds communities together.
D)all of the above.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam argues that over that last 50 years…

A)fewer people have joined bowling leagues.
B)there has been an increase in every kind of activity that involves personal contact.
C)there has been a decrease in every kind of activity that involves personal contact.
D)that increased use of technology has enhanced people's ability to stay in personal contact.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Social capital can be thought of as social networks and…

A)the virtual ties among people linked together on the Internet.
B)as essentially similar to suburbanization.
C)the reciprocal norms of trust that help maintain a strong community.
D)a process that has been rising over the past 50 years.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

In trying to understand the causes of declining social capital, Putnam blames financial pressures on people, suburbanization, and…

A)the declining availability of bowling alleys.
B)electronic home entertainment, especially television watching.
C)increased population growth.
D)a process that has been rising over the past 50 years.

Question 5

According to Putnam, without healthy networks of civic engagement, shared responsibility, and trust within a community…

A)social institutions falter and lose effectiveness.
B)patterns of exurban development will continue to increase.
C)the ecology of urban areas will continue to be undermined.
D)racial discrimination will start to decline.

Question 6

Research in Philadelphia on the relationships between feelings of community connectedness and neighborliness and physical and mental well-being support Putnam's argument that…

A)social connectedness is a key determinant of well-being.
B)Philadelphia would not be a fair test of his theory because it is too old a city.
C)physically and mentally healthy people will be led to search out social capital.
D)social connectedness is not important for individual health.

Question 7

Putnam does not think that the Internet can build up social capital through the development of virtual communities because he suggests that social capital is primarily generated by…

A)face-to-face communal interaction.
B)conflict and reconciliation in poor communities.
C)email messages between people who already know each other very well.
D)the level of wealth in a community.

Question 8

Wellman's research on community networks led to a broader definition of community that conceived of networks not defined solely by…

A)gender relations.
B)geography.
C)Internet usage.
D)virtual communities.

Question 9

Wellman and Hampton's study of "Netville," revealed that emerging electronic technology…

A)could open up new opportunities for family and social relationships.
B)pushed people further apart.
C)could not be afforded by the people in the community.
D)drastically reduced social capital.

Question 10

Joyce Carol Oates observed that the internet and social media is…

A)just a passing fad.
B)not providing real news.
C)a revolutionary new consciousness.
D)fun but not useful.

Question 11

What has helped to bridge the digital divide according to a Pew study?

A)AM/FM radios
B)Televisions
C)Smartphones
D)Netflix

Question 12

Hutter examines Chicago's 1995 heat wave in order to look more closely at the connections between community involvement and…

A)Hurricane Katrina.
B)the technology of sociability.
C)the well-being of a community's residents.
D)high levels of social capital.

Question 13

Klinenberg calls his attempt to identify the underlying conditions that produced such high mortality in the Chicago heat wave a…

A)social autopsy.
B)social capital audit.
C)natural disaster study.
D)place-based symbolic interactionist study.

Question 14

Klinenberg attributes the differences in mortality rates between two neighborhoods to…

A)the racial and ethnic makeup of each neighborhood.
B)differences in the social ecology of the two neighborhoods, including the nature of street life and the extent of commercial activities.
C)the meteorological conditions in each neighborhood.
D)the population size of each neighborhood.

Question 15

Klinenberg's place-based analysis was influenced by the work of…

A)William Julius Wilson.
B)Emile Durkheim.
C)Robert Putnam.
D)Jane Jacobs.

Question 16

Klinenberg argues that the major cause of the differences in the social ecology and viability of community life between North Lawndale, the largely African American neighborhood, and Little Village, the largely Latino neighborhood, is…

A)the Catholic church.
B)an excess of social capital in North Lawndale.
C)the "culture of fear" in both neighborhoods.
D)discriminatory racism.

Question 17

Klinenberg notes that although isolation has been a major topic in sociology, most sociologists have been interested in it conceptually and have focused on relationships among communities.However, he focuses on…

A)the role of social capital in explaining isolation as a powerful metaphor.
B)the real isolation and lack of connection among individuals within communities.
C)how a "culture of fear" actually tends to counteract isolation and draw people more closely together.
D)how Gans in Urban Villagers showed that people are not really isolated.

Question 18

The 2003 heat wave in Europe killed more than ________ people.

A)700
B)1000
C)15,000
D)19,000

Question 19

In the Chicago heat wave, government officials and the media ignored how social factors and governmental policies contributed to the excess mortality.However, in Paris in 2003, the media placed the blame for the scale of the disaster on the…

A)abandonment of the elderly by their vacationing children and on governmental policies.
B)the meteorological extent of the disaster.
C)the lack of warning of the extent of the heat.
D)increase in global warming.

Question 20

France's lower house of Parliament produced a report blaming the loss of lives in the 2003 heat wave on the…

A)heat.
B)nation's healthcare system.
C)elderly themselves.
D)German government, which failed to provide warning.

Question 21

In the Paris heat wave, an underlying factor that contributed to the high death rate of the elderly was the…

A)failure of officials to realize just how hot the heat wave was going to be.
B)nature of city life as experienced by the elderly.
C)socialist government of France.
D)unanticipated effect of global warming in exacerbating the situation.

Question 22

Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was a spatially segregated city in which the poor largely lived in cheap, below-sea-level housing.This was due to…

A)the desire of the poor to live in cheaper housing in the low-lying areas because those were seen as more desirable.
B)the natural workings of the market.
C)fear of the effects of heat waves on the city.
D)long-time government decisions to straighten the Mississippi channel and to drain marshland to increase the capacities of the Port of New Orleans and to aid oil production.

Question 23

Although 33 percent of Americans are members of racially defined minority groups, about ________ percent of the 700,000 people in the neighborhoods hardest hit by Katrina were members of such groups.

A)5
B)25
C)60
D)90

Question 24

Weitz suggests that the disproportionate burden of environmental pollution that falls on disadvantaged groups can be encapsulated by the concept of…

A)social capital.
B)ecological preservation.
C)environmental injustice.
D)environmental ecologism.

Question 25

Social scientists who have investigated the psychological and sociological consequences of environmental injustice and disasters have suggested that a variety of symptoms seem to be linked to a sociological malaise caused by…

A)media attention to the plight of those affected by disasters.
B)disruptions in the affiliations and networks of those affected.
C)the inability of disadvantaged communities to put their problems behind them.
D)symbolic interactionism.

Question 26

The people most affected by flooding when Katrina hit New Orleans were predominantly…

A)the poor, the weak, the sick, the old, and the very young.
B)the tourists and the rich.
C)those who failed to exercise common sense and leave the city when warned to do so.
D)those who ignored the warnings about the storm.

Question 27

One indicator of the invisibility of the poor in New Orleans was the frequent media characterization of them as ________ rather than as ________.

A)poor; rich
B)elderly; seniors
C)refugees; evacuees
D)poor; poverty stricken

Question 28

The manner in which New Orleans is rebuilt will reveal much about…

A)the extent of social capital among the poor communities.
B)what the Army Corps of Engineers has learned from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
C)what New Orleans learned from the Chicago heat wave of 1995.
D)the underlying power structure of American society.

Question 29

Hutter suggests that the rebuilding effort in New Orleans must go beyond rebuilding the built environment to also rebuild…

A)the lives of the people caught up in the disaster.
B)the credibility of all three levels of government: local, state, and federal.
C)Bourbon Street and the tourist infrastructure of the city.
D)the city as a growth machine.

Question 30

In discussing whose city will be rebuilt in post-Katrina New Orleans, John Logan notes that if the future city was limited to those living in zones undamaged by the storm, the city could lose over ________ percent of its African American population.

A)25
B)50
C)80
D)95

Question 31

Hutter argues that persisting problems of infrastructure, disinvestment, poverty, and racial inequality are all part of the existing landscape in New Orleans and that…

A)they are problems that cannot be overcome and it's no use pretending that they can be.
B)finding solutions to these problems is clearly the first priority of government and the growth coalition.
C)these problems take on less immediacy because so many poor residents have moved to other cities and probably will not return.
D)they deepen the ongoing tragedy caused by geographic displacement after the hurricane.

Question 32

Nearly five years after Hurricane Katrina…

A)the city has largely been rebuilt proving the optimists right.
B)little has been done to alleviate the problems of the low areas that were devastated and of the people who lived there.
C)efforts are well under way to return the city to its former prominence and to incorporate those residents who fled back into the city.
D)the vast majority of those who fled have returned to rebuilt homes.

Question 33

Those with political and economic power in New Orleans control the urban imagery of the city and they are redefining it as a _________ place.

A)memorial
B)unique cultural
C)tourist
D)oil refining

Question 34

Disaster tourism is symbolic evidence of the importance of the _________ economy as defined by those in power for the future of New Orleans.

A)symbolic
B)oil
C)urban
D)residential

Question 35

The increased emphasis on tourism and on the economic benefits of cultural aspects of New Orleans rather than an emphasis on their cultural importance reflects the process of…

A)edge-city urbanization.
B)commodification.
C)disinvestment.
D)regionalism.

Question 36

The transformation of public spaces into privatized consumption spaces and the attempts to provide a package of shopping, dining, and entertainment within a themed and controlled environment has been referred to as the _________ of urban space.

A)deindustrialization
B)homogenization
C)culturification
D)Disneyfication

Question 37

Civic engagement is a key component of social capital.

Question 38

Robert Putnam believes that social capital can be developed easily through interactions on the Internet and through the creation of virtual communities.

Question 39

In his research on networks, Barry Wellman pointed out that a social network can exist only among people who live in the same neighborhood.

Question 40

The 1995 Chicago heat wave killed 700 people more than was typical during a week in July.

Question 41

Klinenberg suggests that sociologists-having been influenced by the Chicago School-have tended to focus on alienation, loneliness, and isolation as characteristics of city life.

Question 42

In the Paris heat wave of 2003, media and government suggested that social factors and city governmental policies played little role in the disaster.

Question 43

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, the city of the rich and tourists and the city of the poor were both equally affected.

Question 44

Environmental injustice and environmental racism essentially mean the same thing.

Question 45

Disasters such as the Chicago heat wave of 1995 and Hurricane Katrina are solely due to natural conditions.

Question 46

Although local, state, and federal government agencies failed to fully anticipate and prepare for the devastation wrought by Katrina, they all recovered and responded more than adequately in the aftermath of the storm.

Question 47

Define and explain social capital.

Question 48

What does the title of Putnam's book, Bowling Alone, imply about his view of social capital in the United States?

Question 49

As a result of their study of "Netville," would Wellman and Hampton agree with Putnam that social capital is primarily generated through face-to-face interaction? Explain your answer.

Question 50

In trying to understand the causes of excess mortality during the 1995 Chicago heat wave, Eric Klinenberg examined numerous factors.What were three of them?

Question 51

How did North Lawndale and Little Village, the neighborhoods that Klinenberg compared, differ from each other in ways that were consequential for deaths during the heat wave?

Question 52

Klinenberg identified four underlying conditions that contribute to the vulnerability of the old and poor and lead them to withdraw from public life and activity.One is the demographic shift in which more elderly are living alone.What are the other three factors?

Question 53

What factors led to the high mortality among the elderly in the 2003 Paris heat wave?

Question 54

Define environmental injustice and list two of the underlying factors that make it possible.

Question 55

Hutter notes that New Orleans will be rebuilt, but that a key questions is whose New Orleans will be rebuilt.What does this mean?

Question 56

In discussing "resilient" cities, Vale and Campanella discuss a variety of "value-laden questions about equity." Explain two of these questions.

Question 57

Explain Putnam's theory of social capital and how it affects urban social life.

Question 58

How does Klinenberg explain the excess mortality of the 1995 Chicago heat wave in his "social autopsy"? Assess his arguments.

Question 59

Explain the connections between social capital and the physical and social well-being of community residents, drawing on Chicago, Paris, and New Orleans for examples.