Cities as "Machines"

In the 1910s when Sandburg wrote this poem, cities like Chicago were sites of drastic and rapid change. The disastrous effects of unfettered capitalism had led to city residents to reconsider the city conditions in which they were living. Millions of African-Americans were beginning to venture to northern U.S. cities from the South. And different migration patterns led population groups to settle in various different neighborhoods, causing territorial rivalries and a fragmentation of culture within cities. It was a time where several processes transpired concurrently, each one impacting the other. Alongside the clanging and whirring of actual machinery in Chicago's factories and slaughterhouses, these overarching processes operated together in a way similar to a giant machine.

Today, cities continue to be sites of change. Globalization and capital flows continue to alter cityscapes and skylines. Cities continue to serve as central loci for regional, national, and international migration. And cities continue to become increasingly diverse greater communities, incorporating more diverse groups of people. Despite this continuity, cities themselves have changed drastically in comparison with cities 100 years ago. The "machine" continues to operate, albeit in different ways. Where before cities were the centers of industry, cities today are places of huge investment and centers of the information economy. Capital flows into the city, new developments occur, people move in and out, residents are displaced, the machine churns.

This machine takes on a variety of guises. The economic machine of the city continuously pumps money into the city, its operations, and its surrounding region, producing disparate outcomes for the different residents, and ignoring or even punishing some residents. The social machine of the city brings people together, keeps them separated, and redefines the identity of the city. The political machine of the city privileges certain identities and relationships among city residents and their representatives, leading to unique examples of political hardball within governmental structures. The city government itself plays an indispensable role in designing these various facets of the machine and keeping them running.

Scholars like David Harvey began writing about this machine-like operation of the city. Harvey (1989) identified a shift in city management style from managerialism, a focus on service provision to city residents, to entrepreneurialism—a focus on growth and development. Later scholars like Steven Miles (2010) discuss mallification and Disneyfication, or the transformation of cities in the post-industrial era into controlled, consumerist spaces. Each of these processes occur at the behest of city leaders and bureaucrats, but machine-like processes in cities also occur in less obvious ways. Processes like gentrification can occur over much longer periods of time, and actors like realtors, landlords, and speculators can spur gentrification from behind the scenes, like in Los Angeles' historic Highland Park neighborhood (The Wealth and Poverty Desk, n.d.).

Harvey, D. (1989). From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism. Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, 71(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/490503

Miles, S. (2012). Spaces for consumption: Pleasure and placelessness in the post-industrial city. SAGE Publications Ltd, https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781446269169

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