This thesis examines, experiments with, and theorizes the value of lyrical sociology as an approach to social scientific research. A lyrical sociology, as proposed by Andrew Abbott, seeks to describe an author's emotional response to a phenomenon rather than explain it. This allows for a researcher's own experience to play a role in the research process in a way that helps the reader to connect emotionally and ethically to both the world they read about and the world they themselves are a part of. It has valuable implications for the way researchers relate to their research, their research subjects, their audience, and ultimately their own lives. I start by situating lyrical sociology within the broader context of the discipline, and the social sciences more generally, and then elaborate upon the specific stance and mechanics required of the writer and reader of lyrical works. Next, I present a series of lyrical vignettes about the time I spent living as a missionary in inner-city Detroit. Lastly, I give an analysis and reflection on what I learned from the process of writing and reading these stories and then conclude with a discussion on future directions lyrical sociology can take.

<p>Syftet är att ta reda på vad som menas med anonymitet i dagens kameraövervakade stad. Dentraditionella uppfattningen är att stadens karaktär är anonymitet och syftet är att ta reda på huranonymiteten ser ut idag när stadsmedborgarna är kameraövervakade. Studien är en begreppsutredning av anonymitet, och dess relaterade begrepp trygghet.Huvudsakligen används Simmels teori om storstaden och Foucaults teori om övervakning,men också teoretikerna Jane Jacobs och Mike Davis och deras syn på trygghet i staden så välsom en del andra källor. Jag kopplar Simmel och Foucault till anonymitetet och trygghet,tillämpat på dagens stad. Slutsatserna är att dagens stadsmänniska är både anonym och inte, beroende på hur man serdet. De som syns i kamerans blick är de som begår brott, medan de andra fortfarande äranonyma. Gällande tryggheten kan den uppnås genom ett levande folkliv. Det handlar om attmänniskor ska våga sig ut i staden och inte stänga in sig på grund av sin rädsla. Blir stadenöde så försvinner dess traditionella karaktär, det vill säga möjligheten till möten mellan olikamänniskor. Uppsatsen är uppdelad i fyra kapitel, varav det första är inledande, sedan följer enpresentation av de centrala teorierna. Det tredje kapitlet är ägnat åt att utveckla trygghetensoch tillitens begreppsmässiga mening i relation till samtida kameraövervakade städer. Detslutliga kapitlet drar slutsatsen att det inte finns någon inneboende spänning mellankameraövervakning och trygghet, men samtidigt finns det ingen garanti att en ökning avkameraövervakning kommer att resultera i ökad offentlig trygghet.</p>

Rapid urbanization, which is one of the major problems of contemporary era, created cities as the major destroying centers of nature and ecology by human beings. In this respect, urban agriculture takes place in urban areas as a new way to meet nature and urban for improving the quality of life in the last decades. Despite the belief that agricultural activities always take place in rural areas, agriculture in urban areas would provide citizens many opportunities in terms of social, economic and environmental aspects. This study aims to identify the notions of urban agriculture, and to investigate its economic, social and environmental impacts by exemplifying the different practices around world. It focuses on Black Sea Towns of Turkey in the case of Rize where agriculture is occupied in important parts of urban and rural areas. Unique features of agriculture in urban areas as they differ from other implementations in the world are examined. In this thesis, UA is considered as socio-economic and townscape value in the city. In the case of Rize, urban agriculture appears as an indispensable part of social life that bears the imprint of rural background of the cities.

Syftet är att ta reda på vad som menas med anonymitet i dagens kameraövervakade stad. Dentraditionella uppfattningen är att stadens karaktär är anonymitet och syftet är att ta reda på huranonymiteten ser ut idag när stadsmedborgarna är kameraövervakade. Studien är en begreppsutredning av anonymitet, och dess relaterade begrepp trygghet.Huvudsakligen används Simmels teori om storstaden och Foucaults teori om övervakning,men också teoretikerna Jane Jacobs och Mike Davis och deras syn på trygghet i staden så välsom en del andra källor. Jag kopplar Simmel och Foucault till anonymitetet och trygghet,tillämpat på dagens stad. Slutsatserna är att dagens stadsmänniska är både anonym och inte, beroende på hur man serdet. De som syns i kamerans blick är de som begår brott, medan de andra fortfarande äranonyma. Gällande tryggheten kan den uppnås genom ett levande folkliv. Det handlar om attmänniskor ska våga sig ut i staden och inte stänga in sig på grund av sin rädsla. Blir stadenöde så försvinner dess traditionella karaktär, det vill säga möjligheten till möten mellan olikamänniskor. Uppsatsen är uppdelad i fyra kapitel, varav det första är inledande, sedan följer enpresentation av de centrala teorierna. Det tredje kapitlet är ägnat åt att utveckla trygghetensoch tillitens begreppsmässiga mening i relation till samtida kameraövervakade städer. Detslutliga kapitlet drar slutsatsen att det inte finns någon inneboende spänning mellankameraövervakning och trygghet, men samtidigt finns det ingen garanti att en ökning avkameraövervakning kommer att resultera i ökad offentlig trygghet.

Urban space is an arena of conficting interests. Seldomly dominated has the opportunity to express its identity on and through urban space as the exploited and oppressed groups lose their voice within the insitititonalised channels of representation. On the other hand, the localised voices do not have the chance to change the urban meaning and the power structure. In the 1970s, urban social movements were seen as an alternative form of interest representation which could challenge the dominant power relations and create a new urban meaning. Yet, such movements were largely failed to mount such a challenge to the dominant urban system partly due to their localised forms. In Turkey, 1970s witnessed to a radicalisation of political life including the urban areas. The mobilisations such as the New Municipalism and Squatter Movements supported by radical youth movements were the examples of emerging radicalism of that period. In the late 1970s, a relatively small Black Sea town, namely, Fatsa underwent a radical transformation when one of the radical left wing movement took control of the municipality in the byelections. After a long period of domination of mainstream parties upon the municipality, a self decleared revolutionary movement won the local elections with their independent candidate and came to power in Fatsa Municipality. If this was possible it was largely due to active involvement of the prestigous local actors in this process. In other words, a sucessful articulation of a national revolutionary group with influencial local actors created a unique situation by bringing them to power in this particular municipality. This change was followed by the rise of new and novel forms of municipal policies and of participatory mechanisms. In the identification of problems and their solutions the participation of local population is seen as the key element by the new administration. This thesis examines the rise and decline of Fatsa experience as one of the example of radicalisation of urban politics by linking the experience to the contextual features of local politics. It is claimed that to explain the Fatsa experience it is not enough to look at either to the (national) contextual features or the local specificities such as the status of those local actors etc. A satisfactory approach has to take both local specificities and national contextual features into account within a syntetic framework.

Universities have a significant role in society as they are generators of economic activity, as land developers, as neighbors and as property owners. Therefore it is a focal point in the community. Every university lives within a surrounding community. They have been creating their own relations with the neighborhoods. The space that the university confronts with the city is shaped according to the needs of the people from the university and the inhabitants of the area. Between the university and the city, every university creates their own interface in accordance with the location and the inhabitants of the area. While planning the city or the university the interface zone did not take into account. It has been behaved as a part of the city although it has been a neighbor with university. While designing the university there has been no attempt to design this zone or making decisions including this zone. Therefore this space creates its own character in time. As it is locating between the city and the university it has been carrying both the character of the university and the city. The main aim of this study is to examine the spatial formation of the interface of university and city in respect to the planning decisions and spatial features of the area by investigating the two different types of universities in their own contexts in Ankara / Ankara University and METU. In this context, the spatial character of interface area is defined by examining this space as a transitional area, boundary and threshold. Then universities and their historical developments are examined in urban space and the relations between these two domains are investigated through the selected universities in Europe and USA. Finally, the situation of the university in Turkey is handled and searched the formation of the interface areas around the campuses of the two selected universities in Ankara.

<p>In 2010, approximately 84% of the American population lives in a metropolitan area. Different metropolitan areas are characterized by distinct labor markets and economies, housing markets and residential patterns, socioeconomic and demographic factors, and according to some, even distinct 'spirits.' The nature and influence of such structural factors lie at the heart of urban sociology, and have particularly profound effects on patterns of racial and ethnic stratification. This dissertation examines new urban structural changes arising within recent decades, and their implications for racial/ethnic stratification. Specifically, I study the transition to the 'new economy' and racial/ethnic wage inequality; increases in the level and inequality of housing prices and racial/ethnic stratification in homeownership; and increased income inequality, combined with population aging, and racial/ethnic disparities in disability and poor health. I measure metropolitan-level structural factors and racial/ethnic inequalities with data from 5% samples of the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses; the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS); and the 1999-2001 and 2009-2011 Current Population Surveys (CPS). Cross-sectional multilevel regression models examine the spatial distributions of structural factors and racial/ethnic inequality, and the fixed-effects regression models identify the impact of changes in structural factors over time on observed trends in racial stratification. Additionally, I distinguish between effects on minority-white gaps in resource access, and minorities' levels of resource access. This dissertation also makes novel contributions to the field by empirically documenting complex patterns of inequalities among the country's four largest racial and ethnic groups. Perhaps most relevant to theories of racial stratification, this dissertation demonstrates seemingly race-neutral structural changes can have racially stratified effects. </p><p>Chapter 1 describes the foundational literature in urban sociology and racial/ethnic stratification, and provides an overview of the subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 measures the transition to the `new economy' with six structural factors of labor markets: skill-biased technological change, financialization, the rise of the creative class, employment casualization, immigration, and deunionization. Overall, the results indicate the observed Latino-white wage gap may be up to 40% larger in 2010 than in the theoretical absence of the new economy, and the black-white wage gap may be up to 31% larger. Chapter 3 focuses on the long-term trend toward higher and more unequally distributed home prices within local housing markets, epitomized by the housing crisis of the late 2000s. Increases in housing market inequality worsen the Asian-white homeownership gap, but narrow the black-white and Latino-white gaps. However, the level of homeownership is reduced for all groups. Chapter 4 empirically tests the frequently-debated Income Inequality Hypothesis, that macro-level income inequality undermines population health, and hypothesizes any negative effect on health is stronger in areas with greater population aging. The results provide no support for the Income Inequality Hypothesis or any of its proposed extensions, but the chapter's analytic approach may be fruitfully applied to future examinations of structural determinants of health. The theoretical and substantive conclusion of the dissertation is that metropolitan areas represent salient, and changing structural contexts that significantly shape patterns racial/ethnic stratification in America.</p> / Dissertation

In this thesis, it is aimed to investigate to what extent Bulgarian Turkish immigrants of 1989 and the following years, integrated to the urban life and to analyze the role of their social networks in this process. In this respect, demographic, socioeconomic variables and migration process, social networks and organized and political behaviour of the immigrants have been evaluated in a comparative perspective with Turkish rural migrants in order to understand their difference in urban integration levels. Economic, social and political levels of urban integration of immigrants have been analyzed and the findings of two different age-groups were compared on these levels to see the generational difference in urban intaegration A total of 140 members of the association &ldquo / Bulgaristan T&uuml / rkleri Deliorman K&uuml / lt&uuml / r Dernegi&rdquo / were interviewed in Yenibosna for this purpose. Contrary to assumptions, they couldn&rsquo / t easily integrate to the urban life in Turkey because they came from a country, which is different in ideological, economic, social and cultural aspects. The most important difference was political and ideological, since they were raised in a country, which was socialist in that period before immigration. They formed a strong community to cope with the difficulties in the new environment. Although they became successful in economic integration to a certain extent, they couldn&rsquo / t integrate socially and politically in the same way.

This thesis analyzes the validity of main assumptions of housing classes approach, which is a Weberian mode of analyses developed to explain the effects of spatial stratification on social structures of cities, in an empirical level through a case study. According to this approach, housing is a scarce resource which is subject to processes of competition between different social groups and struggles among these groups to get access to desirable housing types constitute the basis of urban social processes. In this context, it is suggested that housing type resided in has apparent effect on individuals&rsquo / position in social stratification system and their life chances are restricted in the style and location of housing to which they could get access. It is seen that the way of analysis proposed by housing classes approach has certain effects on urban studies conducted in Turkey, as well. These studies suggest that differences in accessed housing types and in living spaces on a large scale affects life chances of social groups residing in there. By the same token, apartment and squatter (gecekondu) have been used as two concepts representing the relationships of different social sections with the city and they have been considered as two different social environments or neighborhoods. In this context, in addition to analyzing the main assumptions of housing classes approach in an empirical level, this study also questions the mode of analysis used in studies conducted in Turkey insofar as they share the main assumptions of this approach, within the frame of transformations experienced in gecekondu neighborhoods. In this study, in the light of the findings gathered through case study, it is concluded that spatial stratification arising from the housing ownership is parallel to the social divisions based on labor market. Moreover, it is found out that gecekondu and apartment being constructed during transformation processes in gecekondu areas do not indicate different social environments or living spaces which represent opposite forms of social relations and, therefore, which separate from each other through definite lines.

The broad argument underpinning this thesis is that a feature of contemporary city life deserving further critical attention is that of the ‘extraordinary everyday.’ I coin this term as a way of identifying and describing an increasingly common place articulation or ‘interface’ between the extraordinary (that is, the production and experience of spectacle and intense affective states within the context of technologically mediated, contemporary urban space), and the everyday (the seemingly banal routines and structures that organise our day to day existence in a consumer society).