History Repeats Itself, but How? City Character, Urban Tradition, and the Accomplishment of Place

2000/12/01 by Harvey Molotch, William Freudenburg, William R. Freudenburg +1 · 5 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies #Historical Economic and Social Studies

paper · doi:10.1177/000312240006500601

Abstract

This study shows how places, and by implication other societal units as well, achieve and reproduce distinctiveness. It does this by specifying how actors in two California urban areas, over approximately 100 years, responded differently to the same exogenous forces. Each place is examined to determine how unlike elements conjoin to produce a particular “character” at any given moment and how this character travels through time to constitute a local “tradition.” Borrowing from advances in analyses of structure and agency, this study displays character and tradition as accomplished interaction and helps make an elusive process empirically evident and accessible for study.

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