Urban sociology
Urban sociology is a specialized area within sociology that studies urban areas, primarily focusing on cities and their unique social and spatial dynamics. It seeks to understand how urban environments influence the behaviors and interactions of their inhabitants and vice versa. The discipline emerged during the nineteenth century, coinciding with the Industrial Revolution, which led to significant rural-to-urban migration and the rise of densely populated metropolitan areas. Urban sociologists analyze various trends—including social, economic, and cultural factors—that impact urban growth and decline.
Key theoretical perspectives in urban sociology include early critiques by figures like Karl Marx, who highlighted class struggles, and Émile Durkheim, who noted the interdependence fostered by urban specialization. The Chicago School, prominent in the early twentieth century, contributed to urban studies by examining the complexities of city life and proposing theories like urbanism, which questioned the social effects of urban density. Modern urban sociology explores diverse issues such as social inequality, community types, and the interactions between various racial and ethnic groups in urban settings, providing a nuanced understanding of life in cities today.
Urban sociology
Urban sociology is a field of study that focuses on analyzing urban areas—that is, cities—including their social and spatial organization and the people who live within them. Urban sociologists identify the characteristics that are unique to cities and try to understand how living in cities affects people and how people affect the cities where they live. Those working in the field of urban sociology aim to recognize social, economic, behavioral, cultural, and other trends that have the potential to influence cities' growth and/or decline. Urban sociology as a discipline has its roots in the nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution sparked a rapid increase in the number of people moving to cities from rural areas. Since then, the field has evolved and changed as sociologists have continued to gather data, make observations, and develop new theories about urban life.
Background
Cities are a relatively modern invention. For much of human history, humans survived by either hunting prey or gathering food from their surroundings. Many groups were nomadic, following herds of prey animals that were on the move or relocating when environmental conditions such as droughts led to scarcities of water, plant life, and other resources. Few groups established permanent settlements.
Based on archaeological evidence, experts believe that humans first began to grow crops and keep livestock about twelve thousand years ago. Growing crops and raising livestock required humans to clear large areas of land and develop methods of irrigation. People spent less time moving from place to place in search of food and more time focused on farming in a single location. As a result, permanent agricultural settlements began to form.
One of the earliest—if not the earliest—permanent human settlements was Sumer in the Middle East. Sumer formed around 5500 BCE in an area that in modern times makes up southern Iraq. By 4500 BCE, the city of Uruk had been established in the Sumer region. Many experts consider Uruk to be the world's first city. Archaeologists have uncovered both artifacts and ancient texts from Uruk that have allowed them to accurately date the city. Other ancient cities may have been established before Uruk but simply lack supporting evidence. Some of these other cities include Çatalhöyük (in modern-day Turkey), Jericho (in the modern-day Palestinian Territories), and Damascus (in modern-day Syria).
By definition, a city is an area where people live that is larger in size, greater in importance, and/or higher in population than the surrounding towns or villages. However, the parameters of what constitutes a "larger" size, a "greater" importance, or a "higher" population have changed over time. What people considered a city in ancient times would likely be considered a town or village by twenty-first-century standards. For this reason, the first challenge many urban sociologists have to overcome is determining whether a particular location qualifies as an "urban" area.
The defining characteristics of ancient cities were a dense population and a centrally located religious structure around which other buildings were constructed. Thousands of years later, in the preindustrial era, cities looked quite different. By that time, cities had become commercial centers, drawing goods and materials from surrounding areas. These cities typically featured low buildings and large populations. About 10 percent of a region's population lived in the city. Residents lived very close to one another, and sanitation was poor, which led to the rampant spread of disease. The division between the rich and the poor was quite evident.
In the 1760s, the Industrial Revolution began in England and soon spread to other parts of Europe and to North America. As a result, cities were once again transformed. New machines and technologies led to the rise of factories and the mass production of goods. Buildings got taller and were built closer together. Many people left behind families and close-knit communities to seek employment in big cities. They took up residence in overcrowded tenement houses located in poor neighborhoods. Cities such as London, which already had been experiencing population growth, suddenly received a huge influx of people. These novice urban dwellers began building new relationships and making new connections, which led to the formation of new types of communities. During this period, the study of the new communities and relationships that emerged as a result of industrialization and urbanization helped advance the field of sociology and built the foundation for the urban sociology subdiscipline.
Overview
The field of urban sociology examines how and why cities form, how cities expand and change, and what life is like for people who live in cities. A central tenet of urban sociology is that the size and density of city populations influence social organization and affect people's way of life and behavior. Urban sociologists have put forth a number of theories and arguments to explain the effects of living in urban environments.
Early Perspectives in Urban Sociology
During the Industrial Revolution, a middle class, known as the bourgeoisie, began to emerge in growing urban centers such as London. At that time, German philosopher and sociologist Karl Marx was conducting research in England and witnessed the changes occurring in the city around him. Marx argued that the bourgeoisie used the working class, or proletariat, to achieve their success. He believed that one day the proletariat would overthrow the bourgeoisie and replace capitalism with communism.
French sociologist Émile Durkheim reasoned that as city populations became denser, economic activities would become increasingly specialized. As a result of this specialization, people would become increasingly interdependent on one another to satisfy their needs. This interdependence would help strengthen social ties and build new communities by bringing together people from different backgrounds.
Some urban sociologists from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries believed that urban life would have a negative effect on society. German sociologist Georg Simmel, for example, suggested that urbanization went hand in hand with a breakdown of community. Simmel argued that stimuli commonly found in cities, such as noise, bright lights, and crowds of people, increased stress on city dwellers. He believed that, as a result, people would withdraw from social interactions and become emotionally detached from society.
The Chicago School of Urban Sociology
In the 1920s, a group of sociologists and their graduate students from the University of Chicago contributed a large amount of literature on the subject of urban sociology. The group became known as the "Chicago school" and dominated sociological perspectives on urban life from the 1920s to the 1940s. Among the prominent members of the Chicago school were journalist-turned-sociologist Robert Park. Park served as a mentor to a number of up-and-coming sociologists who developed influential theories on urban life. Park encouraged his students to collect data from and make close observations of the city of Chicago. He also identified a series of questions and problems that related to city life and that he believed deserved more in-depth review.
American Louis Wirth was another urban sociologist from the Chicago school. In the 1930s, Wirth built upon Simmel's ideas and proposed the theory known as urbanism. Wirth believed that the very characteristics that defined urban life—large size, high density, and diversity—caused people to withdraw from society. As a result, people experienced confusion, isolation, and powerlessness.
Modern Perspectives in Urban Sociology
Later urban sociologists discounted Simmel's and Wirth's ideas. American sociologist Herbert Gans, for example, argued in the 1960s that many people, even in large cities, developed strong connections to their neighbors and local communities. He suggested that other factors, such as economic circumstances, were likely responsible for the isolation that some people in cities experienced. He did not think that the city environment itself was the cause of this isolation.
During the 1980s, American sociologist Claude Fischer proposed what he called the "subcultural theory of urbanism." According to his theory, city life actually strengthens social connections among people in the city. The city is home to such a large population that it allows unique and diverse subcultures to grow and develop. These subcultures often contribute interesting ideas and new ways of thinking, which can influence cultural change.
In the twenty-first century, urban sociologists address issues such as social inequality, relationships among members of different racial and ethnic groups, economics, politics, and crime in urban areas. They utilize several approaches to explain how groups of city dwellers form connections with one another, and they have identified several types of city communities: interactional, ecological, compositional, and symbolic. An interactional community arises from frequent, in-person interactions among members of a group. An ecological community depends upon the particular area in which people participate in daily functions, such as going to work or school, shopping for groceries, or visiting a park or playground. A compositional community is made up of people with similar characteristics. Members of a compositional community may share a racial or ethnic background or belong to a certain social class. A symbolic community develops when the members of a group share certain beliefs or attitudes.
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