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URBAN SOCIOLOGY THEORIES
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| CLASSICAL THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES |
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 | Karl Marx |
| Friedrich Engels |
| Ferdinand Tonnies |
| Emile Durkheim |
| Max Weber |
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| Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels -
macro-sociological |
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| People in preindustrial, traditional societies were generic, tribal
beings |
| Rise of city was transition from barbarism to civilization |
| People realize political and economic freedom, productive
specialization |
| Social evolution of humans not complete until capitalism was
transformed into socialism |
| Emphasis of economics and problems of inequality and conflict |
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| Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936)
German (pessimistic) - macro-sociological |
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| Considered social structure of city |
| Defined and described two basic organizing principles of human
association or two contrasting types of human social life, a typology
with a continuum of pure type of settlement: |
| 1) Gemeinschaft (community): characterized country village,
people in rural village have an essential unity of purpose, work
together for the common good, united by ties of family (kinship) and
neighbourhood, land worked communally by inhabitants, social life
characterized by intimate, private and exclusive living together,
members bound by common language and traditions, recognized common
goods and evils, common friends and enemies, sense of we-ness or
our-ness, humane |
| 2) Gesellschaft (association): characterized large city, city
life is a mechanical aggregate characterized by disunity, rampant
individualism and selfishness, meaning of existence shifts from group
to individual, rational, calculating, each person understood in terms
of a particular role and service provided; deals with the artificial
construction of an aggregate of human beings which superficially
resembles the Gemeinschaft in so far as the individuals peacefully
live together yet whereas in Gemeinschaft people are united in spite
of all separating factors, in Gesellschaft people are separated in
spite of all uniting factors |
| There are three types of Gemeinschaft relationships: Kinship,
Friendship, and Neighborhood or Locality |
| 1.1) Kinship Gemeinschaft is based on Family; the strongest
relationship being between mother and child, then husband and wife,
and then siblings. Gemeinschaft also exists between father and child,
but this relationship is less instinctual than that of mother and
child. However, the father-child relationship is the original
manifestation of authority within Gemeinschaft. |
| 1.2) Kinship develops and differentiates into the Gemeinschaft of
Locality, which is based on a common habitat |
| 1.3) There is also Friendship, or Gemeinschaft of the mind, which
requires a common mental community (eg: religion). |
| He feared the undermining of the fabric of social life |
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| Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) French
(optimistic) - macro-sociological |
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| Considered social structure of city |
| Social solidarity--the bond between all individuals within a society |
| Developed model of contrasting social order types: both types are
natural |
| 1) Mechanical solidarity: refers to social bonds constructed
on likeness and largely dependent upon common belief, custom, ritual,
routines, and symbol, people are identical in major ways and thus
united almost automatically, self-sufficient; social cohesion based
upon the likeness and similarities among individuals in a society.
Common among prehistoric and pre-agricultural societies, and lessens
in predominance as modernity increases. |
| 2) Organic solidarity: social order based on social
differences, complex division of labour where many different people
specialize in many different occupations, greater freedom and choice
for city inhabitants despite acknowledged impersonality, alienation,
disagreement and conflict, undermined traditional social integration
but created a new form of social cohesion based on mutual
interdependence, liberating; social cohesion based upon the dependence
individuals in more advanced society have on each other. Common among
industrial societies as the division of labor increases. Though
individuals perform different tasks and often have different values
and interests, the order and very survival of society depends on their
reliance on each other to
perform their specific task. |
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| Georg Simmel (1858-1918) German
(pessimistic) - micro-sociological |
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| Considered importance of urban experience, i.e. chose to focus on
urbanism (life within the city) rather than urbanization (development
of urban areas), "The Metropolis and Mental Life" is an
essay detailing his views on life in the city, focusing more on social
psychology |
| Unique trait of modern city is intensification of nervous stimuli
with which city dweller must cope, from rural setting where rhythm of
life and sensory imagery is more slow, habitual and even, to city with
constant bombardments of sights, sounds and smells |
| Individual learns to discriminate, become rational and calculating,
develops a blasé attitude – matter-of-fact, a social reserve, a
detachment, respond with head rather than heart, don’t care and don’t
get involved |
| Urbanites highly attuned to time |
| Rationality expressed in advanced economic division of labour, and
the use of money because of requirement for a universal means of
exchange |
| Acknowledged freedom, transcendence of pettiness of daily routine,
new heights of personal and spiritual development but sense of
alienation could override this |
| To maintain sense of individuality and not feel like cog in machine,
do something different or odd to stand out |
Social
distance
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Author
of this concept, from which we have Bogardus Social Distance Scale
(Emery Bogardus – Chicago School) |
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A
complex interpretation of social interaction as forms of distance in
two ways |
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1)
geometric form (Euclidian) and 2)
a metamorphic sense, or |
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1)
spatial and 2) symbolic |
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1)
Euclidian and 2) imagined |
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1)
Physical and 2) symbolic |
Philosophy
of Money
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Economic
exchange is a form of social interaction |
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When
monetary transactions replaced earlier forms of barter, significant
changes occurred in the form of interaction between social actors |
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Money
is subject to precise division and manipulation, it permits exact
measurement of equivalents |
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Money
is impersonal, objects of barter are/were not |
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Money
promotes rational calculation in human affairs, furthering
rationalization characteristic of modern societies |
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Money
replaces personal ties by impersonal relations that limited to a
specific purpose |
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Abstract
calculation invades areas of social life, e.g. kinship relations or
realm of esthetic appreciation |
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Shift
from qualitative to quantitative appraisals |
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Money
increases personal freedom and fosters social differentiation |
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Money
in modern world is standard of value and means of exchange |
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Above
economic functions, it symbolizes and embodies modern spirit of
rationalism, calculability and impersonality |
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Money
is the major mechanism for shift between gemeinschaft to
gesellschaft |
The
blasé attitude
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incapacity to react to new sensations
due to saturation.
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reinforced by the money economy:
money--a common denominator of all values, regardless of their
individuality.
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reserve, indifference, apathy--forms of
psychological protection--become parts of the metropolitan lifestyle.
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Positive aspect of metropolitan life:
reserve and detachment produce individual freedom.
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Paradox of city life : objectivization
leads to greater individualism and subjectivism.
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[The most significant characteristic of
the metropolis] "functional extension beyond its physical
boundaries"—a person’s life does not end with the limits of
his/her body and the area of his/her immediate activity.
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| Max Weber (1864-1920) German
- macro-sociological |
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| Considered social structure of city |
| Ecological-demographic characteristics: the city was a relatively
closed and dense settlement |
| Undertook survey of various cities throughout world unlike previous
theorists who focused on European cities solely |
| Defined urban community, an ideal type, required: |
| 1) trade or commercial relations, e.g. market |
| 2) court and law of its own |
| 3) partial political autonomy |
| 4) militarily self-sufficient for self-defence |
| 5) forms of associations or social participation whereby individuals
engage in social relationships and organizations |
| Suggested that cities are linked to larger processes, e.g. economic
or political orientations, instead of city itself being cause of
distinguishing qualities of urban life, i.e. different cultural and
historical conditions will result in different types of cities, same
as with Marx & Engels who argued that human condition of cities
was result of economic structure |
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CONTEMPORARY THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
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The
University of Chicago: University of Chicago is the origin of
Urban Sociology in the United States. The Urban Environment
surrounding the University provided the perfect laboratory for scholars
like Robert Park and Ernest Burgess to study the city.
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Robert
Park
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Louis
Wirth
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Ernest
Burgess
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Homer
Hoyt
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Harris
and Ullman
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| URBAN ECOLOGY (Robert Ezra Park
(1864-1944) of the Chicago school) |
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Coined concept of Human Ecology as a perspective that attempts to
apply biological processes/concepts to the social world since maintained
that the city and life in the city is a product of competition in the
natural environment, i.e. the natural environment is an instrumental force
in determining city characteristics. |
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Believed city to be a social organism with distinct parts bound
together by internal processes, not chaos and disorder |
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City was also a moral as well as physical organization suggesting
evaluative judgements |
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Focused on the physical form of the city and human’s adjustment
to the ecological conditions urban life |
Theoretical
premises
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Influence of
natural sciences arguing there is a similarity between the organic and
social worlds, i.e. the idea that natural laws can be adapted to society;
a form of Social Darwinism |
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"Web of
life"--all organisms are interrelated, there exists an
interdependence of species sharing the same environment that seems to be
the product of a Darwinian struggle for existence (numbers of living
organisms regulated, distribution controlled, and balance of nature
maintained where survivors of struggle find niches in physical environment
and in existing division of labour between species) |
Symbiotic
versus societal organization
Symbiosis:
mutual interdependence between 2 or more species
Processes
characterizing the growth and development of plant and animal communities
applied to human communities.
Community
(plant, animal, human): defined
as individual units involved in struggle and competition in their habitat,
organized and interrelated in most complex manner
Essential
characteristics of a community
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Population, territorially organized
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More or less completely rooted in the soil it occupies
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Its individual units living in a relationship of mutual
interdependence that is symbiotic rather than societal.
Human
community (city) organized on two levels:
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Biotic or symbiotic (substructure):
driven by competition, structure of city resulting from
inhabitants’ competition for scarce resources, idea is that cities
were similar to symbiotic environments
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Cultural (superstructure):
driven by communication and consensus, way of life in the city
which was an adaptive response to organization of the city resulting
at the biotic level; at
the cultural level city is held together by cooperation between
actors.
Symbiotic
society based on competition and a cultural society based on communication
and consensus.
City
was a super-organism containing “natural” areas taking many forms:
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ethnic enclaves
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activity related areas (business, shopping, manufacturing,
residential districts, etc…)
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income groupings (middle class neighborhoods, ghettos, etc…)
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physically separated areas (rivers, airports, railroads, etc…)
Dynamics
and processes of human community:
Human
community is a product of the interaction of four factors to maintain
biotic and social equilibrium:
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Population
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Material culture, i.e. technological developments
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Nonmaterial culture, i.e. customs and beliefs
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Natural resources of the habitat
Human
societies are characterized by competition and consensus:
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Made up of interdependent individuals competing with each other for
economic and territorial dominance and for ecological niches, have
competitive cooperation with its resulting economic interdependence) |
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At the same time, involved in common collective actions, existence
of a society presupposes a certain amount of solidarity, consensus and
common purpose |
Competition:
mechanism of society to regulate population and to preserve balance
between competing species, gives rise to domination, invasion and
succession, also ecological principles
Domination:
result of the struggle among different species
Invasion:
introduction of new species would
upset old balance where there would then be a struggle for dominance with
a process of succession
Succession:
various stages or the orderly sequence of changes through which a
biotic community passes in course of its development, e.g. territorial
succession of immigrant groups
The
societal pyramid: a social order conceived as a hierarchy of levels
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Ecological
– the base
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Economic
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Political
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Moral
– the apex
While
human communities exhibited an ecological or symbiotic order quite similar
to that of nonhuman communities, they also participated in a social or
moral order that had no counterpart on the nonhuman level. Park studied
the ecological order to understand better man's moral order.
Differences
between ecology and Human ecology:
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Humans are not as immediately dependent on the physical environment
- largely the product of a world-wide division of labor and systems of
exchange; |
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Humans by means of inventions and technical devices have a great
capacity to alter the physical environment; and |
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Humans have erected upon the basis of the biotic community an
institutional structure rooted in custom and tradition. |
Limitations
of early urban ecology:
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Focus
only on economic competition for land |
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Oversimplification
and overgeneralization |
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Other
factors, such as government regulations, sentiments, cultural
preferences, are not taken into account |
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| Louis Wirth (1897-1952) U. of Chicago -
micro-sociological |
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| Developed first urban theory in US, previous urban sociology
comprised essentially descriptive studies |
| Focus on urbanism--urban lifestyle--more than on structure |
| Definition of city was that it was large, dense with permanent
settlement and socially and culturally heterogeneous people, and so
urbanism was a function of population density, size and heterogeneity: |
| 1) Population size: creates great diversity because
large numbers of people coming together logically increase potential
differentiation among themselves, and with migration of diverse groups
to city; creates need for formal control structures, e.g. legal
systems; supports proliferation of further complex division of labour
specialization; organizes human relationships on interest-specific
basis, i.e. "social segmentalization", where secondary
relationships are primary, in essence urban ties are relationships of
utility; creates possibility of disorganization and disintegration |
| 2) Population density: intensifies effects of large
population size on social life; manifests quality of separateness,
e.g. economic forces and social processes produce readily identifiable
distinct neighbourhood, "ecological specialization"; fosters
a loss of sensitivity to more personal aspects of others, instead
tendency to stereotype and categorize; results in greater tolerance of
difference but at same time physical closeness increases social
distance; may increase antisocial behaviour |
| 3) Population heterogeneity: with social interaction
among many personality types results in breakdown of the rigidity of
caste lines and complicates class structure, thus increased social
mobility; with social mobility tend to have physical mobility; leads
to further depersonalization with concentration of diverse people. |
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| Ernest Burgess' Concentric Zone Theory |
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Cities
grow and develop outwardly in concentric circles, i.e. continuous
outward process of invasion/succession |
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The
jobs, industry, entertainment, administrative offices, etc. were
located at the center in the CBD. |
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Felt
that zone development resulted from competitive processes, i.e.
competition for best location in the city and |
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Zones:
1. Commercial center
2. Zone of transition
3. Working class residences
4. Middle class residences
5. Commuter zone |
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Homer
Hoyt’s Sector Theory (1939)
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City
develops not in concentric circles, but in sectors |
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Each
sector characterized by different economic activities |
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The
entire city can be thought of as a circle and various neighborhoods as
sectors radiating out from the center of that structure. These factors
or principles direct residential expansion:
1) High grade residential areas tend to originate near retail and
office centers.
2) High grade residential growth tends to proceed from the given point
of origin, along established lines of travel or toward existing retail
office centers.
4) High rent areas tend to grow towards areas which have open space
beyond the city and away from sections enclosed by natural or
artificial boundaries.
5) Higher priced residential areas tend to grow towards the homes of
leaders in the community.
6) The movement of office buildings, banks and stores tends to pull
higher priced residential neighborhoods in the same general direction.
7) High rent neighborhoods continue to grow in the same direction for
a long time.
8) Deluxe high rent apartment areas tend to gradually appear in older
residential areas near the business center (gentrification, downtown
condos and high rent lofts).
9) Real estate developers may bend the direction of high grade
residential growth, but they cannot develop an area before its time or
in another direction very easily. |
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Harris
and Ullman’s Multiple Nuclei Theory (1945; more advanced stage of
urbanization): |
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Cities
do not have a single center, but have many "minicenters" |
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Similar
activities locate in the same area and create minicities within the
larger city |
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Distribution
of housing of certain type and value along communication corridors |
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Topography:
higher land, better (more expensive) housing |
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Effect
of adjacent land on housing quality |
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Certain
areas/activities tend to locate where they are most: effective,
desirable and financially feasible |
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| More contemporary research has since found
that: |
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| tolerance in the city is more dependent upon levels of education and
wealth and regional differences in US |
| anonymity and privacy are important to city dwellers encouraging a
live and let live attitude |
| many bonds override anonymity, e.g. ethnic bonds, kinship,
occupation, lifestyle, other shared interests, with cities encouraging
alternative types of relationships |
| technological advances stimulate urban connectedness, e.g.
telephone, email |
| proliferation of voluntary associations has provided areas for the
establishment of primary relationships of urbanites |
| people’s perceived needs for space are a learned behaviour not
biological basis |
| urban pathology has other probable causes, e.g. poverty,
unemployment, racial discrimination |
| humans have a superior ability to adapt |
| relationship between stress and mental and physical pathology is
dependent not so much on the nature of the stress but on the
individual’s perception of it |
| there is a difference between public demeanour and private lives of
city dwellers. |
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| OTHER CONTEMPORARY THEORETICAL
PERSPECTIVES - from Conflict Theory |
| Political Economy |
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Central
themes of all Political Economy based urban sociological theories:
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Social
conflict between competing interest or status groups is a ubiquitous
social process
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Capitalism
as a dominant system of power dominates the development of modern
urban-industrial communities,
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Cities
or metropolitan communities are now increasingly controlled and shaped
by worldwide system of emerging global economy
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Attempts
to establish causal relationships between broad macroeconomic trends
with a host of urban social problems at the more microsociological
level of the local urban community or neighbourhood
Assumptions
(Joe Feagan)
1) Cities
are situated in a hierarchical global system, and global linkages among
cities help define the structure of the world system
2) The world
system is one of competitive capitalism
3) Capital
is easily moved, locations of cities are fixed
4) Politics
and government matter
5) People
and circumstances differ according to time and place, and these
differences matter
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David Harvey (1985, study
of Baltimore)
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| Focus on capital accumulation and circulation |
| The urban environment is built, destroyed, and rebuilt to allow for
a more efficient circulation of capital |
| Overproduction and overaccumulation of profitable commodities result
in urban development |
| Suburban individual home construction |
 | a market response to the overaccumulation of surplus
capital |
| a way to maintain social stability by satisfying the demand for
individual homes |
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| Allen Scott |
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| Arrangement and structure of city are determined by the needs of
industrial manufacturing. |
| Production process rather than circulation of capital was the most
important process. |
| vertical disintegration--parts of the production process are
"out-sourced" leaving the corporation as more of an
administrator. |
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Growth Machine (John Logan & Harvey
Molotch)
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Real estate investors are primary "players" in the
development of urban environment, but also have bankers, developers,
corporate officials |
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Cities are "growth machines" --growth and
development/change are necessary for well being of city. |
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Growth machine ideology influences local government to view cities
not as places where people live, work and have social relationships,
but solely as a place where it is necessary to create a good business
climate |
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Increasing value of commercial property comes ahead of community
values, neighbourhood needs or a livable city |
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