Transcript OAD313 Computer Applications in Business II: Introduction

SOC3073 Sociology of
Community:
The Urban World
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
1
Devotions
Antiurban:
Tower of Babel
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower
that reaches to the heavens, so that we may
make a name for ourselves and not be scattered
over the face of the whole earth.”. . . So the
Lord scattered them from there over all the
earth, and they stopped building the city.
Genesis 11:4, 8 (NIV) Tower of Babel
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
2
Devotions
Antiurban:
Sodom and Gomorrah
Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom
and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so
grievous that I will go down and see if what
they have done is as bad as the outcry that has
reached me. If not, I will know.”
Genesis 18:20-21 (NIV)
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
3
The Urban World
References
Palen, J. John. 2002. The Urban World. 6th ed. New York: The
McGraw-Hill Companies. Incorporated.
Palen, J. John and Daniel Johnson. 1983. “Urbanism and Health
Status,” in Ann Greer and Scott Greer (eds.). Cities and Sickness.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Pp. 25-34.
Simmel, Georg. 1964. “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” Pp. ? In The
Sociology of Georg Simmel, translated by Kurt Wolff. New York:
Free Press.
Wirth, Louis. 1938. “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” American Journal of
Sociology. 44:1-24, July.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
4
The Process of
Urbanization
The very terms “civilization” and “civilized”
come from the Latin civis, which refers to
a citizen living in a city. In Roman times
civitas was concerned with the political
and moral nature of community, while the
term urbs, from which we get urban,
referred to the built form of the city.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
5
The Process of
Urbanization
About 200 years ago, in the year 1800, the
population of the world was still 97
percent rural. By the beginning of the
twentieth century, the world was still 86
percent rural.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
6
The Process of
Urbanization
Not until 1920 did the United States have
half its population residing in urban
places. The rapid growth of cities during
the nineteenth and particularly the
twentieth centuries is referred to as the
urban revolution.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
7
The Process of
Urbanization
Most people are not aware that the overwhelming
majority of urban growth in the world today
(over 90 percent) is taking place in economically
less-developed countries (LDC’s). This has
profound consequences, for twenty-first century
world urbanization patterns will be quite
different from those of the twentieth century.
Currently, developed western nations are
experiencing little city growth.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
8
The Process of
Urbanization
. . . by the turn of the century. . . there will
be 26 mega-cities with more than 10
million residents. Of these 26 megacities, 21 are found in less-developed
countries (LCD’s). Bombay, for example, is
adding half a million new city residents
each year. It is difficult for us to keep up
intellectually and emotionally with these
changes.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
9
The Process of
Urbanization
Living as we do in urban-oriented places, it
is easy for us to forget two important
facts: (a) Over half the world’s population
is still rural-based, and (b) even in the
industrialized west, massive urbanization
is a very recent phenomenon.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
10
The Process of
Urbanization
This rapid transformation from a basically rural to
heavy urbanized world and the development of
urbanism as a way of life has been far more
dramatic and spectacular than the much better
known population explosion. The bulk of the
world’s population growth is occurring in the
cities of the third world. The population
explosion is in reality an urban explosion.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
11
The History of Urban
Explosion
The urban explosion initially began over 200
years ago in the more-developed nations
of Europe, especially England. Among the
more important reasons for this spurt in
European population were:
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
12
The History of Urban
Explosion
Declining death rates
The beginning of scientific management
of agriculture
Improved transportation and
communication systems
Stable political governments
The development of the industrial
revolution
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
13
The History of Urban
Explosion
Heavy urbanization in third world countries
is largely a post-World War II
phenomenon and the pace of urbanization
in developing countries has been far more
rapid than that found during the
nineteenth century in Europe or North
America.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
14
The History of Urban
Explosion
IMPORTANT NOTE
Attempts to return to a supposedly simpler
rural past must be viewed as futile
escapism. Longings for a pastoral utopia
where all exist in rural bliss have no
chance of becoming reality. We live in an
urban world, and for all our complaints
about it, few would reverse the clock.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
15
Defining Urban Areas
Urban settlements have been defined on the basis
of an urban culture (a cultural definition),
administrative functions (a political definition),
the percentage of people in nonagricultural
occupations (an economic definition), and the
size of the population (a demographic
definition). In the United States, we define
places as “urban” by using population criteria
along with some geographical and political
elements.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
16
Defining Urban Areas
United States
According to the definition adopted by the
United States Bureau of the Census for
the 1990 census, the urban population of
the United States comprises all persons
living in urbanized areas and all persons
outside urbanized areas who live in places
of 2,500 or more. By this definition 75%
of the United States population is urban.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
17
Defining Urban Areas
United Nations
The United Nations has attempted to bring
some order out of the various national
definitions by setting up its own
classification scheme, which it uses for
publishing its international data. In this
course, international statistics will be
based on the United Nations definitions.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
18
Defining Urban Areas
United Nations
A “big city” is a locality with 500,000 or more
inhabitants
A “city” is a locality with 100,000 or more
inhabitants
An “urban locality” is a locality with 20,000 or
more inhabitants
A “rural locality” is a locality with less than
20,000 inhabitants
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
19
Urbanization and Urbanism
Definition of Urbanization
Urbanization refers to the changes in the
proportion of the population of a nation
living in urban places--that is, the process
of people moving to cities or other
densely settled areas. It is a process by
which rural areas become transformed
into urban areas.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
20
Urbanization and Urbanism
In demographic terms, urbanization is an
increase in population concentration (numbers
and density); organizationally, it is an alteration
in structure and patterns of organization.
Demographically, urbanization involves two
elements
The multiplication of points of concentration
The increase in the size of individual
concentrations
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
21
Urbanization and Urbanism
Definition of Urbanism
Refers to the social patterns and behaviors
associated with living in cities. Urbanism, with
its changes in the values, mores, customs, and
behaviors of a population, is often seen as one
of the consequences of urbanization. Urbanism
is a social and behavioral response to living in
certain places.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
22
Urbanization and Urbanism
Urbanism as a Way of Life
Louis Wirth wrote this essay in 1938
Independent variables of urbanization
create urbanism
Size
Density
Heterogeneity
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
23
Urbanization and Urbanism
Urbanism, with its emphasis on competition,
achievement, specialization, superficiality,
anonymity, independence, and tangential
relationships, is often compared--at least
implicitly--with a simpler and less
competitive idealized rural past.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
24
Urbanization and Urbanism
The attitudes, behaviors, and cultural patterns of
rural areas in the United States are dominated
by urban values and life-styles. Rural wheat
farmers, cattle ranchers, and dairy farmers, with
their accountants, professional lobbies, and
government subsides, are all part of a complex
and highly integrated agribusiness enterprise.
They are hardly innocent country bumpkins,
preyed upon by city slickers. By comparison,
urban consumers often appear naïve regarding
contemporary rural life.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
25
Urbanization and Urbanism
With the exception of
separatist religious groups
such as the Amish, there
are no unique rural
cultures independent of
urban influence.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
26
Urban Studies and
Sociological Paradigms
Order Paradigm
Human Ecology
Pluralist Paradigm
Social-Psychological
Sociocultural
Psychosocial Approach
Conflict Paradigm
Political Economy
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
27
Concepts of the City: Rural
Simplicity versus Urban Complexity
To many observers the city with its emphasis on
efficiency, technology, and division of labor, was
undermining simpler rural forms of social
organization.
In the usual description of transition from simple
to complex forms of social organization, there is,
as least implicitly, a time frame in which rural
areas represent the past and traditional values,
and the city represents the future with its
emphasis on technology, division of labor, and
emergence of new
values.
Thursday, July 16,
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
2015
Bolender
28
Concepts of the City: Rural
Simplicity versus Urban Complexity
Palen and Johnson (1983) found that within
American cities, inhabitants of large cities
were consistently healthier than
inhabitants of rural areas or small towns.
Contrary to the stereotype, mental health
is also probably superior in the city, and
quite possibly improving.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
29
Concepts of the City:
European Sociology
The great European social theorist of the
nineteenth century described the social
changes that were then taking place in
terms of a shift from a warm, supportive
community based on kinship in which
common aims are shared to a larger, more
impersonal society in which ties are based
not on kinship but on interlocking
economic, political, and other interests.
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
30
Concepts of the City:
European Sociology
Karl Marx
Economic structure as the infrastructure
foundation of society
Shift from feudal society to a new urban,
property-owning bourgeoisie [burzh wa ze]
Ferdinand Tonnies
Gemeinschaft (smaller community--kinship)
Gesellschaft (larger complex society based
on economic, political, or other interest)
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
31
Concepts of the City:
European Sociology
Emile Durkheim
Commonality of tasks to a complex division
of labor
Mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity
Marx Weber
Traditional society to rational society
(bureaucracy)
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
32
Concepts of the City:
European Sociology
Georg Simmel
“The Metropolis and Mental Life”
How urbanization increases individuals’ alienation
and mental isolation
Simmel saw the city as a place of intense
stimuli-- stimulating freedom but forced the city
dweller to become blasé and calculating in order
to survive.
Exchange of cash
(Simmel 1964)
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
33
Concepts of the City:
European Sociology
Assumptions
The evolutionary movement from simple
rural to complex urban is unilinear (that
is, it goes only in one direction)
Modern urban life stresses achievement
over ascription
The supposed characteristics of city life
apply to urban areas as a whole
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
34
Concepts of the City:
American Sociology
The Chicago School
Robert Park
Focused on the systematic empirical research of
patterns of social and spatial organization within the
urban environment (human ecology)
Louis Wirth
Studied how the size, density, and heterogeneous
nature of cities produce a unique way of life
Cities produce change that might be economically
productive but are destructive to family life and close
social interaction
Thursday, July 16,
2015
© 1999-2003 by Ronald Keith
Bolender
35