Transcript Slide 1

CHAPTER 15
• Why should we worry about the rapid
rate of global population increase?
• What makes city and rural living
different?
• How is the state of the natural
environment a social issue?
Demography: The Study of
Population
• Demography
– The study of human population
• Fertility
– The incidence of childbearing in a country’s
population
• Crude Birth Rate
– The number of live births in a given year for
every 1,000 people in a population
• Mortality
– The incidence of death in a country’s population
• Crude Death Rate
– The number of death’s in a given year for every
1,000 people in a population
• Infant Mortality Rate
– The number of deaths among infants under one
year of age for each 1,000 live births in a given
year
• Life Expectancy
– The average life span of a country’s population
• Migration
– The movement of people into and out of a
specified territory
– Immigration
• In-migration rate
– Number of people entering an area for every 1,000 people in
the population
– Emigration
• Out-migration rate
– The number of people leaving for every 1,000 people
– Both types usually happen at once
• Push-Pull factors
Population Growth
• Affected by fertility, mortality, and
migration
• Population growth of US and other highincome nations is well-below world
average
• Highest growth region is Africa
– Troubling because these countries can
barely support existing populations
Population Composition
• Sex Ratio
– The number of males for every 100
females in a nation’s population
• Age-sex Pyramid
– A graphic representation of the age and
sex of a population
• Lower-income nations are wide at the bottom
History and Theory of
Population Growth
• Malthusian Theory
– Rapid population increase would lead to social
chaos
– Geometric Progression of population
• Doubling of population (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.)
– Arithmetic Progression of food production
• Limited farmland (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.)
– Reproduction beyond what the planet could feed
– Birth control and sex abstention may change
prediction
• CRITICAL REVIEW
• Prediction flawed
– Birth rate began to drop with industrialization
– Underestimated human ingenuity
• Ignored the role of social inequality in
world abundance and famine
• Lesson:
– Habitable land, clean water, fresh air are
limited resources
• Demographic Transition Theory
– A thesis that links population patterns to a
society’s level of technological development
– Stage 1 – Pre-industrial Agrarian societies
• High birth rate; High death rate
– Stage 2 – Industrialization
• Death rate falls; Birth rates remain high
– Stage 3 – Mature Industrial Economy
• Birth rate drops; Death rate drops
– Stage 4 – Postindustrial Economy
• Demographic transition complete
• Low-birth rate; steady death rate
• Japan, Europe, and US
• CRITICAL REVIEW
– Linked to Modernization Theory
• Optimism that poor countries will solve their
population problems as they industrialize
– Dependency Theorists
• Unless there is redistribution of global resources
• Division into affluent enjoying low population
growth
• Poor struggling in vain to feed more and more
people
Global Population Today: A
Brief Survey
• The Low-Growth North
– Zero Population Growth
• The level of reproduction that maintains population at
a steady level
– Factors that hold down population
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High proportion of men and women in labor force
Rising costs of raising children
Trends toward later marriage
Singlehood
Wide use of contraceptives
– Concern for under-population
• High-Growth South
– Population is critical problem in poor nations
of Southern Hemisphere
– Advanced medical technology provided by
rich nations has lowered death rate
• Poor societies account for 2/3 of world’s
population
• To limit population increase
– Must control births as successful as fending off death
Urbanization: The Growth of
Cities
• Urbanization
– The concentration of population into cities
– The First Cities
• First urban revolution
– Preindustrial European Cities
– Industrial European Cities
• Second urban revolution
The Growth of US Cities
• Colonial Settlements, 1565-1800
• Urban Expansion, 1800-1860
• The Metropolitan Era, 1860-1950
– Metropolis
• A large city that socially and economically dominates
an urban area
• Urban Decentralization, 1950-Present
– Occurred as people left downtown areas for
outlying Suburbs
• Urban areas beyond the political boundaries of a city
Suburbs and Urban Decline
• Loss of higher-income taxpayers to
suburbs
– Left cities struggling to pay for expensive
social programs for the poor
• Cities fell into crisis leading to inner-city
decay
• Decline in the importance of public space
• Spread of TV, Internet, and other media
people can use without leaving home
Postindustrial Sun Belt Cities
and Sprawl
• 60% of US population live in sunbelt
cities
– LA, Houston
• Argument
– Growth follows no plan
– Traffic congestion
– Poorly planned housing developments
– Overcrowded schools
Megalopolis: The Regional
City
• Megalopolis
– A vast urban region containing a number of
cities and their surrounding suburbs
– Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s)
• One city with 50,000 or more people
– Micropolitan Statistical Areas
• Urban areas with at least one city with 10,000 to
50,000 people
– Core-based Statistical Areas (CBSA’s)
• Include metropolitan and micropolitan areas
• New York and adjacent urban areas
• Edge Cities
– Business centers some distance from the old
downtowns
– No clear physical boundaries
• The Rural Rebound
– 3/4 of rural communities across the US gained
population
– Scenic and recreational attractions
– Companies relocating to rural communities
• Increased economic opportunities for rural
populations
Urbanism as a Way of Life
• Gemeinschaft
– A type of social organization in which people
are closely tied by kinship and tradition
• Gesellschaft
– A type of social organization in which people
come together only on the basis of individual
self-interest
– Motivated by own needs rather than desire
to help improve the well-being of everyone
Mechanical and Organic
Solidarity
• Emile Durkheim
• Mechanical Solidarity
– Social bonds based on common sentiments and
shared moral values
– Similar to Gemeinschaft
• Organic Solidarity
– Social bonds based on specialization and
interdependence
– Similar to Gesellschaft
The Blasé Urbanite
• Georg Simmel
• Tuning out much of what goes on around
one
• City dwellers keep distance as a survival
strategy
The Chicago School: Robert
Park and Louis Wirth
• City is a living organism – a human
kaleidoscope
• Define the city as a setting with a large,
dense, and socially diverse population
– City dwellers know others not in terms of
• Who they are but what they do
• Impersonal nature of urban relationships
with greater diversity makes city dwellers
more tolerant than rural villagers
• CRITICAL REVIEW
– Overlook the effects of class, race, and
gender
– Many kinds of urbanites
Urban Ecology
• The study of the link between they physical
and social dimensions of cities
• Concentric Zones
• Wedge-shaped Sectors
• Multicentered Model
• Social Area Analysis
– Households with fewer children cluster towards
city’s center
– Social class differences are responsible for
sector-shaped districts
– Racial and ethnic neighborhoods consistent with
muticentered model
Urban Political Economy
• Urban political-economy model
– Applies Marx’s analysis of conflict in the
workplace to conflict in the city
• Political economists reject ecological
approach of city as a natural organism
– See city life as defined by people with power
• CRITICAL REVIEW
– Focus on US cities during a limited period of
history
– Unlikely any single model can account for full
range of urban diversity
Urbanization in Poor Nations
• Two revolutionary expansion of cities in world
history
– 1st began about 8000 B.C.E.
– 2nd began in 1750 and lasted two centuries
• 3rd urban revolution is under way
– Result of many poor nations entering highgrowth stage 2 of demographic transitions theory
– Cities offer more opportunities than rural areas
• Provide no quick fix for problems of escalating
population and grinding poverty
• ECOLOGY
– The study of the interaction of living organisms
and the natural environment
• NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
– Earth’s surface and atmosphere, including living
organisms, air, water, soil, and other resources
necessary to sustain life
The Global Dimension
• Ecosystem
– A system composed of the interaction of all
living organisms and their natural environment
• Change in any part of the natural
environments sends ripples through the
entire global ecosystem
– The Ecological Viewpoint of the Hamburger
Technology and the
Environmental Deficit
• I=PAT
– Environmental impact (I) reflects a society’s
population (P), its level of affluence (A), and its
level of technology (T).
• Societies at intermediate stages of
sociocultural evolution have somewhat
greater capacity to affect the environment
• Environmental impact of industrial
technology goes beyond energy
consumption
• Environmental Deficit
– Profound long-term harm to the natural
environment caused by humanity’s focus on
short-term material affluence
• Environmental concerns are sociological
• Environmental damage to air, land, or water
is unintended
• Environmental deficit is reversible
– Societies create environmental problems
– Societies can undo many of them
Culture: Growth and Limits
• The logic of growth
– Material comfort, Progress, Science
• Holds that more powerful technology has
improved lives and new discoveries will
continue to do so in the future
• Progress can lead to unexpected problems
– Strain on the environment
• Environmentalists
– Logic of growth flawed
– Assumes natural resources will always be
plentiful
• The limits of Growth
– Cannot invent our way out of the problems
created by the logic of growth
– Growth must have limits
• Humanity must put into place policies to
control population increase, pollution,
and use of resources to avoid
environmental collapse
• Shares Malthus’s pessimism about the
future
Solid Waste: The Disposable
Society
• US is a disposable society
– Consume more products than virtually any other
nation on earth
– Countless items are designed to be disposable
– Rich society consumes hundreds of times more
energy, plastics, lumber, and other resources
– 80% never goes away
• Ends up in landfills
• Can pollute groundwater under Earth’s surface
– Recycling – reuse of resources
• Water and Air
– Hydrologic Cycle
• Planet naturally recycles water and refreshes the land
– Two major concerns
• Supply and pollution
• Water Supply
– 1% of Earth’s water is suitable for drinking
– Water rights prominent in laws around the world
– Rising population and development greatly
increased world’s needs for water
– Face the reality that water is a valuable and
finite resource
• Water Pollution
– In large cities, people have no choice but to
drink contaminated water
– Quality in US good by global standards
– Special problem is Acid Rain
• Rain made acidic by air pollution which destroys
plant and animal life
– Global phenomenon
• Regions that suffer may be thousands of miles
from source of the pollution
• Air Pollution
– People in US more aware of air pollution
than contaminated water
– Air quality improved in the final decades of
the 20th century
– Rich nations passed laws banning highpollution heating
– Problem serious in poor nations
• Reliance on coal, wood, peat, or other “dirty”
fuels for heating
Rain Forests
• Regions of dense forestation, most of
which circle the globe close to the equator
– Largest in South America, West-Central Africa,
and Southeast Asia
– 7% of Earth’s total land surface
• Losing rainforests to hardwood trade
– People in rich nations
• Love parquet floors, fine furniture, fancy paneling,
weekend yachts, and high-grade coffins
– No rainforests – no protection of Earth’s
biodiversity and climate
Global Warming
• A rise in Earth’s average temperature
due to an increasing concentration of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
– Carbon dioxide increasing while amount of
plant life on Earth is shrinking
– Rainforests being destroyed by burning
• Global warming is a problem that
threatens the future for all
Declining Biodiversity
• Clearing rainforests reduces Earth’s
biodiversity
• Rainforests home to almost half of planet’s
living species
• Four reasons for concern:
– Earth’s biodiversity provides a varied source of
human food
– Earth’s biodiversity is a vital genetic resource
used by medical and pharmaceutical researchers
– Beauty and complexity of natural environment
are diminished
– Extinction of any species is irreversible and final
Environmental Racism
• Patterns that make environmental
hazards greatest for poor people,
especially minorities
• Factories that spew pollution stood near
neighborhoods housing poor and people
of color
– Poor drawn to factories for work
– Low incomes led to affordable housing in
undesirable neighborhoods
Toward a Sustainable Society
and World
• Ecologically Sustainable Culture
– A way of life that meets the needs of the present
generation without threatening the
environmental legacy of future generations
• Three strategies
– Bring population growth under control
– Conserve finite resources
– Reduce waste
• Dinosaurs dominated for 160 million years
• Humanity is far younger
– 250,000 years
• Compared to dimwitted dinosaurs, humans
have the great gift of intelligence
• What are the chances that humans will
continue to flourish 160 million years or
even 1,000 years from now?
• Answer depends on the choices made by
one of the 30 million species living on Earth
– HUMAN BEINGS