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Urban Life:  (Discussion Points from Chapter 15)

 

 

1.         Approaches to the study of Urban Problems:

 

A.     People often lump the topic of urban life and deviance together Palen’s text  contains substantial discussion regarding what many perceive to be a progression from urbanizationà urbanismà deviance, (Palen, 2000).  Palen states that the sociological accuracy of the idea that urban life leads to deviant behavior is not as important as the fact that people believe that such a relationship exists—The W.I. Thomas Theorem.

B.     Why is this?  One way to look at it is through the urban/rural dichotomy.  First some definitions:

     1.     Urbanization = the process of becoming urban (the growth of cities)

     2.     Urbanism = a way of life; a value orientation; cosmopolitanism

C.     The Urban/Rural dichotomy:

     1.     French Sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) distinguished between mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity.  Traditional societies were held together by similarity of experience and a simple division of labor—Likeness (mechanical solidarity).  Modern, industrial, societies were held together by the need for cooperative activity where the division of labor was complex (organic solidarity).

     2.    German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936) described this phenomenon with different terminology.  Gemeinschaft (community) was similar to mechanical solidarity, while Gesellschaft (society) represented organic solidarity.

     3.     Finally, anthropologist, Robert Redfield (1897-1958) used the terms Folk Society and Urban Society to address the same thing. 

 

 

2.         Macionis:  Urban sprawl is a serious social problem:  in Atlanta, the fastest growing urban area in the U.S. takes 500 acres of open land each WEEK (p. 371); Central cities have lost jobs; and over a million, to a-million-and-a-half people are homeless “for at least some time during the course of a year…” (p. 371).

 

3.          The U. S. population was approximately 76 million in 1900.  By the year 2000, it had reached about 281 million people.  That’s an increase of 205 million people in one century.   In 1776, only 5% of the U.S. population was urban.  In 1860, 20% of the population was urban.  By 1920, the U.S. became an urban nation for the first time, with approximately 50% of its population living in metropolitan places (U.S. Census).  Today, 75% of the U. S. is urban (Macionis, p. 372). 

 

4.          Macionis--  Current urban problems:

                 1.   Fiscal Problems

2.   Sprawl

3.   Poverty

4.   Housing Problems

5.   Racial Segregation (Steering; Redlining)

6.   Homelessness (At any given night about 500,000 people are homeless in the U.S.

7.   Shift in population from Snowbelt to Sunbelt Cities

8.   Vulnerability to Terrorism

9.   Cities in Poor Countries

5.         How do functionalists (Tonnies; Durkheim; Worth) approach the study of urban problems?  What do conflict theorists have to say about urban decline and what is meant by an “urban growth machine” ideology?  What kind of a focus do symbolic interactionists take when examining urban life?

 

6.         Compare Burgess’s Concentric Zonal Hypothesis with the newer Polycentric Metropolis model.  What factors brought about the move from the concentric zone pattern of urban development to the polycentric or  multiple nuclei model?

 

7.         Describe Louis Wirth’s “urbanism as a way of life” thesis.  What are the primary characteristics of urban living according to this model?  What does the research have to say about it.  What does the scientific literature conclude about the relationship between mental health and urban life?  Discuss Claude Fisher’s “Subcultural Theory.”

 

8.         How would you answer the question—“Are cities dying?” 

 

9.         Discuss the problem of racial polarization in U.S. cities.  What are its root causes?  Discuss black suburbanization and the parallel-growth model.

 

10.       What does the text conclude about the extent of homelessness in U.S. cities?  Describe past trends in both numbers and types of homeless people.  What is the public’s attitude toward the homeless?  Describe SROs as a possible way of alleviating the plight of homeless people.

 

11.       Compare and contrast the policies of public housing, urban homesteading, and gentrification as possible solutions to urban blight.

 

12.       What are some of the characteristics associated with suburbs in the U.S. today, according to the text.

 

 

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