a. Introduction
The contemporary world is becoming urbanized on a day to day basis. There exists a significant relationship amid villages, cities and slums. People relocate to urban areas in search of jobs and good life quality. . Slums have emerged as a result of the urbanism. The paper shall show how slums are recreating the rural village life in the big cities. In addition, the paper shall focus on the concept brought forward Louis Wirth to help show how slums; urban village agrees or disagrees with the concept.
B. what is a slum? Describe it. Slum is defined as areas which to varying extents combine the following traits
a. inadequate access to sanitation
b. Inadequate access to clean and the safe water
c. overcrowding
d. Poor structural
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As mentioned above slums have emerged as a result of the urbanism. As a result, the slums and urban village have a lot of similarities. The slum life depicts to a certain extent the village life. As people share amenities and closely linked together due to their social and economic status. Wirth (1938) argues that with a greater the size of the population, there exist a greater likelihood that different types of people shall make up a given society. The difference between people might be as a result of the status, race, different occupation, and grouping. In both the slums and urban village the neighborliness, kinship bonds and the sentiments shared due to people having to live together under a common tradition are most likely to be weak or absent. In some of the cases, people within the urban village and slums share a common identity. In the urban villages where it is largely filled with migrants, people want to maintain closer connections. Similarly, due to the economic situations, people within similar situations can uphold closer relations. Nonetheless, the slums and urban village are depicted by secondary relationships. According to Wirth (1938) primary relationships are usually possible when there are a small number of people and also when a specific area comprises of homogenous populations. Within both the slums and urban village, the majorities of relationships stay face to face but are also transitory, impersonal and
Often differences and similarities between people may be obvious but more often their relationships can be difficult to recognize. “The relationships of individuals to the societies in which they live vary widely with time and place”. (Blair Nelson from the syllabus for assignment Essay Exam 1).
New York City has always been a turning point for many, may it be a native-American wishing to make a fortune or an arriving immigrant looking for better life conditions than the ones from his home country; it was particularly true for the many Irish immigrants fleeing Ireland. However, their growing numbers and willingness to accept any kind of work presented to them, attracted hostility from the rest of the New Yorkers leading them to be depicted mostly as troublemakers and a threat to the city. The fact that they resided mostly in Five Points, the most infamous slum of the time, did not help their case either. Still, their reputation was grossly exaggerated and merits to be set right. The Irish population in New York had survived through
Homes are normally based on a solitary level with an edge rooftop. Houses in the more swarmed urban communities frequently have two or more stories and mirror an European impact. A great many people lived in single-family homes until the relocation to urban focuses in the late 1940’s and mid 1950’s. The requirement for satisfactory lodging induced the legislature to put resources into high-masses of open lodging activities amid the mid 1950’s. In the poorer territories, huge families live in little houses developed from ash squares and secured with an adobe made of mud, bovine compost, and
Cairo is what is considered a mega city, it is the largest city in the Middle East and Africa, and as such it is plagued by most of the problems that major Third world cities face, in overcrowding, pollution and poverty. Of course being the capital it is also home to a wide spectrum of social classes and groups. This paper will focus on how the dynamic between these social classes is affected by poverty and overcrowding and how the community as well as the government cope with these problems or don’t. First, we must analyze the situation with poverty and overcrowding like how they are measured and portrayed to society, and then we can assess the effect of this portrayal on the different social classes in Cairo.
Mike Davis, in his book Planet of Slums, discusses the Third World and the impact globalization and industrialization has on both urban and poverty-stricken cities. The growth of urbanization has not only grown the middle class wealth, but has also created an urban poor who live side by side in the city of the wealthy. Planet of Slums reveals astonishing facts about the lives of people who live in poverty, and how globalization and the increase of wealth for the urban class only hurts those people, and that the increase of slums every year may eventually lead to the downfall of the earth. “Since 1970 the larger share of world urban population growth has been absorbed by slum communities on the periphery of Third World cities” (Davis 37). Specifically, this “Planet of Slums” Davis discusses both affects and is affected by informal labor and migration, ecological and industrial consequences, and global inequalities, and it seems this trend of urbanization no longer coincides with economic growth, thus reinforcing the notion that the wealth gap only widens, as the rich gain money and the poor lose money.
When discussing about the unit of family, the neighborhood or the community at large, there are many sociological theories which can explain how things are shaped in these units. In my view, the most important sociological theory which explains how the things work out within the family, neighborhood or community level is interactionism. This essay will first highlight the main concept of the theory of interactionism and how it can be used to explain the main dealings within the family neighborhood and community level. It will then go on to highlight the main way in which this theory of interactionism best fits to highlight the overall population of the United States. According to the theory of interactionism, the most basic of all components of the human realm is that of communication. It can entail communication between the mind and the body and it can also entail communication between various humans. The main key concept of this social theory is that the other social processes within the society are all dependent on this main theory. This means that the s...
Of the many problems affecting urban communities, both locally and abroad, there is one issue in particular, that has been victimizing the impoverished within urban communities for nearly a century; that would be the problem of gentrification. Gentrification is a word used to describe the process by which urban communities are coerced into adopting improvements respective to housing, businesses, and general presentation. Usually hidden behind less abrasive, or less stigmatized terms such as; “urban renewal” or “community revitalization” what the process of gentrification attempts to do, is remove all undesirable elements from a particular community or neighborhood, in favor of commercial and residential enhancements designed to improve both the function and aesthetic appeal of that particular community. The purpose of this paper is to make the reader aware about the significance of process of gentrification and its underlying impact over the community and the community participation.
Again, this section will give a working definition of the “urban question’. To fully compare the political economy and ecological perspectives a description of the “urban question” allows the reader to better understand the divergent schools of thought. For Social Science scholars, from a variety of disciplines, the “urban question” asks how space and the urban or city are related (The City Reader, 2009). The perspective that guides the ecological and the social spatial-dialect schools of thought asks the “urban question” in separate distinct terminology. Respected scholars from the ecological mode of thinking, like Burgess, Wirth and others view society and space from the rationale that geographical scope determines society (The City Reader, 2009). The “urban question” that results from the ecological paradigm sees the relationship between the city (space) as influencing the behaviors of individuals or society in the city. On the other hand...
A general situation of urbanization trend in developing countries and developed countries is increasing. In 18th Century only 3% of the world total population lived in urban areas but as projected in 2000 this number will increase at above 50% (UN as cited in Elliot, 1999, p. 144). According to UN (as cited in Elliot, 1999, p.144), it is figured that the total urban population in developing countries has increased from approximately 400 millions people in 1950 to approximately 2000 millions people in 2000. At the same time, total urban population in developed countries is double...
In the second chapter of the book "Planet of Slums," Mike Davis seeks to answer what characteristics and types of slums are prevalent in different parts of the world. Davis continues his startled, alarmed, disgruntled and depressing tone from the previous chapter. Overall, the chapter is divided into two parts. The first part attempts to explore and examine the global slum census, and the other part describes the various slum typologies
One of the mainly electrifying essentials of contemporary period is the urbanisation of the globe. For sociological reasons a city is a comparatively great, crowded and lastingly community of diverse individuals. In metropolitan areas urban sociology is the sociological research of life, human interaction and their role in the growth of society. Modern urban sociology creates from the work of sociologists such as Max Weber and Georg Simmel who put forward the economic, social and intellectual development of urbanisation and its consequences. The aim of this essay is to explain what life is like in the ‘big metropolis’ both objectively and subjectively. It will discuss key processes and dynamics such as rationalisation, individuation, loneliness, typical figures and how they relate to each other.
In the “Metropolis and the Mental Life”, Georg Simmel aims to explicate the confines and conventions of modern life. Simmel accomplishes this as he compares modern life in a metropolis with that of the countryside, noting the behaviours and characteristics of people in response to external factors. Simmel explains this by explicitly detailing how social structures affect certain personal connections. Several prominent themes of urban living are investigated and considered by Simmel in his article, the main points, harshness of the metropolis, modernity and subjective and objective cultures, are discussed in this essay.
Herbert Gans’ Urban Villagers clearly outlines his interactions and observations within a small and typically inaccessible community by inserting himself into its physical space and engaging with the individuals that make up that community. His original inquiry, as stated in the preface of the book, was to “study a slum, and to study the way of life of a low-income population” (Gans 1962). He hoped to understand why the West End was being demolished, and how the people of the West End were to blame for the destruction of their homes. However, instead of answering his original question, Gans found that he uncovered a larger systemic issue of the way labeling of certain areas of a city could impact the longevity of that physical space and its community.
Imagine having to choose to reside in one place for the rest of your life. Which would you opt for? Some people would argue that the hyperactive lifestyle that a big city has to offer has more benefits than living in the country. However, others would contend that the calm and peaceful environment of the countryside is much more rewarding. Several people move from the city to a farm to get away from the hustle and bustle. Likewise, some farmers have traded in their tractors and animals to live a fast paced city life. Of course, not all large cities are the same nor are all of the places in the country identical. Realizing this, ten years ago, I decided to hang up the city life in Indiana to pursue a more laid back approach to life in rural Tennessee. Certainly, city life and life in the country have their benefits, but they also have distinguishable differences.
Urbanization is the movement from a rural society to an urban society, and involves a growth in the number of people in urban areas. Urban growth is increasing in both the developed but mostly in the developing countries. Urbanization is associated with the problems of unemployment, poverty, bad health, poor cleanliness, urban slums environmental deprivation. This causes a very big problem for these developing countries and who are some of poorest countries. Africa urbanization is not as big as most developing countries but is on the rise for it outbursts in city growth lately. (Saundry, 2008).