Characteristics Of Urban Life

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In the 1930s, Chicago’s School of Urban Sociology sought out to define the characteristics of urban life. According to Louis Wirth in his article, Urbanism as a Way of Life, “…a city may be defined as a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals” (8). Wirth theorized cities as being defined by three major characteristics: large size, large density, and heterogeneity of individuals. There was a vast amount of different cultures and types of people all living together in the city. Yet the city was still very segregated, especially among socioeconomic class. In Burgess, E.’s The Growth of the City: an Introduction to a Research Project, he talks about the segregation of the residential areas. …show more content…

Then the area surrounding the center is called “the zone of transition” which is where the severely impoverished lived. These people typically lived in hazardous conditions next to the pollution of the manufacturing buildings. Surrounding that zone is “the zone of working people” and “the residential areas” which are little farther away and hold the working class and middle/rich class. These areas are further away from the center, but still are close enough to be able to commute to work. Both Burgess and Wirth 's works were in the 1920’s and 1930’s, since then the modern city has changed drastically. The major characteristics of the new city are that they are big and sprawling, multipolar, racially segregated, and globalization. Around the 1960’s industrial jobs were falling and being replaced by service jobs like small firm agencies and hotel services. Edward Soja’s “Los …show more content…

Relationships are drastically different in urban cities than in rural areas. “The contacts of the city may indeed be face to face, but they are nevertheless impersonal, superficial, transitory, and segmental” (Writh 12); This has only increased with the modern city. The rise of the service industry has made people reach out to many businesses to fulfill their needs, but their relationships with those people in the business are purely instrumental. Also with services jobs, it increases our contact with people but decreases our social connections, it dehumanizes people. Wirth also explains that more people are creating clubs and organizations to be apart of, but those groups are weaker. If the group doesn’t satisfy one’s needs they leave and join another group. This is amplified with modern society since the vast number of organization one can be apart of with little consequence to leaving. Wirth also pointed out the phenomenon of anomie which is the increase of one’s feeling of freedom by being able to be anonymous, but the drawback is that it also creates a lack of control. This causes crime rates to increase which makes laws become more restricting on individuals. In the modern era, government control and anomie have greatly increased. Cities have increased in size and many restricting social norms that were present in the 1920s and 1930s have died

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