Urbanism as a Way of Life

Urbanism as a Way of Life

Urbanism as a Way of Life

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The urbanization of the world, which is one of the most impressive facts of modern times, has wrought profound changes in virtually every phase of social life. The recency and rapidity of urbanization in the United States accounts for the acuteness of our urban problems and our lack of awareness of them. Despite the dominance of urbanism in the modern world we still lack a sociological definition of the city which would take adequate account of the fact that while the city is the characteristic locus of urbanism, the urban mode of life is not confined to cities. For sociological purposes a city is a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of heterogeneous individuals. Large numbers account for individual variability, the relative absence of intimate personal acquaintanceship, the segmentalization of human relations which are largely anony- mous, superficial, and transitory, and associated characteristics. Density involves di- versification and specialization, the coincidence of close physical contact and distant social relations, glaring contrasts, a complex pattern of segregation, the predominance of formal social control, and accentuated friction, among other phenomena. Hetero- geneity tends to break down rigid social structures and to produce increased mobility, instability, and insecurity, and the affiliation of the individuals with a variety of inter- secting and tangential social groups with a high rate of membership turnover. The pecuniary nexus tends to displace personal relations, and institutions tend to cater to mass rather than to individual requirements. The individual thus becomes effective only as he acts through organized groups. The complicated phenomena of urbanism may acquire unity and coherence if the sociological analysis proceeds in the light of such a body of theory. The empirical evidence concerning the ecology, the social organization, and the social psychology of the urban mode of life confirms the fruit- fulness of this approach.

I. THE CITY AND CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATION

Just as the beginning of Western civilization is marked by the

permanent settlement of formerly nomadic peoples in the Mediter-

ranean basin, so the begilning of what is distinctively modern in

our civilization is best signalized by the growth of great cities.

Nowhere has mankind been farther removed from organic nature

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2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

than under the conditions of life characteristic of great cities. The

contemporary world no longer presents a picture of small isolated

groups of human beings scattered over a vast territory, as Sumner

described primitive society.’ The distinctive feature of the mode of

living of man in the modern age is his concentration into gigantic

aggregations around which cluster lesser centers and from which

radiate the ideas and practices that we call civilization.

The degree to which the contemporary world may be said to be

“urban” is not fully or accurately measured by the proportion of the

total population living in cities. The influences which cities exert

upon the social life of man are greater than the ratio of the urban

population would indicate, for the city is not only in ever larger

degrees the dwelling-place and the workshop of modern man, but

it is the initiating and controlling center of economic, political, and

cultural life that has drawn the most remote parts of the world into

its orbit and woven diverse areas, peoples, and activities into a cosmos.

The growth of cities and the urbanization of the world is one of

the most impressive facts of modern times. Although it is impossible

to state precisely what proportion of the estimated total world- population of approximately i,8oo,ooo,ooo is urban, 69.2 per cent

of the total population of those countries that do distinguish be-

tween urban and rural areas is urban.2 Considering the fact, more-

over, that the world’s population is very unevenly distributed and

that the growth of cities is not very far advanced in some of the countries that have only recently been touched by industrialism,

this average understates the extent to which urban concentration has proceeded in those countries where the impact of the industrial revolution has been more forceful and of less recent date. This shift

from a rural to a predominantly urban society, which has taken

place within the span of a single generation in such industrialized areas as the United States and Japan, has been accompanied by profound changes in virtually every phase of social life. It is these

changes and their ramifications that invite the attention of the so- ciologist to the study of the differences between the rural and the

x William Graham Sumner, Folkways (Boston, 1906), p. 12.

2 S. V. Pearson, The Growth and Distribution of Population (New York, 1935), p. 211.

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URBANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE 3

urban mode of living. The pursuit of this interest is an indispensable

prerequisite for the comprehension and possible mastery of some of

the most crucial contemporary problems of social life since it is

likely to furnish one of the most revealing perspectives for the under-

standing of the ongoing changes in human nature and the social

order.3

Since the city is the product of growth rather than of instantane-

ous creation, it is to be expected that the influences which it exerts

upon the modes of life should not be able to wipe out completely

the previously dominant modes of human association. To a greater

or lesser degree, therefore, our social life bears the imprint of an

earlier folk society, the characteristic modes of settlement of which

were the farm, the manor, and the village. This historic influence

is reinforced by the circumstance that the population of the city

itself is in large measure recruited from the countryside, where a

mode of life reminiscent of this earlier form of existence persists.

Hence we should not expect to find abrupt and discontinuous varia-

tion between urban and rural types of personality. The city and the

country may be regarded as two poles in reference to one or the

other of which all human settlements tend to arrange themselves.

In viewing urban-industrial and rural-folk society as ideal types of

communities, we may obtain a perspective for the analysis of the basic models of human association as they appear in contemporary

civilization.

II. A SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF THE CITY

Despite the preponderant significance of the city in our civiliza-

tion, however, our knowledge of the nature of urbanism and the

process of urbanization is meager. Many attempts have indeed been

made to isolate the distinguishing characteristics of urban life. Ge-

ographers, historians, economists, an?d political scientists have in-

3 Whereas rural life in the United States has for a long time been a subject of con- siderable interest on the part of governmental bureaus, the most notable case of a comprehensive report being that submitted by the Country Life Commission to Presi-

dent Theodore Roosevelt in I909, it is worthy of note that no equally comprehensive

official inquiry-into urban life was undertaken until the establishment of a Research

Committee on Urbanism of the National Resources Committee. (Cf. Our Cities: Their

Role in the National Economy [Washington: Government Printing Office, 1937].)

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4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

corporated the points of view of their respective disciplines into

diverse definitions of the city. While in no sense intended to super-

sede these, the formulation of a sociological approach to the city

may incidentally serve to call attention to the interrelations be-

tween them by emphasizing the peculiar characteristics of the city

as a particular form of human association. A sociologically signifi-

cant definition of the city seeks to select those elements of urbanism

which mark it as a distinctive mode of human group life.

The characterization of a community as urban on the basis of

size alone is obviously arbitrary. It is difficult to defend the present census definition which designates a community of 2,500 and above

as urban and all others as rural. The situation would be the same if

the criterion were 4,000, 8,ooo, IO,OOO, 25,000, or ioo,ooo popula-

tion, for although in the latter case we might feel that we were more

nearly dealing with an urban aggregate than would be the case in-

communities of lesser size, no definition of urbanism can hope to be

completely satisfying as long as numbers are regarded as the sole criterion. Moreover, it is not difficult to demonstrate that communi-

ties of less than the arbitrarily set number of inhabitants lying with-

in the range of influence of metropolitan centers have greater claim

to recognition as urban communities than do larger ones leading a more isolated existence in a predominantly rural area. Finally, it

should be recognized that census definitions are unduly influenced

by the fact that the city, statistically speaking, is always an ad- ministrative concept in that the corporate limits play a decisive

role in delineating the urban area. Nowhere is this more clearly

apparent than in the concentrations of population on the peripheries

of great metropolitan centers which cross arbitrary administrative boundaries of city, county, state, and nation.

As long as we identify urbanism with the physical entity of the

city, viewing it merely as rigidly delimited in space, and proceed as if urban attributes abruptly ceased to be manifested beyond an

arbitrary boundary line, we are not likely to arrive at any adequate conception of urbanism as a mode of life. The technological develop- ments in transportation and communication which virtually mark a new epoch in human history have accentuated the role of cities

as dominant elements in our civilization and have enormously ex-

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IURBANISM AS A WAY OF LIPE 5

tended the urban mode of living beyond the confines of the city

itself. The dominance of the city, especially of the great city, may

be regarded as a consequence of the concentration in cities of in-

dustrial and commercial, financial and administrative facilities and

activities, transportation and communication lines, and cultural

and recreational equipment such as the press, radio stations, thea-

ters, libraries, museums, concert halls, operas, hospitals, higher edu-

cational institutions, research and publishing centers, professional

organizations, and religious and welfare institutions. Were it not

for the attraction and suggestions that the city exerts through these

instrumentalities upon the rural population, the differences between

the rural and the urban modes of life would be even greater than

they are. Urbanization no longer denotes merely the process by

which persons are attracted to a place called the city and incorpo- rated into its system of life. It refers also to that cumulative ac-

centuation of the characteristics distinctive of the mode of life

which is associated with the growth of cities, and finally to the changes in the direction of modes of life recognized as urban which

are apparent among people, wherever they may be, who have come

under the spell of the influences which the city exerts by virtue of

the power of its institutions and personalities operating through the

means of communication and transportation. The shortcomings which attach to number of inhabitants as a

criterion of urbanism apply for the most part to density of popula-

tion as well. Whether we accept the density of io,ooo persons per

square mile as Mark Jefferson4 proposed, or I,OOO, which Willcox5 preferred to regard as the criterion of urban settlements, it is clear

that unless density is correlated with significant social characteris-

tics it can furnish only an arbitrary basis for differentiating urban from rural communities. Since our census enumerates the night

rather than the day population of an area, the locale of the most

intensive urban life-the city center-generally has low population density. and the industrial and commercial areas of the city, which

4 “The Anthropogeography of Some Great Cities,” Bull. American Geographical Society, XLI (I909), 537-66.

5 Walter F. Willcox, “A Definition of ‘City’ in Terms of Density,” in E. W. Burgess, The Urban Community (Chicago, I926), p. II9.

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6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

contain the most characteristic economic activities underlying urban

society, would scarcely anywhere be truly urban if density were

literally interpreted as a mark of urbanism. Nevertheless, the fact

that the urban community is distinguished by a large aggregation

and relatively dense concentration of population can scarcely be

left out of account in a definition of the city. But these criteria must

be seen as relative to the general cultural context in which cities arise and exist and are sociologically relevant only in so far as they

operate as conditioning factors in social life.

The same criticisms apply to such criteria as the occupation of

the inhabitants, the existence of certain physical facilities, institu-

tions, and forms of political organization. The question is not

whether cities in our civilization or in others do exhibit these dis-

tinctive traits, but how potent they are in molding the character

of social life into its specifically urban form. Nor in formulating a

fertile definition can we afford to overlook the great variations be-

tween cities. By means of a typology of cities based upon size, location, age, and function, such. as we have undertaken to establish in our recent report to the National Resources Committee,6 we have

found it feasible to array and classify urban communities ranging

from struggling small towns to thriving world-metropolitan centers;

from isolated trading-centers in the midst of agricultural regions to

thriving world-ports and commercial and industrial conurbations.

Such differences as these appear crucial because the social char- acteristics and influences of these different “cities” vary widely.

A serviceable definition of urbanism should not only denote the

essential characteristics which all cities-at least those in our cul-

ture-have in common, but should lend itself to the discovery of

their variations. An industrial city will differ significantly in social

respects from a commercial, mining, fishing, resort, university, and

capital city. A one-industry city will present different sets of social

characteristics from a multi-industry city, as will an industrially

balanced from an imbalanced city, a suburb from a satellite, a resi-

dential suburb from an industrial suburb, a city within a metropoli-

tan region from one lying outside, an old city from a new one, a

6 Op. cit., p. 8.

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URBANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE 7

southern city from a New England, a middle-western from a Pacific

Coast city, a growing from a stable and from a dying city. A sociological definition must obviously be inclusive enough to

comprise whatever essential characteristics these different types of cities have in common as social entities, but it obviously cannot be so detailed as to take account of all the variations implicit in

the manifold classes sketched above. Presumably some of the char- acteristics of cities are more significant in conditioning the nature of urban life than others, and we may expect the outstanding features of the urban-social scene to vary in accordance with size, density,

and differences in the functional type of cities. Moreover, we may infer that rural life will bear the imprint of urbanism in the measure that through contact and communication it comes under the in- fluence of cities. It may contribute to the clarity of the statements that follow to repeat that while the locus of urbanism as a mode of life is, of course, to be found characteristically in places which fulfil

the requirements we shall set up as a definition of the city, urbanism is not confined to such localities but is manifest in varying degrees

wherever the influences of the city reach.

While urbanism, or that complex of traits which makes up the characteristic mode of life in cities, and urbanization, which denotes the development and extensions of these factors, are thus not ex- clusively found in settlements which are cities in the physical and

demographic sense, they do, nevertheless, find their most pro-

nounced expression in such areas, especially in metropolitan cities. In formulating a definition of the city it is necessary to exercise caution in order to avoid identifying urbanism as a way of life with any specific locally or historically conditioned cultural influences

which, while they may significantly affect the specific character of the community, are not the essential determinants of its character as a city.

It is particularly important to call attention to the danger of confusing urbanism with industrialism and modern capitalism. The rise of cities in the modern world is undoubtedly not independent

of the emergence of modern power-driven machine technology, mass production, and capitalistic enterprise. B’ut different as the cities

of earlier epochs may have been by virtue of their development in a

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8 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

preindustrial and precapitalistic order from the great cities of today,

they were, nevertheless, cities.

For sociological purposes a city may be defined as a relatively

large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous

individuals. On the basis of the postulates which this minimal defi-

nition suggests, a theory of urbanism may be formulated in the

light of existing knowledge concerning social groups.

III. A THEORY OF URBANISM

In the rich literature on the city we look in vain for a theory of

urbanism presenting in a systematic fashion the available knowledge

concerning the city as a social entity. We do indeed have excellent

formulations of theories on such special problems as the growth of

the city viewed as a historical trend and as a recurrent process,7 and

we have a wealth of literature presenting insights of sociological

relevance and empirical studies offering detailed information on a

variety of particular aspects of urban life. But despite the multi- plication of research and textbooks on the city, we do not as yet have a comprehensive body of compendent hypotheses which may

be derived from a set of postulates implicitly contained in a socio- logical definition of the city, and from our general sociological knowl-

edge which may be substantiated through empirical research. The

closest approximations to a systematic theory of urbanism that we have are to be found in a penetrating essay, “Die Stadt,” by Max

Weber,8 and a memorable paper by Robert E. Park on “The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment.”9 But even these excellent contributions are far from constituting an ordered and coherent framework of theory upon

which research might profitably proceed. In the pages that follow we shall seek to set forth a limited number

of identifying characteristics of the city. Given these characteristics we shall then indicate what consequences or further characteristics follow from them in the light of general sociological theory and

7 See Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, et al., The City (Chicago, I925), esp. chaps. ii and iii; Werner Sombart, “Stadtische Siedlung, Stadt,” Handwdrterbutch der Soziologie, ed. Alfred Vierkandt (Stuttgart, I93I); see also bibliography.

8 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tiubingen, I925), Part II, chap. viii, pp. 5I4-60I.

9 Park, Burgess, et al., op. cit., chap. i.

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URBANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE 9

empirical research. We hope in this manner to arrive at the essential

propositions comprising a theory of urbanism. Some of these propo-

sitions can be supported by a considerable body of already available

research materials; others may be accepted as hypotheses for which

a certain amount of presumptive evidence exists, but for which more

ample and exact verification would be required. At least such a

procedure will, it is hoped, show what in the way of systematic

knowledge of the city we now have and what are the crucial and

fruitful hypotheses for future research.

The central problem of the sociologist of the city is to discover the

forms of social action and organization that typically emerge in

relatively permanent, compact settlements of large numbers of

heterogeneous individuals. We must also infer that urbanism will

assume its most characteristic and extreme form in the measure in

which the conditions with which it is congruent are present. Thus

the larger, the more densely populated, and the more heterogeneous

a community, the more accentuated the characteristics associated

with urbanism will be. It should be recognized, however, that in the

social world institutions and practices may be accepted and con-

tinued for reasons other than those that originally brought them

into existence, and that accordingly the urban mode of life may be

perpetuated under conditions quite foreign to those necessary for

its origin.

Some justification may be in order for the choice of the principal

terms comprising our definition of the city. The attempt has been

made to make it as inclusive and at the same time as denotative as

possible without loading it with unnecessary assumptions. To say

that large numbers are necessary to constitute a city means, of

course, large numbers in relation to a restricted area or high density

of settlement. There are, nevertheless, good reasons for treating large numbers and density as separate factors, since each may be

connected with significantly different social consequences. Similarly

the need for adding heterogeneity to numbers of population as a

necessary and distinct criterion of urbanism might be questioned,

since we should expect the range of differences to increase with

numbers. In defense, it may be said that the city shows a kind and

degree of heterogeneity of population which cannot be wholly ac-

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Io THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

counted for by the law of large numbers or adequately represented

by means of a normal distribution curve. Since the population of

the city does not reproduce itself, it must recruit its migrants from

other cities, the countryside, and-in this country until recently-

from other countries. The city has thus historically been the melt-

ing-pot of races, peoples, and cultures, and a most favorable breed-

ing-ground of new biological and cultural hybrids. It has not only

tolerated but rewarded individual differences. It has brought to-

gether people from the ends of the earth because they are different

and thus useful to one another, rather than because they are homo- geneous and like-minded.Io

There are a number of sociological propositions concerning the

relationship between (a) numbers of population, (b) density of settle-

ment, (c) heterogeneity of inhabitants and group life, which can be formulated on the basis of observation and research.