Urban Anthropology – ANTH394 – Cities & Urban Life – Chapter 5

Urban Sociology - Classic and Modern Statements

- Cosmopolites (138) - Critical mass (140) - Ethnic villagers (139) - False consciousness (122) - Gemeinschaft (122) - Gesellschaft (123) - Ideal type (130) - Mechanical solidarity (125) - Natural areas (137) - Organic solidarity (125) - Urbanism (136)

Karl Marx and Friederich Engels - Capitalists and Proletariats - Means of production - Capitalism to socialism Ferdinand Tönnies - Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft Emile Durkheim - Mechanical and Organic Solidarity - Suicide Georg Simmel - Mental Life of the Metropolis - Overwhelmed, urban dwellers discriminate - Division and specialization of labour in cities Max Weber - Die Stadt - The City - Cities have fortification, markets, courts & law, political systems, related form of association - Best examples were medieval fortress towns Robert Park - U of C - 3 Dimensions of each city: 1. City - commercial structure owed "its existence to the market place around which it sprang up" - Division of labor driven by industrial competition. 2. Formal social structures, police, courts, welfare agencies. Replace "informal" means, neighbourhood interactions 3. Emphasis on the psychosocial dimension of urban life. City life becomes more rational. Prejudices give way to self-interest - Everyone finds a niche in a city Louis Wirth - Urban Theory

Marx and Engels - Cities can free individuals to act on their own, but workers will need to overcome their exploitation. Tönnies The inevitable emergence of gesellschaft will result in a loss of communal relationships. Durkheim The organic solidarity found in a complex division of labor in the city can provide greater freedom and choice in life. Simmel City can be liberating but also alienating. Abundance of stimuli promotes a detached approach. Weber Cities are linked to the larger societal context; medieval, not modern, cities better exemplified the full urban community. Park Cities have potential to enhance the human experience; need to do on-site investigation of the city and its people. Wirth Size, density, and heterogeneity lead to segmented and depersonalized relationships, possible antisocial behavior. Gans City is actually a complex mosaic of many lifestyles and so individuals' urban experience varies accordingly. Fischer Large cities have capacity to support many subcultures and thus strengthen in-group relationships

- Comte, Marx, Engels, Tönnies, Durkheim, Simmel, Weber - Explain transformation by urbanization & industrialization

- The Condition of the Working Class in England, first published in 1844

- Marx analyzed transformation of European society - Economic structure is the foundation upon which rests social, political, and spiritual aspects of life. - Societal transformation results from conflict between those with process of economic production (capitalists) and those who supply labor (proletariat). - Poverty and unemployment are flaws of capitalism - People lived as "generic, tribal beings" in preindustrial, traditional societies - with rise of cities, productive specialization frees individuals to act on their own - The city is the transition from barbarism to civilization - Division of material and mental labour is separation of town and country.

- Not every city was liberating - Some cities remained primitive communities—limited division of labor, common property, lack of individualism. - Such cities depended on agricultural surplus, and lacked the drive of a commercial economy.

- Even in industrial cities social evolution was not complete, as the capitalist elite controlled the economy - Seeing destructive aspects of early industrial capitalism, Marx and Engels believed that a worldwide, anticapitalist revolution that would usher in socialism. - Workers would become aware of cause of their problems, unite, transform society into new order.

- 2 types of human social life: - Gemeinschaft, or "community," = small country village - Gesellschaft, or "association," = large city. - Village - social life is a "living organism," in which people have unity of purpose, united by family and neighbours - Cities - social life is a "mechanical aggregate" - disunity, individualism, selfishness, hostility, few ties

- Europe - gemeinschaft displaced by gesellschaft - Unity and humanity of gemeinschaft lost in gesellschaft - Tönnies's ideas were beginning of a sociology of the city

- Same as gemeinschaft and gesellschaft - Mechanical solidarity = social bonds based on likeness, on common belief and custom, common ritual and symbol - Solidarity is "mechanical," because the people who participate are united automatically, without thinking - Organic solidarity = social order due to individual differences - Organic solidarity rests on complex division of labor, different people specialize in many different occupations - City problems - impersonality, alienation, conflict - Durkheim argued for organic over mechanical solidarity

- Durkheim agreed that history characterized by a movement from mechanical solidarity (gemeinschaft) to organic solidarity (or gesellschaft) - Durkheim agreed tribal or rural environment is "natural" - Life in larger society is just as natural - Tönnies saw little hope for humane life in the city - Durkheim - increasing division of labor as undermining traditional social integration and creating new cohesion based on mutual interdependence - Durkheim - no society can exist entirely on contracts - Moral foundation must allows agreement on how to enter into and execute contracts fairly. - Agreed cities associated with the growth of social differentiation and individuality

- How is the individual to maintain freedom and creativity in the midst of the city's "overwhelming social forces"? - Famous essay "The Metropolis and Mental Life" (1905) - Our personalities would adjust

- Modern cities overwhelming with stimuli - Rural settings - life flows slowly, city bombards individuals - To avoid being overwhelmed, discriminate stimuli carefully - Urbanites become sophisticated, more rational, calculating - highly attuned to time - Cities demonstrate advanced economic division of labor - City's social life interplay of specialists - Importance of money

- Urbanites adapt by "blasé" attitude, reserve, detachment - Cultivated indifference necessary for city living can harden into antagonism

- Any theory that takes account of cities in only one part of the world and at one point in time is of limited value

- Surveying cities of Europe, the Middle East, India, and China, developed definition of full urban community - Settlements must display predominance of trade and commercial relations and feature: 1) Fortification 2) Market 3) Court and partially autonomous law 4) Related form of association 5) Partial political autonomy - Weber called this an ideal city - Economic self-sufficiency is nearly impossible in cities, where people are economically interdependent - Economic aspects of city life are so important that a distinct mechanism of exchange, the market, evolved

- City living involves social relationships and organizations through which urbanites gain a sense of meaningful participation in the life of their city

- Cities can be positive and liberating forces in human life. - - Did not see much hope for 20th century cities - Thought only fortified, self-sufficient, medieval cities deserved title of full urban community

- Cities linked to larger processes like economic, political - If a society's character is different, then the nature of its cities will be different. - Chinese societies would not produce same type of urban life that European industrial capitalism produces

- Early 20th C in NA industrialization, rapid urban growth - Immigrants settled mostly in cities - by 1920, the US was predominantly urban society. - Chicago best example of rapid growth

- Established first urban studies centre in US - Influenced by "The Shame of the Cities" by U.S. journalist L. Steffens - suggested serious urban problems were everyone's responsibility

- "The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment" - Argued urban research must be conducted by disciplined observation - Thought of the city as a social organism, with distinct parts bound together by internal processes - Urban life was not chaos and disorder - "Every great city has its racial colonies, like the Chinatowns of San Francisco and New York, the Little Sicily of Chicago, and the various other less pronounced types. In addition to these, most cities have their segregated vice districts . . . their rendezvous for criminals of various sorts. Every large city has its occupational suburbs, like the stockyards in Chicago, and its residential enclaves, like Brookline in Boston, each of which has a size and character of a complete separate town, village, or city, except that its population is a select one" - Developed studies of segments of the city's population—industrial workers, real-estate officials, VIPs, migrants, hobos, musicians, prostitutes, and dance hall workers. - Saw a city as "moral as well as a physical organization"

- Saw the city as commercial structure that owed "its existence to the market place around which it sprang up" - Complex division of labor driven by industrial competition. - Believed that market dominance would result in the steady erosion of traditional ways of life. - Past emphasis on "family ties, local associations . . . caste, and status" would yield inevitably to a gesellschaft-like system "based on occupation and vocational interests"

- Characterized by formal social structures, large-scale bureaucracies, such as police, courts, and welfare agencies. - These would replace "informal" means, neighborhood interactions, by which people organized their lives - Politics would develop a more formalized tone - Town meetings not suitable for government of cities - City dwellers rely on political or civic organizations run by party bosses or concerned citizens for information - Replace face-to-face oral network of villages created reliance on mass media, like newspaper, radio, tv, Internet

- Emphasis on the psychosocial dimension of urban life - Life in city becomes less sentimental and more rational. - Deep-seated sentiments, prejudices give way to self-interest - Erosion of traditional sentimental ties in the city might give rise to new social bonds in the form of interest groups

- Everyone finds somewhere among the varied manifestations of city life and feels at ease - In a small community it is the normal man, without eccentricity or genius who succeeds - Small communities often tolerate eccentricity - cities reward it. - Neither the criminal, the defective, nor the genius has the same opportunity to develop his innate disposition in a small town that he invariably finds in a great city

- Published "Urbanism as a Way of Life" - Urbanism = mode of life associated with growth of cities". - City dwellers become rational, self-interested, specialized, somewhat reserved, and highly tolerant - Organized others' theories into first theory of the city. - Isolated several factors he argued were universal social characteristics of the city. He then proceeded to deduce systematically the consequences of these factors for the character of urban social life. He said, in effect, as all good theorists do, that if this condition is present, then that condition will result. Wirth began with a definition of the city as a (1) large, (2) dense, permanent settlement with (3) socially and culturally heterogeneous people. Let's examine what conditions of urban social life follow from each of these elements.

Wirth believed, first, that large population size by itself produces great diversity in the cultural and occupational characteristics of a city. This diversity partly results from (1) the simple fact that larger numbers of people coming together logically increase the potential differentiation among themselves and (2) the migration of diverse groups to the city (as in Chicago, where Wirth was writing). Second, the condition of cultural diversity produced by a large population has the additional effect of creating a need for formal control structures, such as a legal system. Third, a large, differentiated population supports the proliferation of specialization, and an occupational structure based on differing occupations, such as artist, politician, and cabdriver, emerges. Fourth, specialization organizes human relationships more on an "interest-specific" basis, which Wirth described as "social segmentalization":Characteristically, urbanites meet one another in highly segmental roles. They are, to be sure, dependent on more people for the satisfactions of their life needs than are rural people . . . but they are less dependent upon particular persons, and their dependence upon others is confined to a highly fractionalized aspect of the other's round of activity. This is essentially what is meant by saying that the city is characterized by secondary rather than primary contacts. The contacts of the city may indeed be face-to-face, but they are never theless impersonal, superficial, transitory, and segmental. (Wirth and Reiss 1981:71) In other words, rather than understanding others in terms of who they are, the urbanite typically conceives of others in terms of what they do—in terms of their roles and what they can do to advance one's own ends. The qualities of rationality and sophistication are simply additional ways of suggesting that urban ties become, in essence, relationships of utility. Lastly, even with the stabilizing constraint provided by formal controls and professional codes of conduct, Wirth could not escape the conclusion that large population size carried with it the possibility of disorganization and disintegration, a fear shared by all the European theorists.136137

The consequence of population density is to intensify the effects of large population size on social life. Rather than manifesting the quality of sameness that one might associate with the countryside, the city separates into a mosaic of readily identifiable regions or districts. (Here, we can see the direct influence of Wirth's teacher, Park.) Both economic forces, such as differing land values, and social processes, such as attraction and avoidance based on race and ethnicity, tend to produce fairly distinct neighborhoods and districts. For example, many U.S. cities have a predominantly Italian area, such as Boston's North End; a Chinatown, such as San Francisco's; and a high-income area, such as Chicago's North Shore. Similarly, major cities frequently have a garment district and a financial district, such as New York's Wall Street. Wirth called this process of separating the city into districts "ecological specialization." The more common term today is natural areas, revealing that such places evolve as unplanned clusters. Density also operates on the social-psychological level. Exposed to "glaring contrasts . . . splendor and squalor . . . riches and poverty," Wirth (1938:14) argued, city dwellers developmental shorthand—a mental mapping of the city, its regions, and its inhabitants. This insight (drawn from Simmel) helps us understand the urbanite's tendency toward stereotypical and categorical thinking, as well as his or her reliance on grasping the city through visible symbols and uniforms, such as clothing, cars, and fashionable street addresses. The implication is clear—population density fosters a loss of sensitivity to the "more personal aspects" of others—and suggests why people in the city sometimes seem to be "cold and heartless." As suggested earlier by Durkheim and Simmel, Wirth (1938:15) contended that the "juxtaposition of divergent personalities and modes of life" results in a greater toleration of differences. In addition, physical closeness tends to increase social distance among urbanites. Forced into physical proximity, city dwellers characteristically close off or tune out those around them. (On a small scale, this happens when people, busily chatting, enter a crowded elevator and abruptly become silent, staring at the numbers on the floor indicator.)

In completing his theory of urbanism, Wirth suggested several consequences of social difference or heterogeneity. 137138First, "social interaction among such a variety of personality types in the urban milieu tends to break down the rigidity of caste lines and to complicate the class structure" (p. 16). Consequently, a heightened social mobility tends to exist in the city, because the inertia of family background weakens under the force of personal achievement. Second, physical movement typically accompanies social mobility. "Overwhelmingly the city dweller is not a homeowner and since a transitory habitat does not generate binding traditions and sentiments, only rarely is he a true neighbor" (p. 17). (Remember Kitty Genovese in the Urban Living box on page 128.) Finally, the concentration of diverse people leads inevitably to further depersonalization. Against a background of commercial mass production and consumption, an emphasis on money erodes personal relations, thus echoing a similar view of the city by Simmel. These three dimensions of Wirth's theory—size, density, and heterogeneity of population—interact to produce the unique way of life that he termed urbanism. Clearly, Wirth was pessimistic about urbanism as a way of life. He saw the city as an acid that, over time, dissolved traditional values and undermined the formation of institutions and meaningful relationships. Like Park, he touted the possibilities for greater freedom in the city, but he also worried that urbanism's positive aspects would inevitably be compromised by the disorganization he saw in turbulent Chicago. Only by massive efforts at urban planning, Wirth imagined, could people create a humane urban environment. As Wirth understood it, the essence of urban living was being cosmopolitan—literally, "belonging to all the world." Robert Merton (1968:447-53) drew a useful distinction between "localite" and "cosmopolitan" lifestyles. The life of the localite centers in the immediate area. Typically born in the area where they live, localites are bound up within social relations and life commitments encapsulated within that specific territory. Cosmopolites, on the other hand, are more rootless and think in terms of wider possibilities. They are more likely to move on (perhaps to new jobs or a better home). Whether rich or poor, cosmopolites display a certain degree of detachment, have a somewhat blasé attitude toward their immediate surroundings, and show a sophistication in matters of taste and friendship not typical of localites. Although Merton acknowledged that cosmopolites and localites could exist anywhere, the cosmopolitan attitude exists more frequently among city dwellers and the localite attitude is more typical in small towns or rural areas. Are cosmopolitanism and localism, however, set off as clearly as Merton thought they were? For one thing, cosmopolitanism is found in many small college towns, such as Gambier, Ohio. Then, too, Chicago, Toronto, and most other large cities contain residential enclaves where localism abounds—Hispanic neighborhoods, Vietnamese communities, perhaps a Chinatown, or maybe an old upper-class area. If this is the case, then possibly the city doesn't produce a distinctive way of life at all. Or so argues Herbert Gans, the most out-spoken critic of the Wirthian position.

Herbert Gans (1991) contended that the city is a mosaic of many lifestyles, only some of which resemble the cosmopolitanism described by Wirth. Furthermore, he argued that Wirth's key variables—size of population, density, and social heterogeneity—cannot account for most of these lifestyles, and that his macrosocial analysis does not explain how most city dwellers see their own lives. Exploring lifestyle diversity in North American cities, Gans identified four types of urban lifestyles: (1) the cosmopolites, (2) the unmarried or childless, (3) the ethnic villagers, and (4) the deprived or trapped. Cosmopolites are highly educated, urban sophisticates who choose to live in the city because of its wide range of activities, experiences, and social contacts. They include intellectuals, artists, musicians, writers, and students. The second urban lifestyle, the unmarried or childless, frequently overlaps with the cosmopolite category. It includes single adults or couples without 138139children and/or people whose children are grown up and now on their own. The ethnic villagers, often first- and second-generation, working-class residents, show almost none of the so-called typical urban characteristics noted by Wirth. Instead, they sustain many rural life patterns in the city by claiming a local area, emphasizing traditional religious beliefs and family ties, and displaying suspicion of outsiders. Gans's remaining category—the deprived or trapped—includes the poor, the handicapped, those in broken family situations, and those of non-white racial backgrounds who wish to move from deteriorating neighborhoods but lack the financial means to do so.

We must not be too quick to accept the negative judgments from Wirth and other Chicago sociologists. Like their European colleagues, Chicago sociologists were responding to one kind of city—namely, a North American city moving into the high gear of industrialization. Neglecting historical or cross-cultural comparisons limited the significance of their work. How would their evaluation of the urban environment have changed had they, like Weber, looked at other cities in history or in a cross-cultural perspective? Chicago sociology may be skewed for yet another reason. Park's insistence regarding on-site study, coupled with his interest in urban disorganization and problems, led him and his colleagues to concentrate on the "seamy side" of city life. A glance at the group's classic publications, brilliant though many of them are, reveals this bias: Nels Anderson, The Hobo (1923); Ernest Mowner, Family Disorganization (1927); Harvey Zorbaugh, The Gold Coast and the Slum (1928); Frederich Thrasher, The Gang (1929); Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, Social Factors in Juvenile Delinquency (1931); Paul Cressey, The Taxi Dance Hall (1932); Norman Hayner, Hotel Life (1936); and Edwin H. Sutherland, The Professional Thief (1937). Although many other aspects of city urban life exist for possible exploration, Wirth based his theory heavily on the evidence supplied by such studies. Limitations notwithstanding, the Chicago group made great contributions. Park deserves lasting credit for his rejection of armchair theorizing in favor of studying the city firsthand, and Wirth deserves credit for the first true urban theory, which became a persuasive document that dominated the field for the next 20 years. All in all, Chicago sociologists were almost solely responsible for the early growth of urban sociology in the United States (Bulmer 1986). Gans's contribution, on the other hand, was to call our attention to the complexities of urban life. Our previous discussion of prominent urban "types" as discerned by Gans is only a partial list. Obviously, there are countless variations of all these lifestyles—and that is the point. So many urban lifestyles exist that it makes little sense to claim, as Wirth did, that the city produces a relatively uniform type of human being. The rather hard-nosed, calculating person who Wirth conceptualized as the typical urban dweller does appear—most frequently in the cosmopolite and unmarried or childless categories. Even among these people, however, Wirth's variables of population size, density, and heterogeneity appear to have limited effect. For instance, many cosmopolites can buy the space they need to fend off what they believe is excessive density, just as many ethnic villagers positively thrive in high-density neighborhoods. Population size or scale may indeed increase the number of secondary or segmented relationships, said Gans, but most individuals maintain as many primary relationships as non-city dwellers. Moreover, since their social focus is on their neighborhood, family, co-workers, and co-religionists, no increased social distance occurs because of population density or increased depersonalization because of heterogeneity, as Wirth maintained. Instead, Gans noted, city residents function in smaller social worlds at home, work, and play, enjoying the same life satisfactions as others of their social class in other environments. Thus, while cities may act on us in much the way that Wirth claimed, we need to keep several limitations in mind. First, few lifestyles 139140found in cities exist only there, and second, the determinants of these lifestyles are largely people's general social class characteristics rather than the city itself (an area we will explore more fully in Chapter 10). That is, cosmopolites live as they do because they are affluent and highly educated; likewise, the lives of the deprived and the trapped reflect poverty, a lack of skills and schooling, and often enough, racial or ethnic discrimination. We can make a similar argument for any other lifestyle on the list. Wirth's mistake was in generalizing too much from the urban conditions of the time during which he lived. Observing the incredibly rapid growth of North American and European cities early in the twentieth century, Wirth became convinced the city was a powerful force that would come to dominate human life. A generation later, Gans and others could see that this simply wasn't happening: Urban diversity continued to flourish. Today, we can conclude that urbanization—the clustering of population in some areas—does not necessarily generate urbanism—a single, distinctive way of life

A third approach both accepts and rejects various elements offered by Wirth and Gans. While agreeing with Wirth that something is different about the city and its people, Claude S. Fischer (1975, 1995), in what he called a subcultural theory of urbanism, rejected Wirth's main point by insisting that the urban milieu strengthens, not destroys, group relationships. Fischer also disagrees with Gans that the different urban lifestyles are incidental, because particular groups of people—for example, ethnic minorities, artistic avant-garde, and professionals—choose to live in the cities and, consequently, their lifestyles typify cities (1995:544). Fischer—in arguing against the determinist view of Wirth—suggested that the size, density, and heterogeneity of cities are positive factors that promote cohesion, and they are not negative elements causing alienation, disorganization, or depersonalization. Once in a city, people with similar, even unconventional, interests, values, or behaviors seek out each other for their own meeting places and habitats. As they gather in sufficient size and density, they attain critical mass, that level needed to generate self-sustaining momentum. These subcultures, based on shared traits, flourish in large cities and attract still more like-minded people (Fischer 1995:545). Examples include the entertainment community in Hollywood, the country music people in Nashville, and the gay community in Philadelphia. Such specialized places rarely exist in non-urban areas, because the critical mass of people of any one type simply isn't there (often because they have moved to a city in order to benefit from precisely the critical mass that Fischer describes). Since cities are both more heterogeneous and more populous than other places, these subcultures will develop there more frequently, and with greater intensity, than in less urban areas. A large city magnifies these effects in a special way. Its diversity brings urban residents into far more contact with people from different subcultures than can occur in a smaller municipality. Unable to achieve a critical mass, people in non-urban areas with unconventional interests are more likely to remain fragmented, unable to form subcultures, and thus experience the negative consequences that Wirth envisioned happening in cities. Interestingly, says Fischer, increased contact also leads to a mutual influence through cultural diffusion—for example, hip hop and rap music moving out of urban black culture and into mainstream urban culture. As elements of the atypical subculture infiltrate the wider urban society, the city develops an unconventionality in comparison to other settings (Fischer 1995: 545-46). In short, Fischer's theory maintains that Wirth's size, density, and heterogeneity of cities are what generate the social dynamics to produce intense subcultures, as characterized by Gans, leading, in turn, to diffusion into the general characteristics of urban dwellers.140141 For city residents, the streets are the "rivers of life," where people-watching and social interaction are the everyday norm. This privatization of public space—setting up crates or chairs on the sidewalk, sitting on front stoops or a bench, playing games, or holding a street fair—is the urban equivalent to the suburbanites' front and back yards combined, and it is often much more interesting.

Is the city a heaven or a hell? Is it a place where the best attributes of human life emerge or where people inevitably "go bad"? The seventeenth-century English poet Abraham Cowley thought he knew the answer when he wrote, "God the first garden made, and the first city, Cain." Was he right? The weight of the classic tradition—European and North American—is on Cowley's side; despite qualifiers and hopeful asides, only a rare few were mostly optimistic. Wirth's theory symbolizes this verdict. On the one hand, he suggested that people in the city are more tolerant, but on the other hand, he asserted that city people are impersonal and detached from meaningful relationships. Wirth concluded that the city tends toward social pathology (crime, violence, and mental illness), a tendency only made worse as urban density increases. Are these observations correct? More than seven decades have passed since the publication of Wirth's urban theory. Since then, a great many other social scientists have investigated cities and urban life and gathered additional evidence.

Early urban theory contended that the characteristic aloofness and social diversity of the city produced an atmosphere of tolerance, in contrast to the jealous parochialism of the village and small town. Most researchers who looked closely at the relationship between urban life and tolerance concluded that a greater tolerance of others' lifestyles and attitudes is, in fact, more prevalent in cities than in rural areas. These findings persist both 141142across time and across different measures of tolerance, even when taking into account such related factors as education and income (Carter, et al. 2005). One factor that may lend itself to greater tolerance in the city is migration. One research study found that tolerance increased among those moving to a city, regardless of the size of the destination community (Wilson 1991). Perhaps geographical mobility—moving to a more heterogeneous locale—also enhances one's mental mobility in relating to strangers.

- Loneliness, indifference, and anonymity - As the number of people interacting increases, attention becomes distributed more broadly, and so impersonality inevitably must rise. - Wirth summarized this argument by saying, Increase in the number of inhabitants of a community beyond a few hundred is bound to limit the possibility of each member of the community knowing all the others personally Yet the "urban anonymity" thesis fails to recognize that many urbanites are not the lonely lot that Wirth and others implied. For example, as early as the 1940s, William F. Whyte's Street Corner Society (1993; orig. 1943), a study of an Italian immigrant area in a slum district of Boston, revealed the existence of strong family, neighborhood, and friendship ties. Soon after, other studies (Bell and Boat 1957; Bruce 1970; Greer 1998) confirmed that primary ties were not incompatible with city living. Indeed, in some areas of the city—ethnic neighborhoods, for example—such ties appear to be as intense and intimate as any in rural areas. These self-segregated but close-knit communities enable residents, often with limited proficiency in English, to rely on one another and avoid whatever interethnic prejudice may exist against them (Bouma-Doff 2007). Ethnicity is not the only bond among urban dwellers. Kinship, occupation, lifestyle, and other personal attributes also form the basis for group ties. For example, many cities contain districts of college students, elderly people, homosexuals, artists and musicians, and wealthy socialites. More broadly, people with interests in common, wherever they may live, may remain in close contact with one another through an interactional network, using the Internet, telephone, restaurants and bars, and special meeting places. Perhaps, however, these are the exceptions. What of the lonely crowd living in all those high-rises, the people who don't know any of their neighbors? Doesn't Wirth's theory accurately describe them? Recent research suggests that this notion, too, may be exaggerated. The fact that one does not necessarily know (or want to know) one's urban neighbors does not mean that the urban dweller has no personal relationships. Indeed, what seems to be significant about the urban environment is not the lack of ties of attachment but, rather, how these ties vary. That is, cities seem to encourage alternative types of relationships more than other environments do. Also, it is important to understand that the neighborhood context affects the neighboring ties (Guest, et al. 2006). For example, residents in a luxury high-rise who engage in similar activities—for example, dog walking, health club, or patronizing the arts—may develop closer relationships with neighbors more easily compared with those in a low-income high-rise who may be less likely to engage in shared activities. In the city, however, meaningful personal relationships are not dependent on a limited geographic area like a small town; a sense of community may evolve through social networks that integrate or separate, include or exclude, others in meaningful personal relations, communication, and exchanges (Piselli 2007). Think of urban people you know. Most have friends and relatives, but not always in the same building or even the same neighborhood. Strong informal ties can result from ongoing face-to-face connections with friends and relatives anywhere, and so no real difference in a sense of well-being typically exists among urban, suburban, and rural residents (Mair and Thivierge-Rikard 2010).142143 Without question, the proliferation of cell phones has had a dramatic impact on our social interactions. By providing more frequent personal conversations without the constraints of access to a landline phone, cell phones enable greater connectivity among people. Such an enhancement of social networking is an important factor in negating the potential impersonality of the city. Urban neighboring, however, can vary markedly—from active and intense relationships to impersonal nods, because of the diversity of neighborhood types (Talen 2006a). Working-class people, for example, usually live in "tighter" neighborhoods, whereas upper-middle-class people typically have networks of friends dispersed over a wide area. Similarly, people with children tend to be more "localized" in their orientation compared with single people "on the move." Such differing interaction patterns reinforce the view of Herbert Gans (1962), who, in a stinging critique, concluded that the "impersonality" Wirth saw in the city as a whole characterized, at best, only the most poverty-stricken and down-and-out of the city's residents. Neighborhood context or environment—including residential stability, levels of affluence, mixed land use, and degree of upkeep in the area—is an important consideration for the type of neighbor ties that prevail in urban life (Guest, et al. 2006). Other means for urban connectedness abound. The telephone and the Internet make possible extensive contact without face-to-face interaction. Consider, too, the proliferation in cities of voluntary associations, such as film societies, singles bars, health and natural food centers, karate clubs, meditation and yoga centers, and physical fitness centers. Participants living throughout the urban area often establish primary relationships with one another in such organizations. Urbanization can thus encourage all kinds of non-kin social ties, possibly segmented by activity but nonetheless developed through choice and shared interests (Curtis, et al. 2003). Wirth's mistake, and that of other classical theorists, was to allow the most visible aspects of city life, its public demeanor, to become the basis of his theory about urban living in 143144general. Although, following Park, he did acknowledge the neighborhood element in city life, he tended to focus his attention on "street behavior," where he saw the hustling, competing, and apparently lonely crowd. By not examining more closely the private lives of the city's citizens, however, he inadvertently distorted urban life into a stereotype of impersonality. We come, then, to the conclusion that the early analysts took abstract constructions, such as gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, or mechanical and organic solidarity, as comparable to such real, concrete settings as actual villages and cities. The overall social order of the city may place greater emphasis on gesellschaft, and the village more toward gemeinschaft, but it is incorrect to assume that either gemeinschaft or gesellschaft exists in any absolute, concrete sense. An important difference exists between the statement that one commonly sees more strangers in cities and the statement that cities are impersonal. In some ways, they are; in other ways, they most certainly are not.

Perhaps the most provocative idea put forth by the classical theorists—particularly Simmel, Park, and Wirth—was that human beings react to increasing population density with psychological disorder, such as mental illness, or antisocial behavior, such as crime or aggression. One source of support for this hypothesis is our own common sense. Probably all of us have experienced some measure of frustration and aggression in crowded settings—trying to push our way through the turnstile at a stadium, or fuming as hundreds of cars coalesce in a massive traffic jam. It is easy to assume that the place where this occurs—the city—is responsible for our feelings. But are we reacting to the condition of urban crowding, or are we merely experiencing the same sense of frustration that we might feel if our car broke down along a lonely country road? A second source of the alleged linkage between density and pathology is research that appears to have some bearing on the quality of urban life. For example, John B. Calhoun (1962; Ramsden 2011) found that in rat populations, overcrowding produced a reaction he termed a "behavioral sink"—an environment in which aborted pregnancies, higher infant mortality, homosexuality, and cannibalism abounded. Calhoun made no attempt to suggest that human beings would respond in a similar fashion to conditions of crowding, but Edward Hall argued that such a connection was not only conceivable but also accurately described urban life. "The implosion of the world population into cities everywhere," Hall wrote, "is creating a series of destructive behavioral sinks more lethal than the hydrogen bomb" (1990:165; orig. 1966). Hall realized that different groups of people—whites and blacks, for example—might have different cultural expectations about spatial behavior. Yet he appeared to believe that all these different reactions have a biological basis, and that the human species, like rats, has a genetically determined need for a certain amount of space. He asserted that any transgression of this built-in barrier—for example, a crowded apartment or a dense city block—would likely result in abnormal behavior. One problem with this argument is that no one has been able to locate any genetic code for spatial behavior in humans. Without evidence of such linkage, projecting onto human beings who are living in cities what we know about animal pathology and overcrowding is highly questionable. It may well be, for example, that people's perceived needs for space are entirely learned, and that they react negatively to violations of their learned spatial expectations much as they would to an insult against their learned religious beliefs. Hall also points to the high incidence of "social problems" (addiction and crime) in densely settled, low-income areas of the city. Yet addiction, crime, and crowding may appear together because of some other factor or factors such as poverty, unemployment, and/or racial discrimination. Moreover, subsequent research that considered such factors found little or no evidence that crowding had any of the negative effects suggested by Hall

A last hypothesis put forth by most of the classical theorists concerned "urban malaise." They suggested that conditions of density aside, the urban environment created loneliness, depression, and anxiety more readily than other types of settlement. Research studies over the past 40 years, however, have found no significant difference in the mental health of urban versus non-urban residents. Instead, such variables as education, income, and self-perceived resources were more closely associated with mental health and depression (Bagby, et al. 2008; Eshbaugh, et al. 2006; Link and Phalen 1995; Roxburgh 2009; Srole 1972). Also, as suggested earlier, the neighborhood context—such as people's health, social cohesion, or perceptions of problems—is a key factor (Pampalon, et al. 2007). If urban residents are socioeconomically disadvantaged, they are more likely to be mistrusting, especially if their neighborhoods show signs of physical decay and disorder like graffiti, vandalism, abandoned buildings, noise, crime, or drug use (Kruger, et al. 2007; Mair, et al. 2010). In Baltimore, for example, researchers found that neighborhood violent crime had a direct impact on residents' depressive symptoms (Curry, et al. 2008). Apparently, then, the city, in and of itself, does not create greater psychological distress, but problem neighborhoods do. Elsewhere, the higher population density of urban places may well have positive effects, such as making more people socially accessible to each other. When it comes to city dwellers dealing with their environment, it seems, as the Urban Living box on page 146 suggests, that the vast majority do quite well. Overall, little evidence supports many of the specific claims made by the classical theorists about urban living. The city is clearly not 145146a heaven, but neither is it the hell that some thought it to be. The city is more tolerant than other types of settlement, is not as impersonal as many thought it was, and does not produce greater rates of malaise or other pathologies. On the basis of what we now know, there is reason for more optimism than that shown by most classical theorists. The reality, in short, is more complex—and more hopeful—than the myths.

How is it possible, given the fast pace and obvious stresses of urban life, that city residents can maintain mental health comparable to that of country folks? One explanation offered by experts: The relationship between stress and mental and physical pathology is dependent not so much on the nature of the stress as on the individual's perception of it. The brain has been called a stimulus-reduction system—a means to reduce, in order to comprehend, the nearly infinite number of stimuli that reach the senses at any given moment. It is an aspect of the brain that seems to be tailor-made for life in the city. An out-of-towner caught in midtown Manhattan at rush hour, for example, may feel under enormous pressure and strain, but New Yorkers, with their stimulus-reduction mechanism operating at full steam, hardly feel any special stress at all. By the same token, the big-city residents may ignore the loud, the profane, the drunk, and the demented—phenomena that might compromise the mental equilibrium of the uninitiated. Related statistics support such thinking. Diala and Muntaner (2003) found that rural men reported more mood and anxiety disorders than urban men, perhaps a function of diminishing resources (steady, high-paying jobs) or increasing financial strain, particularly among whites, who comprise a majority of rural residents. No differences by place of residence existed among females. The National Center for Health Statistics (2007) conducted a national self-report survey of negative affect items related to anxiety, depression, and stress among city, suburban, and rural residents. The findings showed little difference in the prevalence of negative mood in metropolitan areas (7.7 percent) versus non-metropolitan areas (7.9 percent). A slightly higher prevalence of negative mood, however, occurred among city residents (8 percent) compared to rural residents (7 percent), but this is hardly sufficient to claim that urbanites experience more stress in their lives than those living outside the city.

All this research produced a shift in the way that many urbanists approach their subject matter, because the classic hypotheses about the city advanced by Simmel, Wirth, and others wilted under careful scrutiny. By the 1980s, research disproved some theories and required serious modification of others. Emerging from the rubble was something first called "the new urban sociology" (Walton 1981) and now often identified as "critical urban sociology," although that designation is by no means unanimous. Instead of an emphasis on the role of technology or urban ecology, this newer approach directs attention toward social conflict, inequality, and change as they affect cities, and it does so within a global context. No single theory captures critical urban sociology, although neo-Marxists and conflict theorists 146147predominate. We will explore this important approach in Chapter 7. Before we do so, however, we will first examine its predecessor, the urban ecological approach.

The context in which urban sociology emerged was one of remarkable change. Indeed, the ferment associated with the Industrial Revolution was responsible for sociologists noticing the city as an object of study in the first place. What have we learned from them? First, they suggested specific aspects of the city for urban sociological focus, and second, they attempted to analyze the nature of the city in general. In the latter instance, they had both successes and failures. On the positive side, they correctly saw elements of social life in the city not prominent elsewhere. They saw more specialized occupations, more formalized interaction patterns, more rationality, and a more rapid tempo of life. On the negative side, they erred in some of their specific claims about the nature of the city. They were right about the existence of greater tolerance, but they exaggerated the city's impersonality. Also, they apparently were wrong in their generalizations about urban pathology. The context in which these sociologists wrote played a significant role in their misperceptions. Seeing cities growing by millions of inhabitants with seemingly unconquerable problems, they reasoned that the city itself must be the cause of these ills. Another limitation is the narrowness of all early theory. Marx and Engels saw cross-cultural differences in how civilization evolved in Western compared with Eastern cities, but they concentrated on the economic system as the basis for all attributes of an urban society. Tönnies and Durkheim employed the comparison of oppositional types but did not consider the city in concrete historical settings. Simmel added the social-psychological dimension, although he, too, considered only cities of one time and place. Weber argued for the importance of exploring cities in cross-cultural and historical perspective but wrote little about the modern city (perhaps a subtle way of indicating that he—like all his colleagues except Durkheim—also saw it in a negative light). Park and Wirth both provided breakthroughs. Park demanded that on-site city research be an integral part of urban sociology, thereby providing the mechanism for getting beyond the surface impressions of the urban environment. Ironically, however, his focus on urban problems and his lack of a comparative historical frame led him to the same negative conclusions about the city as others. Wirth then tried to build a theory of the city by linking the suggestions of his colleagues. A major difficulty was that he built his theory on Park's skewed database and the somewhat misleading evaluations of the European tradition. Wirth's hypothesis was that the city's unique ecological characteristics—large numbers, density, and social heterogeneity—produce a single characteristic lifestyle. Refuting Wirth's hypothesis, Gans argued that sociocultural characteristics, such as class, age, gender, and race, are the real architects of people's lives. Countering this claim, Fischer replied that Wirth was not all wrong. In his view, the city's ecological traits do affect people's lives, but not in quite the way that Wirth suggested. Rather than producing an effect directly, Fischer argued, large numbers, density, and heterogeneity intensify other characteristics in order to produce pronounced urban lifestyles. Recent research refuted many of the specific claims made by Wirth and his colleagues. Early work saw the city as the cause of greater impersonality, poorer mental health, and various forms of stressful or pathological behavior. Modern research, however, has revealed that such broad generalizations are false; the neighborhood context is the best indicator of the attitudes and perceptions of its residents. The new urban sociology, which emerged in the wake of the classical urbanists' failing theories, sees the city as existing in a complex historical, cultural, and economic global setting

What we take from the classical tradition is its interest in urban studies per se and its combined model of urban analysis. A useful urban analysis must (1) examine the city in both its social-structural and psychosocial dimensions, (2) study actual cities in historical and comparative perspectives, (3) be aware that no overarching theory of the city can explain urban life, and (4) evaluate cities in terms of the quality of human life. It will be the task of the remaining chapters to do justice to this tradition.