The Urban World, 9 th Ed.

The Urban World, 9th Ed. J. John Palen

Chapter 1: The Urban World • Outline: • Introduction • The Process of Urbanization • Urban Growth • Megacities • The Urban Explosion • Defining Urban Areas • Urbanization and Urbanism • Organizing the Study of Urban Life • Concepts of the City • Early Social Theories and Urban Change • Summary • Review Questions

Introduction • In 2010, the United States population surpassed 308 million • 4 out of 5 Americans now live in metropolitan areas

The Process of Urbanization • The first villages emerged around 11,000 years ago. • Cities have only existed for 7,000-10,000 years. • In 1800, the population of the world was still 97 percent rural. • In 1900, the world was still 86 percent rural. • Civilization and civilized come from the Latin civis, which refers to a citizen living in a city. • The Roman civitas referred to the political and moral nature of the community. • The Roman urbs, from which we get the term urban, referred to the built form of the city.

Urban Growth • Until 1920, over half of the U.S. population was rural. The same was true for Canada until 1931. • Urban revolution refers to the rapid growth of cities during the 19th and 20th centuries. • It is estimated that by 2030 some 60 percent of the world’s population will live in urban places.

Figure 1.1 Figure 1.1 Percentage of population residing in urban areas by major area, 1950, 1975, 2005, and 2030

Megacities • The United Nations uses the term megacities to designate places of over 10 million inhabitants. • Three important facts: • Massive urbanization in a very recent phenomenon, even in the West. • Over 95 percent of future urban growth will occur in cities of the developing world. • About half the urban residents in developing countries live in slums (currently 1 billion).

Figure 1.2 Population growth by region, 1900-2020

The Urban Explosion • Urban growth first accelerated cumulatively during the 19th and 20th centuries. • Important reasons for European population spurt • Declining death rates • The beginning of scientific management of agriculture • Improved transportation and communication systems • Stable political governments • The development of the Industrial Revolution

Defining Urban Areas • There are about 30 definitions for urban population, with various and overlapping criteria used. • The United Nations accepts each nation’s definition of what it considers urban • Gesellschaft: larger-scale “societal” or formal role relationships • Gemeinschaft: more intimate-scale “community” or primary relationships • Worldwide, the percentage of the population living in urban places varies from 10 percent in Burundi to 100 percent in Qatar, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Urbanization and Urbanism • Urbanization: the number of people in urban areas; the process by which rural areas become transformed into urban areas • There is a limit to the urbanization possible, but the practical limit for the size of cities or metropolitan areas is not yet known. • Urbanism: refers to the social patterns and behaviors associated with living in cities

Organizing the Study of Urban Life • Human ecological approach: broadly concerned with how the ecology of the city developed, particularly the interrelationship and interdependence of organisms and their environment • Political economy: an approach widely used by urban scholars that gives less weight to ecology and look more toward the explicit political and economic decisions made by multinationals and political institutions to explain population changes • Cultural, sociocultural, or social psychological approach: focuses on how the experience of living in cities affects people’s social relationships and personalities

Concepts of the City • Urban Change and Confusion • Systematic empirical examination of cities and city life only began recently. • Rural Simplicities Versus Urban Complexity • Fighting the stereotypes

Early Social Theories and Urban Change • European Theorists, including Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim • Typologies: • Ideal Type: a model; a logical construct i.e. Weber’s contrast of “traditional society” and “rational society” • Assumptions • The evolutionary movement from simple rural to complex urban is unilinear • Modern urban life stresses achievement over ascription • The supposed characteristics of city life apply not just to specific groups or neighborhoods but to urban areas as a whole • The Chicago School • Associated with a group of scholars, including Robert Park and Louis Wirth, connected with the University of Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s • Converted sociology into an established academic discipline and an emerging science

The Urban World, 9 th Ed.