URBAN SOCIOLOGY

UPPP 40

Maria G. Rendón
WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?
 It is the scientific study of society, including patterns of
social relationships, social interaction, and culture
 Sociologists study all things human, from the interactions
between small groups of people to the complex relationships
between nations or multinational corporations, including how our
economic, political and cultural structures shape the way we think
and act, the decisions we make and our life outcomes.

 Sociologists believe that our social surroundings influence

thought and action.
AGENCY VS. STRUCTURE
 Agency
 Individual choices and actions
 You yourself have agency, your own identity, your own choices that
affect your life

 Structure
 Supra-individual factors that influence your choices, behavior,
identity. These include contexts shaped by laws and policies, like
your neighborhood or political economy. Structure can also refer to
the institutions people are embedded in – like family, school,
religion, etc. or social networks you are part of (kin, ethnic, class,
gender, age, sorority/fraternity, peers, etc.)

 Structure factors shape your social constraints and opportunities

COLLECTIVE PHENOMENON
 Special attributes of groups that are not present in
the constituent individuals

 These are not mere aggregations, but something special

about collection of individuals that one can learn about
only by studying groups and not by studying individuals.
DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
 Macro
 Globalization
 Economy
 Political System & Government
 Popular Culture

 Meso
 Social Networks
 Institutions
 Family
 Religion
 School
 Work
 Neighborhoods

 Micro
 Social interactions
 Cultural Views
 Behaviors/Actions
 URBAN SOCIOLOGY
• Is the sociological study of life and human interaction in
metropolitan areas. It seeks to study the structures, processes,
changes and problems of an urban area and by doing so
provide inputs for urban planning and policy making
 URBANIZATION, GLOBAL PHENOMENON
 First time in history – more people live in urban than rural
areas
 Estimated by 2050, 80% world population will be living in urban
areas
 Population Explosion, Changes in the Environment,
Conflicts/Wars– Driving the Growth & Challenges of Urban
Cities

 Issues:
 Consumption – Energy, Food, Water
 Sanitation & Health –Disease, Mental Health

 Diversity –Conflict, Equity

 Governance – Distribution of resources; private, public?

 MEGACITIES
Metropolitan areas with over 10 million residents

 Dhaka, Bangladesh – Fastest Growing Megacity

 Why is this kind of urbanization happening?

Some reasons:
 Population - people living longer, less likely to die younger
 Changes in Ecological Systems – water rising, global warming,
migration flows
 Changes in Economy – where are the jobs?
 WHAT DRIVES URBANIZATION?
 Technology/Innovation, Political Economy
and Social Changes

 By the late 1800s, the old order was

collapsing “under the twin blows of
industrialism and revolutionary democracy”
(Nisbet, 1966: 21).

 Mechanical industry was growing, and

thousands of people were migrating to cities
to work in the new factories. People once
rooted in the land and social communities
where they farmed found themselves
crowded into cities. The traditional
authority of the church, the village, and the
family were being undermined by
impersonal factory and city life.
 SOCIAL THEORISTS
 Karl Marx (1818-1883)- German philosopher,
economist, sociologist; social theorist

 Critical of Capitalism -
 Dismantled rural economies and social relations. Few
people owned the means of production—such as
factories—while many others had to sell their labor to
those owners.

 Class conflict at the center of urbanization.

Bourgeoisie (ownership class) must constantly
revolutionize the instruments of production, thereby
the relations of production and the whole society.
 Essential Workers
in the Covid-19 Context:
Most Exposed, Among Most Exploited
FRIEDRICK ENGELS (1820-1895)
 Marx collaborator; Engels book The Condition of the
Working Class, 1844, one of earliest on urban socio-
politics
Friedrich Engels “The Great Towns” (1844)
On The Conditions of the Working Class in (Manchester)
England

The town is itself peculiarly built, so that a person

may live in it for years, and go in and out daily
without coming into contact with a working
people’s quarter or even with workers; that is, so
long as he confines himself to his business or to his
pleasure walks. This arises chiefly from the fact,
that by unconscious tacit agreement, as well as
by unspoken conscious determination, the
working people’s quarters are sharply separated
from the sections of the city reserved for the
middle class; or, if this does not succeed, they are
concealed with a cloak of charity...And the finest
arrangement of this...money aristocracy can take
the shortest road through the middle of all the
laboring districts...without ever seeing they are in
the midst of grimy misery...”
 URBANIZATION
 Altered social life, social relationships, how we live and even
how long we lived
 Urban problems emerged: housing issues, public health and
environmental issues, incarceration, social relations across class and
race - trust, community ?
THE CHICAGO SCHOOL
 Moved away from normative thinking to scientific analysis –
encouraged observation and ethnography
 URBANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE, WIRTH
 Three
city characteristics contribute to “Urban
Way of Life” or “Urban Personality” Type

Sizeof Population
Density
Heterogeneity