THE CONCEPT of CITY the Word “City” Is Derived from “Civitas” Which Is a Greek Word Which Means Cultivation Or Cultivati

THE CONCEPT OF CITY

The word “City” is derived from “Civitas” which is a Greek word which means cultivation or cultivating. The idea of cultivating is related to civilization.

City : City forms the central point of urban sociology. It makes the highest watermark of human civilization. Then what is a city? From 17th century onwards city has become a subject of scientific research of various social scientists. Like many other sociological categories, the city is an abstraction composed of concrete entities like residences and shops and an assortment of many functions.

ORIGIN OF TOWNS AND CITIES

Although cities have their roots in the villages, they are not merely enlarged villages. The earlier cities, which grew along fertile river valleys in the Middle East and Asia, were an entirely new kind of society. Domestication of plants and animals in course of time provided material surplus, a third pre-condition for the growth of urban centres, i.e., cities developed when certain categories of work were no longer carried out by the people who worked the land, but by others who were freed from this obligation and who were supported by the surplus produced by the cultivators. This distinction created a stratified society of the ruling elite and subordinates. This new class of people focused their energies on making tools (for the new farming methods that developed out of the agricultural revolution), weapons and gathering wood for shelter/ heat. These jobs were not associated with the survival of the group but were created because of the settlement. Sjoberg called a city ‘a community of substantial size and population density that shelters a variety of non-agricultural specialists, including a Liternte elite’ and Louis Wirth defined a city as ‘a relatively large, dense and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals.’

According to historians, Jericho, which lies to the north of the Dead Sea, is the first ever developed city. About 8000 BCE, Jericho contained some 600 people, and by 4000 BCE, it was one of the numerous cities flourishing in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in the present day Iraq and by 3000 BCE, along the Nile River in Egypt and the Indus River in India- Pakistan.

THE GROWTH OF A CITY

In 1800 BCE, urbanization in Europe was centred in the Mediterranean island of Civic. However, within few years, more than 100 cities developed in Greece, Athens being the most famous among them. As Greek civilization faded, the city of Rome grew to almost 1 million inhabitants and became the centre of a vast empire, which not only established some of the major cities like Vienna, Paris and London, but also spread its language, arts, and technology to the whole of Europe, northern Africa and Asia, including India.

The pie- industrial or pre-colonial urban centres in India had tended to be political at the core, their rise and fall often closely linked to the sponsoring political regime, though the addition of commercial and religious activities had given the urban centre a certain immunity from political vicissitudes.

These conditions heightened during the times of change from a pre-industrial society to an industrial one. It is at this time that many new commercial enterprises were made possible, thus creating new jobs in cities. It is also a result of industrialization that farms became more mechanized, putting many labourers out of work. Throughout the middle ages, steadily increasing commerce enriched a new urban middle class or bourgeoisie (French, meaning ‘of the town’). By the 15th century, the power of the bourgeoisie rivaled that of the hereditary nobility.

By about 1750, industrialization was underway in Europe, which led to the second urban revolution, first in Europe and then North America. Factories unleashed a tremendous productive power by making cities to grow to an unprecedented size. During this time, cities not only grew but also changed their shape from being planned ones in the broad, straight boulevards, etc. shapes to unplanned irregular shapes. The streets of these new cities grew haphazardly and in all directions accommodating the commercial traffic including the steam and electric trolleys. Commodities could be bought and sold during this period; the developers, therefore, divided the land into regular sized lots and sold them. Before long, city life no longer revolved around the cathedrals; instead, bustling central business districts arose, filled with banks, retail stores and the ever- taller office buildings.

The cities from then on focused on business leading to urbanism or the urban way of life. The increasingly crowded cities became impersonal, crime rate increased and class stratification became prominent, i.e., some rich people lived in grand style but for most men, women and children factory work proved exhausting and provided bare subsistence. Organized efforts by workers and other city dwellers to improve the civic conditions of the city led to legal regulations of the workplace, better housing and the right to vote or universal franchise. Public services such as water, sewage and electricity further enhanced urban living standards.

Sociologists today categorize cities/towns in terms of the degree to which they have been industrialized or are capable of providing urban amenities. Thus, cities/towns can be folk, pre-literate, feudal, pre- industrial and urban industrial. However, cities still continue along on a continuum such as rural-urban continuum.

THE GROWTH OF BIG CITIES IN INDIA

With 9,165,650 persons, Calcutta is the most thickly populated city in the country, according to 1981 census figures.

Greater Bombay comes next with 8,202,759 followed by Delhi with 5,227,730 and Madras 4,276,635. Men outnumber women in all the 12 cities, where the population is above one million.

In all the four metropolitan cities, the literacy percentage was above 60% with Greater Bombay at the top with 68.16%. Bombay accounts for literate males (74.43%) and females (60.58%) sex-wise.

RURAL- URBAN CONTINUUM – MEANING AND DEFINITION

Rural-urban continuum, the merging of town and country, a term used in recognition of the fact that in general there is rarely, either physically or socially, a sharp division, a clearly marked boundary between the two, with one part of the population wholly urban, the other wholly rural.

According to Professor A.R. Desai, ‘Social life in the country-side moves and develops in a rural setting just as social life in the urban area moves and develops in an urban setting, their respective settings considerably determine rural and urban social life’. From the analytical point of view, the characteristics of these two modes of living are represented by two concepts namely ‘ruralism’ and ‘urbanism’. Ruralism signifies the rural mode of living in which there is predominance of traditions, customs, and folk culture and joint family. On the other hand, urbanism signifies the urban mode of living in which there is predominance of impersonal relations, individualism and secondary associations.

The rural social world is different from the urban social world. There is a valid distinction between village and city in terms of two different ethos of life, cultural patterns, socio-cultural groupings and modes of earning and livelihood. However, there are also structural similarities between the two with regard to the patterns of caste, kinship, rules of marriages, observance of religious practices, migrations, educational institutions, employment opportunities and administration are the other institutional sources of linkages between villages and cities. Thus, villages and towns cannot be seen simply as dichotomous entities. They are interlinked and yet distinct from each other.

The concept of rural-urban continuum is based on the assumption of rural-urban differences. According to G.V. Fuguitt, ‘If rural-urban sociology is to continue a specialized sub-field and has a meaningful conceptual basis, the need for a new orientation is evident.’

Professor Bertrand made the following observation: ‘ Proponents of the continuum theory feel that rural- urban differences occur in a relative degree in a range extending between two polar extremes of rural and urban.’

The continuum theory lays emphasis on the rural-urban differences rather than on the rural-urban dichotomy. Irrespective of the course of evolution, distinction can be drawn between rural and urban way of life.

MEANING OF URBAN AND RURAL

The difference between urban centres and rural areas may seem so obvious that the definitions should not be an issue. However, there can be major variations in the ways in which different nations define what an urban centre is. The criteria used include population size and density, and the availability of services such as the secondary schools, hospitals and banks. However, the combination of criteria applied can vary greatly. Even the population thresholds used can be different: for many African nations, it is 5000 inhabitants, while for most Latin American and European nations, it can be as low as 2000 or 2500, or even just a few hundred inhabitants.

This wide fluctuation in definitions has three important implications:

 Official classifications should be treated with caution- For example, a large proportions of settlements classed as ‘rural’ in China and India would fall within the ‘urban’ category, if they used the criteria and population thresholds adopted by many other countries. Given the size of the population of these two countries, this would significantly increase the overall proportion of urban residents in Asia and in the world.  International comparisons are difficult, as they may look at settlements which, despite being classed in the same category, may be very different in both population size and infrastructure. In addition, the reliability of data on urbanization trends within one nation can be compromised by changes in the definition of urban centres over time.  Public investments in services and infrastructure tend to concentrate on the centres that are defined as urban. As a consequence, investment can bypass settlements not defined as urban even if these can, and often do, have an important ‘urban’ role in the development of the surrounding rural areas. Within national and regional urban systems, larger cities also tend to be favoured with public investment over small- and intermediate- sized urban centres, including those with important roles in supporting agricultural production, processing and marketing.

RURAL- URBAN CONNECTIONS: TRANSACTIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS

Trade, migration and remittances, the exchanges of goods, people and money are the most obvious signs of the relationship between urban and rural areas. Other influences are less tangible: standardized curricula and increased access to education; the growing reach of the mass media; commercial advertising and campaigns by service organizations; the influence of cultural and religious networks, and the spread of urban services to the rural areas all increase the strength and depth of the interactions between them.

The traditional rural family lived on and from the land which provided food, fuel, water and often clothing and shelter as well. They were secure when their hold on the land was secure, and when the land delivered what it promised. Bad landlords, bad government or bad weather meant deprivation and often famine.

For many rural families, those times have gone, for better or worse. Fertilizers, flood control and irrigation remove some of the uncertainties from farming, but the small farmer still finds it hard to survive in the cash economy. Population growth, environmental damage and commercial farming mean that many rural people are landless and depend on cash wages. More and more they look to the cities for a livelihood, by their own efforts or those of their children.

If they stay on the land, they look for ways to produce more and sell more. The rural areas around cities, even small cities in predominantly rural areas, offer urban markets. Improvements in transport and the development of intermediate markets provide additional opportunities. Assured sales permit increased risk, such as new and more productive technologies.

In search of security, many farm families are diversifying their sources of income. Employment opportunities in rural areas and small towns are most often in commerce and services, which demand some education and are often open to women. This has encouraged poor rural households to put a greater value on education, especially for girls, and on girls themselves. They may also look again at the value of children and decide in favour of investing in a higher quality of opportunity for a smaller number of children.

The effect of this diversification strategy is closer contact with urban centres and urban values. At the same time, for those who move to the city survival in urban areas may depend on the rural skills such as finding a small piece of land to grow food or crops for sale. Migrants will also rely on the social networks based on their places of origin, intensifying their linkages to their rural families and recreating some of their former social structures.

Remittances are an important form of exchange between urban and rural areas. Money flows in both directions but the bulk of it consists of urban migrants’ support to their families at home. Remittances can amount to as much as 50 to 80 per cent of the income of families, and is the highest in lower income families, particularly those who are otherwise dependent on farm income.

Men earn more than women and send more to home but women are more consistent; young women, in particular, earn more than their brothers. Most women migrants send remittances and if they are in domestic work, which provides food and lodging they send more of their cash income. For the poorer migrants, remittances can be a large proportion of their total income. Recent migrants have frequently received help with their move, and they are more likely to send money home as repayment. Remittances are thus part of a pattern of linkages; obligations and voluntary mutual help, which help forge the links among family and community members between communities at different points on the rural-urban continuum.

The impact of remittances on recipient families in rural areas has been a subject of considerable debate, centering round the distribution of use between consumption and investment. For the poor, sending families’ remittances are part of a variegated survival strategy. They can support immediate basic consumption needs such as the improved diets; providing better health care, for example, family planning; finance improvements to housing; providing security for risk-taking, such as innovations to increase productivity; or allowing long-term investment such as annuities or education costs.

MEANING AND DEFINATION OF URBANIZATION

John Palen in demographic terms defines Urbanization as ‘an increase in population concentration; organizationally it is an alteration in the structure and the functions’.

Eldridege according to him, urbanization involves two elements such as multiplication of points of concentration and increase in the size of individual concentration.

Thompson Warren in encyclopedia of Social Sciences states Urbanization as a movement of people from communities concerned chiefly or solely with agriculture to another communities generally large whose activities are primarily concerned with the government, trade, manufacture or allied interests.

According to Anderson,’Urbanization is not a one way process but it is a two way process it involves not only movement from village to cities and change from agriculture occupations to business, trade ,service, profession but it involves a change in migrants’ attitudes, beliefs, values and behavior pattern.

EARLY THINKERS OF URBANIZATION

The classical theories of urban sociology are divided from the works of European sociologists like Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tonnies, Emile Durkheim, George Simmel, Max Weber and those of American namely Park Burgess, Lowis Wirth and Robert Redfield.

Karl Marx and Engels

Marx and Engels condemned the consequences of urbanization under capitalism. They viewed the concentration and misery of the mass of workers in the new urban agglomerations as a necessary stage in the creation of a revolutionary force. For them pauperization and material degradation was one aspect of urbanization but equally important was the destruction of the social nexus of the traditional community and its replacement by the utilitarian world of the city and also speak about People in preindustrial, traditional societies were generic, tribal beings

Mumford in his book 'The city in history' sees cities as enlarging all dimensions of life as the scattered as the scattered activities of society are brought together so releasing the energies of mankind in a tremendous explosion of creativity. The city has augmented capabilities for participation and widened the basis of personal experience

Neo-Marxists like Mills, Marcuse, Fromm there is a consensus that conditions of capitalist urbanization are mutilative of the personality, inhibitive of community formation, destructive of social engagement or involvement and conducive to indifference, alienation and anomie.

Class consciousness is inhibited and diverted in mass movements, unreason and not reason typifies social response.consciousness is inhibited and diverted in mass movements, unreason and not reason typifies social response

Ferdinand Tonnies

Tonnies to Wirth developed counter-theory to Marxism for the explication of social change led to acceptance of a fundamental cleavage between rural and urban, tradition and modernism which was in sharp opposition to any variant on Marxist theories of developement.The urban is accepted as a frame of reference and the urban society as a specific mode of social organization becomes the object of scientific study

Tonnies in his book Community and Society explained the impact of the market economy on traditional forms of social association; the implications of urbanization and the development of the state for the conduct of social life and the mechanisms of social solidarity in an individualized society. The distinction he draws between the two forms of human association, gemeniscaft and gesellschaft has become the basis for a succession of typologies of which the best known are the pattern variables formulated by Parsons

Gemeinschaft (community): characterized country village, people in rural village have an essential unity of purpose, work together for the common good, united by ties of family (kinship) and neighbourhood, land worked communally by inhabitants, social life characterized by intimate, private and exclusive living together, members bound by common language and traditions, recognized common goods and evils, common friends and enemies, sense of we-ness or our-ness, humane

Gesellschaft (association): characterized large city, city life is a mechanical aggregate characterized by disunity, rampant individualism and selfishness, meaning of existence shifts from group to individual, rational, calculating, each person understood in terms of a particular role and service provided; deals with the artificial construction of an aggregate of human beings which superficially resembles the Gemeinschaft in so far as the individuals peacefully live together yet whereas in Gemeinschaft people are united in spite of all separating factors, in Gesellschaft people are separated in spite of all uniting factors

Emile Durkheim

Considered social structure of city , Social solidarity-the bond between all individuals within a society Developed model of contrasting social order types: both types are natural

Mechanical solidarity: refers to social bonds constructed on likeness and largely dependent upon common belief, custom, ritual, routines, and symbol, people are identical in major ways and thus united almost automatically, self-sufficient; social cohesion based upon the likeness and similarities among individuals in a society. Common among prehistoric and pre-agricultural societies, and lessens in predominance as modernity increases.

Organic solidarity: social order based on social differences, complex division of labour where many different people specialize in many different occupations, greater freedom and choice for city inhabitants despite acknowledged impersonality, alienation, disagreement and conflict, undermined traditional social integration but created a new form of social cohesion based on mutual interdependence, liberating; social cohesion based upon the dependence individuals in more advanced society have on each other. Common among industrial societies as the division of labor increases. Though individuals perform different tasks and often have different values and interests, the order and very survival of society depends on their reliance on each other to perform their specific task.

GEORGE SIMMEL

George simmel is a german sociologist offered a micro-analysis of cities. Simmel works on a famous essay about the urban conditions in the 20th Century, urbanism as a way of life. He studied how urban life shaped the peoples attitudes and the behaviour, individual experience in the city intense the crush of people objects and the events to prevent being an urban living.

George Simmel presents social interaction in terms of abstract categories. The study of society could only proceed by means of logical analysis of the forms of association. The forms are cognitive categories. Simmel belonged to the neo-Kantian tradition which frankly denies the possibility of the study of the natural or the social world without selection and ordering by the observer.

Considered importance of urban experience, i.e. chose to focus on urbanism (life within the city) rather than urbanization (development of urban areas), "The Metropolis and Mental Life" is an essay detailing his views on life in the city, focusing more on social psychology Unique trait of modern city is intensification of nervous stimuli with which city dweller must cope, from rural setting where rhythm of life and sensory imagery is more slow, habitual and even, to city with constant bombardments of sights, sounds and smells.

Simmel was trying to expound on three themes;

first the consequences of a money economy for social relationships.

Second the significance of numbers for social life lastly the scope for the maintenance of independence and individuality against the sovereign powers of society

1 money economy for social relationships

Economic exchange is a form of social interaction

o When monetary transactions replaced earlier forms of barter, significant changes occurred in the form of interaction between social actors o Money is subject to precise division and manipulation, it permits exact measurement of equivalents o Money is impersonal, objects of barter are/were not o Money promotes rational calculation in human affairs, furthering rationalization characteristic of modern societies o Money replaces personal ties by impersonal relations that limited to a specific purpose

2 Significance of numbers for social life

Abstract calculation invades areas of social life, e.g. kinship relations or realm of esthetic appreciation

Shift from qualitative to quantitative appraisals

Money increases personal freedom and fosters social differentiation

Money in modern world is standard of value and means of exchange

Above economic functions, it symbolizes and embodies modern spirit of rationalism, calculability and impersonality

Money is the major mechanism for shift between gemeinschaft to gesellschaft

3 individuality against the sovereign powers of society incapacity to react to new sensations due to saturation.

reinforced by the money economy: money--a common denominator of all values, regardless of their individuality.

reserve, indifference, apathy--forms of psychological protection--become parts of the metropolitan lifestyle.

Positive aspect of metropolitan life: reserve and detachment produce individual freedom.

Paradox of city life : objectification leads to greater individualism and subjectivism.

[The most significant characteristic of the metropolis] "functional extension beyond its physical boundaries"—a person’s life does not end with the limits of his/her body and the area of his/her immediate activity.

Max Weber

Max Weber in his work 'The City' has defined the city on the basis of political and administrative conception. To constitute a full urban community a settlement must display a relative predominance of trade- commercial relations with the settlement as a whole displaying the following features:

 fortification  market  a court of its own and at least partially autonomous law  a related form of association  partial autonomy and voting rights.

Weber rejects cities governed by religious groups or where the authority is enforced on personal rather than universalistic basis. He recounts a process in which the development of the rational- legal institutions that characterize the modern city enabled the individual to be free from the traditional groups and therefore develop his individuality. He emphasizes the closure, autonomy and separateness of the urban community and stressed that the historical peculiarities of the medieval city were due to the location of the city with in the total medieval political and social organization Suggested that cities are linked to larger processes, e.g. economic or political orientations, instead of city itself being cause of distinguishing qualities of urban life, i.e. different cultural and historical conditions will result in different types of cities, same as with Marx & Engels who argued that human condition of cities was result of economic structure.

THE CHICAGO SCHOOL OF THOUGHT Number of sociologist associated with the university of Chicago from 1920s, especially Robert Park, Erenst Burgess and Louis Wirth develops ideas which where from many years of research in theories of urban sociology. The two concepts developed by the Chicago school are Ecological Process in Urban Analysis and the other is The Characterization of Urbanism as a Way of Life. This sociologist belongs to United States gave an urban studies with a new perspective called street level perspective(They walked on the streets of Chicago and studied the real cities life they said that city is more superficial, more challenging but less protective, more exciting but also more impersonal)

Robert Park He coined the concept of human ecology as a perspective the attempts to apply biological process/ concept of social world. Human ecology is defined under 4 categories . Human ecology first of all defines the spatial patterns of a city. We know that functional specialization of particular areas is a necessary factor of city growth. Human ecology defines the most favorable spot for the location of each function such as market, residential areas, etc., of a city. Thus the most suitable location for the market is the central place of a city where in transportation roots converge. Factories are to be situated along water fronts or breakers in transportation points or along the outskirts of the city. Hillocks, slopes, etc., which come amidst the city are to be considered while locating areas. Residences must be situated in calm areas a little away from the centre of the city. In contrast, in rural areas the situation of a habitat is decided by and confined to a restricted area near the cultivable fields. Human ecology defines the characteristics of urban population i.e, the size, density and heterogeneity and accounts for it. It also decides the spread of urban population between areas and occupations. Human ecology defines the location of cities. One cannot think of locating a city in a desert or an isolated spot. City is a conglomeration of varied elements. As such a city exists only amidst a suitable rural hinterland which provides labour and basic materials to sustain it.

The societal pyramid: a social order conceived as a hierarchy of levels

1. Ecological – the base

2. Economic

3. Political

4. Moral – the apex

While human communities exhibited an ecological or symbiotic order quite similar to that of nonhuman communities, they also participated in a social or moral order that had no counterpart on the nonhuman level. Park studied the ecological order to understand better man's moral order. Ernest Burgess

Ernest Watson Burgess was born on May 16, 1886 in Tilbury, Ontario, Canada to Edmund J. Burgess and Mary Ann Jane Wilson Burgess. His father was a minister in the Congregational Church. Burgess attended Kingfisher College in Oklahoma and received his B.A. in 1908. The following year Burgess entered the University of Chicago as a graduate student in the Department of Sociology. He received his Ph.D. in 1913. Burgess also collaborated with Park in The City in 1925. This book, while largely a recording of the results of current studies, was also a pioneer in the new field of human ecology being developed at the University of Chicago. This, again, set the Chicago group in a new span of leadership, which was continued for many years in their urban studies. McKenzie at Michigan, Wirth at Chicago, Hollingshead at Indiana and Yale continued the direct succession, while scores of younger sociologists made "ecological studies" which, although often little more than studies of the spatial distribution of phenomena in cities,

Urban ecology :- ecology is a term taken from a physical science: the study of the adaptation of plants and animals organism to their environment. This is the sense in which ‘ecology’ is used in the context of problems of the natural environment. In the natural world organisms tend to be distributed in the systematic ways in the terrain, such that a balance or equilibrium between different species is achieved. The ecological perspective tend to underemphasize the importance of conscious design and planning in city organisation, regarding urban development as a natural process. The models of special organisation was developed by Park, Burgess.

Factors of Urban Ecology

A city is a multi-functional settlement. The functional assignment is a result of social forces and processes: which in turn are conditioned by institutional values: by traditions and customs of a specific culture. There are three factors which decide the ecological structure of a city. There are:

1. Differentiation of functions: in cities areas are differentiated according to the functions they perform. This is because of the complexity and specialization of city culture, for example, business district, factory areas, residential zone, etc. In these functional areas there are further specialized sub-divisions. For example, cloth shops all flock in a particular street of the lower middle class residential zone, upper class residential area ,etc. In cities each function occupies its most favourable location. Thus, while the business district is situated at its centre, residential areas expand towards the outskirts of the city. 2. Class separation: in the cities of antiquity and medieval cities there was a clearly discernible partitioned of living quarters according classes in modern cities we have a structure differentiation on class lines. The ecological patterns of housing are based on several criteria such as location, type, size of the house, quality and state of repair and accession, etc. 3. Cultural segregation: the ecological importance of cultural segregation lies in the fact of the importance of their cultural values to the separate cultural groups, and their treatment by the majority groups. However, in India the caste system does not operate so rigidly n cities and towns. Limitations of early urban ecology:

Focus only on economic competition for land

Oversimplification and overgeneralization

Other factors, such as government regulations, sentiments, cultural preferences, are not taken into account

Differences between ecology and Human ecology:

Humans are not as immediately dependent on the physical environment - largely the product of a world-wide division of labour and systems of exchange;

Humans by means of inventions and technical devices have a great capacity to alter the physical environment; and

Humans have erected upon the basis of the biotic community an institutional structure rooted in custom and tradition

Ernest Burgess' Concentric Zone Theory

According to Burgess, an urban area consists five concentric zones these zone represent areas of functional differentiation and expand from the business centre the zones are :

 The loop  The zone in transition  The zone of working man’s home  The residential zone of high class apartment buildings  The commuters zone

The loop or central business district business district: This is called as down town in American terminology,it is usually situated at the centre of city It is an area of business and official activity ,Transportation routes from all parts of the city converge upon it all the activities connected with business and service such as shops of various articles departmental stores, restaurants ,cinema house banks ,main post offices and warehouses are all situated in and around the area at convenient places

The zone in transition:

This is the area which is situated in the immediate vicinity of the market district it is random area of dilapidated buildings and slums ,it is in the process of transition from a residential area into a business area ,it develops out of over concentration of business area and the consequent turnover to extra and weak units into less favorable neighborhoods ,it is an area of business and light industry, it is an area of squalor ,regular vice and disorganization

The zone of working man’s home This is situated immediately after the zone in transition or the factory area as the workers usually prefer to live near the place of their work this area is near slum, congested with multifamily dwelling it is inhabited by workers who have escaped from the influence of the area of deterioration

The residential zone

The residential zone of high class apartment buildings or exclusive residential districts are usually situated at a reasonable distance from the city centre and consists of decent single family dwelling inhabited by middle and upper middle class professionals and executives well-planned road lounge spaces and beauty are the features of this area

The commuter’s zone : This lies at the outskirts of city and is usually an area of the rural urban fringe. Hence this area reflects the characteristics of both types of habitats this area is usually inhabited by people working in cities who also own lands or by people who cannot find accommodation in cities the inhabitants of this area commute daily to their place of work in the city through city transportation

Louis Wirth (1897-1952) U. of Chicago - micro-sociological

Developed first urban theory in US, previous urban sociology comprised essentially descriptive studies

Focus on urbanism--urban lifestyle--more than on structure

Definition of city was that it was large, dense with permanent settlement and socially and culturally heterogeneous people, and so urbanism was a function of population density, size and heterogeneity:

1) Population size: creates great diversity because large numbers of people coming together logically increase potential differentiation among themselves, and with migration of diverse groups to city; creates need for formal control structures, e.g. legal systems; supports proliferation of further complex division of labour specialization; organizes human relationships on interest-specific basis, i.e. "social segmentalization", where secondary relationships are primary, in essence urban ties are relationships of utility; creates possibility of disorganization and disintegration

2) Population density: intensifies effects of large population size on social life; manifests quality of separateness, e.g. economic forces and social processes produce readily identifiable distinct neighbourhood, "ecological specialization"; fosters a loss of sensitivity to more personal aspects of others, instead tendency to stereotype and categorize; results in greater tolerance of difference but at same time physical closeness increases social distance; may increase antisocial behaviour

3) Population heterogeneity: with social interaction among many personality types results in breakdown of the rigidity of caste lines and complicates class structure, thus increased social mobility; with social mobility tend to have physical mobility; leads to further depersonalization with concentration of diverse people.