Urban legends are those fanciful tales that grip listeners and are spread widely across continents and oceans while repeated by individuals often claiming the facts reported in the tale happened to a “friend of a friend,” or are based on “facts” reported in news reports that the teller of the tale had allegedly read in
Urban ecology is the study of humans and non-human organisms in urban areas, their interaction with their surroundings, and their reactions to environmental change. Anthropologists use theories, principles, or methods developed by ecologists to study how past cities arose, how current cities develop and change, and the effects of urban environments on people. Ecological Theories
Urban sociology concerns itself with the social and cultural forms assumed by the urban phenomenon in the past and in the present. It endeavors to understand the worldviews of the various cultures that have produced cities, and the coherence or incoherence with which these worldviews have been given concrete form. Outline Introduction The City as
One of sociology’s original and most fundamental questions is: how does the city shape social life? The answer provided by urban political economy is: as a mechanism in the accumulation of wealth, with all the power and inequality that results. ‘‘Political economy’’ generally refers to the scholarly paradigm that examines how material processes of production
The built environment deteriorates with the passage of time and the stresses of use and neglect. Unemployment, poverty, shortages of affordable housing, health epidemics, and transportation problems often accompany physical decay in modern cities. Attempts to relieve these social problems through the maintenance, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of the physical environment are known as urban redevelopment.
The urban revolution refers to the emergence of urban life and the concomitant transformation of human settlements from simple agrarian based systems to complex and hierarchical systems of manufacturing and trade. The term also refers to the present era of metropolitan or megalopolis growth, the development of exurbs, and the explosion of primate or mega
It is not an easy task to provide a definition of urban space because such a definition must consider the social parameters of its constituent parts: urban and space. The difficulty of defining urban space is enhanced if one considers that urban space is an artifact of urbanization – a social process that describes the
Urban tourism refers to the consumption of city spectacles (such as architecture, monuments, and parks) and cultural amenities (such as museums, restaurants, and performances) by visitors. Studying urban tourism requires taking seriously leisure activities and transient populations, features of the city that much of past urban theory declines to address. However, a number of developments
No social science concept has generated more discussion and controversy in recent years than that of the urban underclass. Some argue that it is little more than a pithy and stigmatizing term for the poor people who have always existed in stratified societies (Gans 1990; Jencks 1989; Katz 1989; McGahey 1982). Others contend that the
Among the various definitions of the urban way of life in Japanese social science, Susumu Kurasawa’s (1987) definition is most widely accepted in sociology. ‘‘Way of life’’ here refers to a way of coping with common and collective problems in the community. A ‘‘rural way of life’’ is characterized by a strong capacity of residents’
Urban community studies consist of a range of case studies, comparisons, and local analyses that explore the local cultures, relationships, interactions and identities. As cities in the US experienced rapid growth during the early twentieth century, sociologists speculated about how the interactions and relationships in these urban settings would be influenced by a swelling population
The term urban consumption describes how the meanings of goods and commercially oriented experiences intermingle with space, place, and social identity in ways made possible by metropolitan life and are thereby specific to it. Urban consumption refers not just to purchases that occur within the confines of a city – as opposed to a suburb
Urban ecology is the study of community structure and organization as manifest in cities and other relatively dense human settlements. Among its major topics, urban ecology is concerned with the patterns of urban community sorting and change by socioeconomic status, life cycle, and ethnicity, and with patterns of relations across systems of cities. Of particular
Urban education has been the subject of ongoing discussions in the US, with policies aimed at urban school improvement vigorously debated over the last 40 years. Since the 1960s, as cities became increasingly poor and populated by minority groups, urban schools have reflected the problems associated with poverty. Although rural and many suburban schools have
Urban movements are social movements through which citizens attempt to achieve some control over their urban environment. The urban environment comprises the built environment, the social fabric of the city, and the local political process. An alternative current term is ‘‘urban social movements.’’ Pickvance (2003) suggested that the term ‘‘urban movements’’ is to be preferred because
Urban policy actively shapes the ways in which people live in cities. As well as reflecting con temporary understandings of the role of cities in economic and social development, it also helps to create those understandings. Definitions of urban policy are elusive in part because the term appears so self explanatory. It seems to be no
Urban and regional planners assist in the development and redevelopment of a city, metropolitan area, or region. They work to preserve historical buildings, protect the environment, and help manage a community’s growth and change. Planners evaluate individual buildings and city blocks, and are also involved in the design of new subdivisions, neighborhoods, and even entire
Black urban regime refers to large, majority or near majority black cities in the United States governed by black mayors. The first examples of a black urban regime were Carl Stokes’s and Richard Hatcher’s election in Cleveland and Gary, respectively, in the late 1960s. The majority of black urban regimes arose in the 1970s and