Urban Sociology & Industrial Sociology
1. Urban sociology
It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, environmental processes, changes and
problems of an urban area and by doing so provide inputs for urban planning and policy making. In other words,
it is the sociological study of cities and their role in the development of society. Like most areas of sociology,
urban sociologists use statistical analysis, observation, social theory, interviews, and other methods to study a
range of topics, including migration and demographic trends, economics, poverty, race relations and economic
trends.
The philosophical foundations of modern urban sociology originate from the work of sociologists such as Karl
Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber and Georg Simmel who studied and theorized the
economic, social and cultural processes of urbanization and its effects on social alienation, class formation, and
the production or destruction of collective and individual identities.
Development and rise of urban sociology
Urban sociology rose to prominence within the academy in North America through a group of sociologists and
theorists at the University of Chicago from 1915 to 1940 in what became known as the Chicago School of
Sociology. The Chicago School of Sociology combined sociological and anthropological theory with ethnographic
fieldwork in order to understand how individuals interact within urban social systems. Unlike the primarily
macro-based sociology that had marked earlier subfields, members of the Chicago School placed greater
emphasis on micro-scale social interactions that sought to provide subjective meaning to how humans interact
under structural, cultural and social conditions. The theory of symbolic interaction, the basis through which many
methodologically-groundbreaking ethnographies were framed in this period, took primitive shape alongside
urban sociology and shaped its early methodological leanings. Symbolic interaction was forged out of the
writings of early micro-sociologists George Mead and Max Weber, and sought to frame how individuals interpret
symbols in everyday interactions. With early urban sociologists framing the city as a 'superorganism', the concept
of symbolic interaction aided in parsing out how individual communities contribute to the seamless functioning
of the city itself.
Scholars of the Chicago School originally sought to answer a single question: how did an increase in urbanism
during the time of the Industrial Revolution contribute to the magnification of contemporary social problems?
Sociologists centered on Chicago due to its 'tabula rasa' state, having expanded from a small town of 10,000 in
1860 to an urban metropolis of over two million in the next half-century. Along with this expansion came many
of the era's emerging social problems - ranging from issues with concentrated homelessness and harsh living
conditions to the low wages and long hours that characterized the work of the many newly arrived European
immigrants. Furthermore, unlike many other metropolitan areas, Chicago did not expand outward at the edges
as predicted by early expansionist theorists, but instead 'reformatted' the space available in a concentric ring
pattern.[6] As with many modern cities the business district occupied the city center and was surrounded by slum
and blighted neighborhoods, which were further surrounded by workingmens' homes and the early forms of the
modern suburbs. Urban theorists suggested that these spatially distinct regions helped to solidify and isolate
class relations within the modern city, moving the middle class away from the urban core and into the privatized
environment of the outer suburbs.
Due to the high concentration of first-generation immigrant families in the inner city of Chicago during the early
20th century, many prominent early studies in urban sociology focused upon the transmission of immigrants'
native culture roles and norms into new and developing environments. Political participation and the rise in inter-
community organizations were also frequently covered in this period, with many metropolitan areas adopting
census techniques that allowed for information to be stored and easily accessed by participating institutions such
as the University of Chicago. Park, Burgess and McKenzie, professors at the University of Chicago and three of
the earliest proponents of urban sociology, developed the Subculture Theories, which helped to explain the often-
positive role of local institutions on the formation of community acceptance and social ties.[8] When race
relations break down and expansion renders one's community members anonymous, as was proposed to be
occurring in this period, the inner city becomes marked by high levels of social disorganization that prevent local
ties from being established and maintained in local political arenas.
The rise of urban sociology coincided with the expansion of statistical inference in the behavioural sciences,
which helped ease its transition and acceptance in educational institutions along with other burgeoning social
sciences. Micro-sociology courses at the University of Chicago were among the earliest and most prominent
courses on urban sociological research in the United States.
Evolution of urban sociology
The evolution and transition of sociological theory from the Chicago School began to emerge in the 1970s with
the publication of Claude Fischer's (1975) "Toward a Theory of Subculture Urbanism" which incorporated
Bourdieu's theories on social capital and symbolic capital within the invasion and succession framework of the
Chicago School in explaining how cultural groups form, expand and solidify a neighborhood. The theme of
transition by subcultures and groups within the city was further expanded by Barry Wellman's (1979) "The
Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers" which determined the function and position of the
individual, institution and community in the urban landscape in relation to their community. Wellman's
categorization and incorporation of community focused theories as "Community Lost", "Community Saved", and
"Community Liberated" which center around the structure of the urban community in shaping interactions
between individuals and facilitating active participation in the local community are explained in detail below:
Community lost: The earliest of the three theories, this concept was developed in the late 19th century to account
for the rapid development of industrial patterns that seemingly caused rifts between the individual and their
local community. Urbanites were claimed to hold networks that were “impersonal, transitory and segmental”,
maintaining ties in multiple social networks while at the same time lacking the strong ties that bound them to
any specific group. This disorganization in turn caused members of urban communities to subsist almost solely on
secondary affiliations with others, and rarely allowed them to rely on other members of the community for
assistance with their needs.
Community saved: A critical response to the community lost theory that developed during the 1960s, the
community saved argument suggests that multistranded ties often emerge in sparsely-knit communities as time
goes on, and that urban communities often possess these strong ties, albeit in different forms. Especially among
low-income communities, individuals have a tendency to adapt to their environment and pool resources in order
to protect themselves collectively against structural changes. Over time urban communities have tendencies to
become “urban villages”, where individuals possess strong ties with only a few individuals that connect them to
an intricate web of other urbanities within the same local environment.
Community liberated: A cross-section of the community lost and community saved arguments, the community
liberated theory suggests that the separation of workplace, residence and familial kinship groups has caused
urbanites to maintain weak ties in multiple community groups that are further weakened by high rates of
residential mobility. However, the concentrated number of environments present in the city for interaction
increase the likelihood of individuals developing secondary ties, even if they simultaneously maintain distance
from tightly-knit communities. Primary ties that offer the individual assistance in everyday life form out of
sparsely-knit and spatially dispersed interactions, with the individual's access to resources dependent on the
quality of the ties they maintain within their community.
Along with the development of these theories, urban sociologists have increasingly begun to study the
differences between the urban, rural and suburban environment within the last half-century. Consistent with the
community liberated argument, researchers have in large part found that urban residents tend to maintain more
spatially-dispersed networks of ties than rural or suburban residents. Among lower-income urban residents, the
lack of mobility and communal space within the city often disrupts the formation of social ties and lends itself to
creating an unintegrated and distant community space. While the high density of networks within the city
weakens relations between individuals, it increases the likelihood that at least one individual within a network
can provide the primary support found among smaller and more tightly-knit networks. Since the 1970s, research
into social networks has focused primarily on the types of ties developed within residential environments.
Bonding ties, common of tightly-knit neighborhoods, consist of connections that provide an individual with
primary support, such as access to income or upward mobility among a neighborhood organization. Bridging
ties, in contrast, are the ties that weakly connect strong networks of individuals together. A group of
communities concerned about the placement of a nearby highway may only be connected through a few
individuals that represent their views at a community board meeting, for instance.[10]
However, as theory surrounding social networks has developed, sociologists such as Alejandro Portes and the
Wisconsin model of sociological research began placing increased leverage on the importance of these weak
ties.[11] While strong ties are necessary for providing residents with primary services and a sense of community,
weak ties bring together elements of different cultural and economic landscapes in solving problems affecting a
great number of individuals. As theorist Eric Oliver notes, neighborhoods with vast social networks are also those
that most commonly rely on heterogeneous support in problem solving, and are also the most politically
active.[12]
As the suburban landscape developed during the 20th century and the outer city became a refuge for the
wealthy and, later, the burgeoning middle class, sociologists and urban geographers such as Harvey Molotch,
David Harvey and Neil Smith began to study the structure and revitalization of the most impoverished areas of
the inner city. In their research, impoverished neighborhoods, which often rely on tightly-knit local ties for
economic and social support, were found to be targeted by developers for gentrification which displaced
residents living within these communities.[13] Political experimentation in providing these residents with semi-
permanent housing and structural support - ranging from Section 8 housing to Community Development Block
Grant programs- have in many cases eased the transition of low-income residents into stable housing and
employment. Yet research covering the social impact of forced movement among these residents has noted the
difficulties individuals often have with maintaining a level of economic comfort, which is spurred by rising land
values and inter-urban competition between cities in as a means to attract capital investment.[14] [15] The
interaction between inner-city dwellers and middle class passersby in such settings has also been a topic of study
for urban sociologists.
2. Industrial sociology
Introduction
Industrial sociology is a discipline which deals with study and examination of interaction of human in
technological change, globalization, labor markets, work organization, and managerial practices. Industrial socio
is a comparatively new term which gained popularly about the middle of the 20st Century. An independent
branch of the Science of Sociology, the history of the industrial sociology has been traced to trade studies
introduced by Elton Mayo and his associate between 1924 -32: Thus Elton Mayo; a known sociologist has been
identified as the father of Industrial sociology.
Meaning
The 'term’ industrial sociology includes two terms industry and sociology. ‘The term Industrial means concerning
the industry. The word industry is derived from the Latin word 'industrial' which means resourcefulness.
Definition
According to Miller "Industrial sociology is a substantive area of general sociology which might more accurately
be termed the sociology of work organization or the sociology of economy".
3. Who is known as father of urban sociology?
Georg Simmel-Notably, Georg Simmel is widely considered to be the father of urban sociology for his
contributions to the field in in works such as The Metropolis and Mental Life, published in 1903.
What is the importance of urban sociology?
Ans- 1. Urban sociology is the study of problems and policies in an urban(cities and towns- not rural) area. The
importance of this field of study is to understand the institutions and structures that make up a metropolitan
area so as to work with policy makers to solve social problems in urban areas. Much of society today focuses on
Urbanization or the developing of urban areas which are in stark contrast to rural areas and therefore have
completely different social problems. A large portion of those living in urban areas tend to be focused on how
individualistic, independent, and unique they can be which in turn can lead to discrimination and a lack of caring
for others. Urban planners and urban sociologists attempt to solve the problems that uniquely plague highly
populated urban areas. Here is a quote from Georg Simmel(the father of urban sociology) that further explains
my point:“The earliest phase of social formations found in historical as well as in contemporary social structures
is this: a relatively small circle firmly closed against neighboring, strange, or in some way antagonistic circles.”
Ans- 2. I’m not going to provide a “textbook worthy” response to your question-because there are plenty of
textbooks for that.My answer comes from my own application of urban sociology in real life. While in school, I
cringed at the thought of studying urban sociology! Literally writing a paper on GRASS . . . seriously?!? However,
when it was all said and done-I see the importance and BEAUTY of urban sociology all around me. When I walk
around a local park, I notice the placement of the trees and what type of trees are planted. I pay attention to the
arrangement of the benches and the materials used in their construction. I immediately realize why they are built
to comfortably contour the shape of a seated person, but pose a very uncomfortable resting place for a sleeping
person. I understand the purpose of the park based on the amount of green space available-and I consciously
pick a different park for each of my needs. Without the knowledge of urban sociology, the situation in Flint,
Michigan would have completely shocked me . . . but with the knowledge of urban water systems, I was not
surprised. Because of urban sociology, I appreciate and encourage others to drop off their unused medications at
local collection sites and NOT to flush them down the toilets! Why? Water soluble medication is needed for our
human bodies but not for our public water supply! Toxic soup is all I can say. I watch the social transitions within
my own city travel through time tested cycles. I can smell the movement in the air-and have the ability to act
accordingly. Need I go on? Whew! Thank you urban sociology!
