Urban \u00a0 Urban \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Youtube class lecture https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jlnEgCSEYkc&ab_channel=AnthropologyforBeginners\u00a0<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n
\necology, pioneered by Chicago sociologists in the 1920s, was central to the
\ndevelopment of human ecology. Indeed the two terms are often used
\ninterchangeably. \u00a0<\/span>Urban ecology applies
\nprinciples derived from biological science to the explanation of spatial
\ndistribution in urban populations. This is said to result from \u2018biotic\u2019
\ncompetition for territorial advantage by human groups, each constituted by
\nsocial basis, for example, common class position or ethnicity. It was an
\napproach to the study of cities, social change, and urban life, these theories
\nwere introduced into sociology by the Chicago School to explain the competition
\nbetween social groups for scarce resources such as land. The competition
\nbetween groups was assumed to increase efficiency and promote a greater
\ndivision of labor. These competitive struggles meant that distinctive social groups
\nhad adapted to their local environment, just as the competition between plants
\nand their adaptation to the local environment in the natural world resulted in
\nspecialization. The balance between competition and co-operation functions to
\nallocate members of a population to urban niches. The city, like the economy,
\nwas seen to produce a social equilibrium. According to the theory, groups
\noccupy distinctive \u2018natural areas\u2019 or neighbourhoods. The concentric zone model
\nproposed by Ernest Burgess is an ecological representation of this urban
\nsystem. The ecological concepts of invasion, domination, and succession
\ndescribe the stages of change occurring as groups relocate due to competitive
\npressures. However, unrestrained biotic competition makes social order
\nimpossible, so a second level of social organization (\u2018culture\u2019) overlays and
\nlimits territorial competition. This involves communication, consensus, and
\nco-operation, seen in both the natural areas occupied by socially homogeneous
\ngroups, and in city-wide mechanisms of integration, such as mass culture, the
\nmedia, and urban politics. This competitive process was also described in terms
\nof the concentric zone theory in which the central zone of the city is occupied
\nby banks and the service sector, while the zone of transition emerges as the
\ncentral business district expands outwards. Social classes are distributed
\nthrough various zones according to rental values, house prices, and the
\naccessibility of work. The manual workers live in the third zone and the fourth
\nzone houses the middle class. The fringe of the city is a commuter belt. This
\ntheory helps us to understand how migrants move into run-down areas of the city
\nwhere rental costs are low and, as a result of social mobility, they can move
\neventually to better-quality housing as they join the middle class. The urban
\necology school embraced a number of prominent American sociologists, \u00a0<\/span>including Robert Ezra Park, Ernest W. Burgess,
\nand Roderick D. McKenzie who published The City (1925). It is not clear that
\nthere is a systematic theory of the urban ecology; there appears to be rather a
\ncollection of assumptions about how cities develop over time. Another member of
\nthe Chicago School, Louis Wirth, following the approach of Georg Simmel, wrote
\nhis famous \u201cUrbanism as a Way of Life\u201d (1938, American Journal of Sociology) in
\nwhich he described the anomie and anonymity of city life.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\necology has been criticized because its assumptions are too simple to explain
\nthe variations between cities, but its basic notions (about the central
\nbusiness district, transition zones, and the urban distribution of social
\nclasses) continue to influence the work of modern sociology. Few sociologists
\nnow accept the biologically derived assumptions underlying urban ecology.
\nHowever, the urban ecologists’ use of Chicago as a research laboratory
\ncontributed greatly to the development of empirically grounded sociology and
\nits research methods, influencing directly the development of urban sociology,
\ncommunity studies, cultural sociology, the study of deviance and illness,
\nsocial and religious movements, the family and race relations, and rural
\nsociology. The recollections by Helen MacGill Hughes of her training in Chicago
\nshed an interesting light on the (at times na\u00efve) methodology of urban ecology.<\/span><\/p>\n
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