1
Urbanization and Urbanism: The growth of cities
Book:
1. R.T. Schaefer, ‘Sociology’ 10th Edition
HOW DID COMMUNITIES ORIGINATE
As we noted in the chapter opening, a community is a spatial or political unit of social
organization that gives people a sense of belonging. The nature of community has changed
greatly over the course of history-from early hunting-and-gathering societies to highly
modernized post industrial cities.
Early Communities
For most of human history, people used very basic tools and knowledge to survive. They
satisfied their need for an adequate food supply through hunting, foraging for fruits or
vegetables, fishing, and herding. In comparison with later industrial societies, early civilizations
were much more dependent on the physical environment and much less able to alter that environment to their advantage.
The emergence of horticultural societies, in which people cultivated food rather than merely
gathering fruits and vegetables, led to many dramatic changes in human social organization. It
was no longer necessary to move from place to place in search of food. Because people had to
remain in specific locations to cultivate crops, more stable and enduring communities began to
develop. As agricultural techniques became more and more sophisticated, a cooperative division
of labor involving both family members and others developed. People gradually began to
produce more food than they actually needed for themselves. They could provide food, perhaps
as part of an exchange, to others who might be involved in nonagricultural labor. This transition
from subsistence to surplus represented a critical step in the emergence of cities.
Eventually, people produced enough goods to cover both their own needs and those of people not
engaged in agricultural tasks. At first the surplus was limited to agricultural products, but
gradually it evolved to include all types of goods and services. Residents of a city came to rely
on community members who provided craft products and means of transportation, gathered
information, and so forth (Nolan and Lenski 1999).
With these social changes came an even more elaborate division of labor, as well as greater
opportunity for differential rewards and privileges. So long as everyone had been engaged in the
same tasks, stratification had been limited to such factors as gender, age, and perhaps the ability
to perform the task (a skillful hunter could win unusual respect from the community). But the
surplus allowed for the expansion of goods and services, leading to greater differentiation, a
hierarchy of occupations, and social inequality. Thus the surplus was a precondition not only for
the establishment of cities but for the division of members of a community into social classes
(see Chapter 9). The ability to produce goods for other communities marked a fundamental shift
in human social organization.
Preindustrial Cities
2
It is estimated that beginning about 10,000 B.C., permanent settlements free from dependence on
crop cultivation emerged. Yet by today's standards, these early communities would barely
qualify as cities. The preindustrial city, as it is termed, generally had only a few thousand people
living within its borders, and was characterized a relatively closed class system and limited
mobility. In these early- cities status was usually based on ascribed characteristics such as family
background, and education was limited to members of the elite. All the residents relied on
perhaps 100,000 farmers and their own part-time farming to provide the needed agricultural
surplus. The Mesopotamian city of Ur had a population of about 10,000 and was limited to
roughly 220 acres of land, including the canals, the temple, and the harbor.
Why were these early cities so small and relatively few in number? Several key factors restricted
urbanization
Reliance on animal power (both humans and beasts of burden) as a source of energy for
economic production. This factor limited the ability of humans to make use of and alter the
physical environment.
Modest levels of surplus produced by the agricultural sector. Between 50 and 90 farmers
may have been required to support one city resident (K. Davis [1949] 1995).
Problems in transportation and the storage of food and other goods. Even an excellent crop
could easily be lost as a result of such difficulties
Hardships of migration to the city. For many peasants, migration was both physically and
economically impossible. A few weeks of travel was out of the question without more
sophisticated techniques of food storage.
Dangers of city life. Concentrating a society's population in a small area left it open to attack
from outsiders, as well as more susceptible to extreme damage from plagues and fires.
Gideon Sjoberg (1960) examined the available information on early urban settlements in
medieval Europe India, and China. He identified three preconditions of city life: advanced
technology in both agricultural and nonagricultural areas, a ‘favorable’ physical environment,
and a well-developed social organization.
For Sjoberg, the criteria for defining a ‘favorable’ physical environment were variable. Proximity
to coal and iron helps only if a society knows how to use these natural resources. Similarly,
proximity to a river is particularly beneficial only if a culture has the means to transport water
efficiently to the fields for irrigation and to the cities for consumption.
A sophisticated social organization is also an essential precondition for urban existence.
Specialized social roles bring people together in new ways through the exchange of goods and
services. A well-developed social organization ensures that these relationships are clearly
defined and generally, acceptable to all parties. Admittedly Sjoberg's view of city life is an ideal
type, since inequality-did not vanish with the emergence of urban communities.
3
Industrial and Postindustrial Cities
Imagine how harnessing the energy of air, water, and other natural resources could change a
society. Advances in agricultural technology led to dramatic changes in community life, but so
did the process of industrialization. The industrial revolution, which began in the middle of the
18th century focused on the application of nonanimal sources of power to labor tasks.
Industrialization had a wide range of effects on people's lifestyles, as well as on the structure of
communities. Emerging urban settlements became centers not only of industry but of banking,
finance, and industrial management.
The factory system that developed during the industrial revolution led to a much more refined
division of labor than was evident in preindustrial cities. The many new occupations that were
created produced a complex set of relationships among workers. Thus, the industrial city was not
merely more populous than its preindustrial predecessors; it was based on very different
principles of social organization. Sjoberg outlined the contrasts between preindustrial and
industrial cities, as summarized in Table 20-1 on page 464.
In comparison with preindustrial cities, industrial cities have a more open class system and more
social mobility. After initiatives in industrial cities by women's rights groups, labor unions, and
other political activists, formal education gradually became available to many children from poor
and working-class families. While ascribed characteristics such as gender, race, and ethnicity
remained important, a talented or skilled individual had greater opportunity to better his or her
social position. In these and other respects, the industrial city was genuinely a different world
from the preindustrial urban community.
In the latter part of the 20th century, a new type of urban community emerged. The
postindustrial city is a city in which global finance and the electronic flow of information
dominate the economy. Production is decentralized and often takes place outside of urban
centers, but control is centralized in multinational corporations whose influence transcends urban
and even national boundaries. Social change is a constant feature of the postindustrial city.
Economic restructuring and spatial change seem to occur each decade, if not more frequently. In
the postindustrial world, cities are forced into increasing competition for economic opportunities,
which deepens the plight of the urban poor (E. Phillips 1996; D. A. Smith and Timberlake 1993).
Sociologist Louis Wirth (1928, 1938) argued that a relatively large and permanent settlement
leads to distinctive patterns of behavior, which he called urbanism. He identified three critical
factors that contribute to urbanism: the size of the population, population density, and the
heterogeneity (variety) of the population. A frequent result of urbanism, according to Wirth, is
that we become insensitive to events around us and restrict our attention to the primary groups to
which we are emotionally attached.
URBANIZATION
The 1990 census was the first to demonstrate that more than half the population of the United
States lived in urban areas of 1 million or more residents. In only three states (Mississippi,
Vermont, and West Virginia) do more than half the residents live in rural areas. Clearly, urbanization has become a central aspect of life in the United States (Bureau of the Census 1991).
4
Urbanization can be seen throughout the rest of the world, too. In 1900, only 10 percent of the
world's people lived in urban areas, but by 2000, that proportion had risen to around 50 percent.
By the year 2025, the number of city dwellers could reach 5 billion. During the 19th and early
20th centuries, rapid urbanization occurred primarily in European and North American cities.
Since World War II, however, there has been an urban explosion in the world's developing
countries; see Figure 20-1 (Koolhaas et al. 2001:3).
Some metropolitan areas have spread so far that they have connected with other urban centers.
Such a densely populated area, containing two or more cities and their suburbs, has become
known as a megalopolis. An example is the 500-mile corridor stretching from Boston south to
Washington, D.C., which includes New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore and accounts
for one-sixth of the total population of the United States. Even when the megalopolis is divided
into autonomous political jurisdictions, it can be viewed as a single economic entity. The
megalopolis is also evident in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Egypt, India, Japan, and China.
Table 20-2 on page 466 compares the 10 largest megalopolises in the world in 1970 with the
projected 10 largest in 2015.
Comparing Types of Cities
Preindustrial cities (through 18the century)
Closed class system—pervasive influence of social class at birth
Economic realm controlled by guilds and a few families
Beginnings of division of labor in the creation of goods
Pervasive influence of religion on social norms
Little standardization of prices, weights, and measures
Population largely illiterate, communication by word of mouth
Schools limited to elites and designed to perpetuate their privileged status
Industrial cities (18th through mid-20th century)
Open class system—mobility based on achieved characteristics
Relatively open competition
Elaborate specialization in manufacturing of goods
Influence of religion limited as society becomes more secucularized
Standardization enforced by custom and law
Emergence of communication through posters, bulletins, and newspapers
Formal schooling open to the masses and viewed as a means of advancing
Postindustrial cities (beginning late 20th century)
Wealth based on ability to obtain and use information
Corporate power dominates
Sense of place fades, transnational networks emerge
Religion becomes more fragmented; greater openness to new religious faiths
Conflicting views of prevailing standards
Emergence of extended electronic networks
Professional, scientific, and technical personnel become increasingly important
5
Sources. Based on E. Phillips I996:l32-I35;5 joberg 1960:323-328.
Functionalist View: Urban Ecology
As we will see in Chapter 21, human ecology is concerned with the interrelationships between
people and their environment. Human ecologists have long been interested in how the physical
envi?onment shapes people's lives (for example, how rivers can serve as a barrier to residential
expansion) and in how people influence the surrounding environment (for example, how airconditioning has accelerated the growth of major metropolitan areas in the Southwest). Urban
ecology focuses on such relationships as they emerge in urban areas. Although the urban
ecological approach focuses on social change in cities, it is nevertheless functionalist in orientation because it emphasizes how different elements in urban areas contribute to stability.
Early urban ecologists such as Robert Park (1916, 1936) and Ernest Burgess (1925) concentrated
on city life but drew on the approaches used by ecologists who study plant and animal
communities. With few exceptions,
466 PartS
Table 20-2
Changing Society
The 10 Most Populous Megalopolises in the
World, 1970 and 2015 (in millions)
1970
2015 projected
1. Tokyo
16.5
Bombay (India)
28.2
2. New York
16.2
Tokyo
26.4
3. Shanghai (China 11.2
Lagos (Nigeria)
23.2
4. Osaka (Japan)
9.4
Dhaka (Bangladesh)
23.0
5. Mexico City
9.1
Sao Paulo (Brazil)
20.4
6. London
8.6
Karachi (Pakistan)
19.8
7. Paris
8.5
Mexico City
19.2
8. Buenos Aires
8.4
Delhi (India)
17.8
9. Los Angeles
8.4
New York
17.4
10. Beijing
8.1
Jakarta (Indonesia)
Source: United Nations, quoted in Brockerhoff 2000:10.
1 7.3
Think About It
What trend does this table suggest?
Urban ecologists trace their work back to the concentric-zone theory devised in the 1920s by
Burgess (see Figure 20-2a). Using Chicago as an example, Burgess proposed a theory for
describing land use in industrial cities. At the center, or nucleus, of such a city is the central
6
business district. Large department stores, hotels, theaters, and financial institutions occupy this
highly valued land. Surrounding this urban are zones devoted to other types of land use that
illustrate the growth of the urban area over time.
Note that the creation of zones is a social process, not the result of nature alone. Families and
business firms compete for the most valuable land; those who possess the most wealth and power
are generally the winners. The concentric-zone theory proposed by Burgess represented a
dynamic model of growth. As urban growth proceeded, each zone would move even farther from
the central business district.
Because of its functionalist orientation and its emphasis on stability, the concentric-zone theory
tended to understate or ignore certain tensions that were apparent in metropolitan areas. For
example, the growing use by the affluent of land in a city's peripheral areas was uncritically
approved, while the arrival of African Americans in White neighborhoods in the 1930s was
described by some sociologists in terms such as invasion and succession, Moreover, the urban
ecological perspective gave little thought to gender inequalities such as the establishment of
men's softball and golf leagues in city parks, without any programs for women's sports.
Consequently, the urban ecological approach has been criticized for its failure to address issues
of gender, race, and class.
By the middle of the 20th century, urban populations had spilled beyond traditional city limits.
No longer could urban ecologists focus exclusively on growth in the central city, for large
numbers of urban residents were abandoning the cities to live in suburban areas. As a response to
the emergence of more than one focal point in some metropolitan areas, Chauncy D. Harris and
Edward Ullman (1945) presented the multiple-nuclei theory (see Figure 20-2b). In their view, all
urban growth does not radiate outward from a central business district. Instead, a metropolitan
area may have many centers of development, each of which reflects a particular urban need or
activity. Thus, a city may have a financial district, a manufacturing zone, a waterfront area, an
entertainment center, and so forth. Certain types of business firms and certain types of housing
will naturally cluster around each distinctive nucleus (Squires 2002).
The rise of suburban shopping malls is a vivid example of the phenomenon of multiple nuclei
within metropolitan areas. Initially, all major retailing in urban areas was located in the central
business district. Each residential neighborhood had its own grocers, bakers, and butchers, but
people traveled to the center of the city to make major purchases at department stores. However,
as major metropolitan areas expanded and the suburbs became more populous, increasing
numbers of people began to shop nearer their homes. Today, the suburban mall is a significant
retailing and social center in communities across the United States.
In a refinement of the multiple-nuclei theory, contemporary urban ecologists have begun to study
what journalist Joel Garreau (1991) has called "edge cities." These communities, which have
grown up on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas, are economic and social centers with
identities of their own. By any standard of measurement—height of buildings, amount of office
space, presence of medical facilities, presence of leisure-time facilities, or of course,
population—edge cities qualify as independent cities rather than large suburbs.
7
Whether metropolitan areas include edge cities or multiple nuclei, more and more of them are
characterized by spread-out development and unchecked growth. The metropolitan area of
Atlanta, which contains 4.1 million people according to the 2000 census, covers 20 counties—an
area nearly the size of Hawaii. Overall, 8 out of every 10 U.S. cities extended over a much
greater geographical area in 2000 than they did in 1990. Today's cities are very different from the
preindustrial cities of a thousand years ago (El Nasser and Overberg 2001; Glan-lon 2001).
Source: Harris and Ullmann 1945:13.
Conflict View: New Urban Sociology
Contemporary sociologists point out that metropolitan growth is not governed by waterways and
rail lines, as a purely ecological interpretation might suggest. From a conflict perspective,
communities are human creations that reflect people's needs, choices, and decisions—but some
people have more influence over those decisions than others. Drawing on conflict theory, an
approach that has come to be called the new urban sociology considers the interplay of local,
national, and worldwide forces and their effect on local space, with special emphasis on the
impact of global economic activity (Gottdiener and Hutchison 2000).
New urban sociologists note that ecological approaches have typically avoided examining the
social forces, largely economic in nature, that have guided urban growth. For example, central
business districts may be upgraded or abandoned, depending on whether urban policymakers
grant substantial tax exemptions to developers. The suburban boom in the post-World War II era
was fueled by highway construction and federal housing policies that channeled investment
capital into the construction of single-family homes rather than affordable rental housing in the
cities. Similarly, while some observers suggest that the growth of sun-belt cities is due to a "good
business climate," new urban sociologists counter that the term is actually a euphemism for hefty
state and local government subsidies and antilabor policies intended to draw manufacturers
(Gottdiener and Feagin 1988; M. Smith 1988).
8
The new urban sociology draws generally on the conflict perspective and more specifically on
sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein's world systems analysis. Waller-stein argues that certain
industrialized nations (among them the United States, Japan, and Germany) hold a dominant
position at the core of the global economic system. At the same time, the poor developing
countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America lie on the periphery of the global economy, controlled and exploited by core industrialized nations. Using world systems analysis, new urban
sociologists consider urbanization from a global perspective. They view cities not as independent
and autonomous entities, but as the outcome of decision-making processes directed or influenced
by a society's dominant classes and by core industrialized nations. New urban sociologists note
that the rapidly growing cities of the world's developing countries were shaped first by
colonialism and then by a global economy controlled by core nations and multinational
corporations. The outcome has not been beneficial to the poorest citizens. As Box 20-1 shows, an
unmistakable feature of many cities in developing countries is the existence of large squatter
settlements just outside city limits (Gottdiener and Feagin 1988; D. A. Smith 1995).
The urban ecologists of the 1920s and 1930s were aware of the role that the larger economy
played in urbanization, but their theories emphasized the impact of local rather than national or
global forces. In contrast, through their broad, global emphasis on social inequality and conflict,
new urban sociologists concentrate on such topics as the existence of an underclass, the power of
multinational corporations, deindustrialization, homelessness, and residential segregation.
For example, developers, builders, and investment bankers are not especially interested in urban
growth when it means providing housing for middle- or low-income people. Their lack of
interest contributes to the problem of homelessness. These urban elites counter that the nation's
housing shortage and the plight of the homeless are not their fault, and insist that they do not
have the capital needed to construct and support such housing. But affluent people are interested
in growth, and they can somehow find capital to build new shopping centers, office towers, and
ballparks. Why, then, can't they provide the capital for affordable housing, ask new urban
sociologists?
Part of the answer is that developers, bankers, and other powerful real estate interests view
housing in quite a different manner from tenants and most homeowners. For a tenant, an
apartment is shelter, housing, a home. But for developers and investors—many of them large
(and sometimes multinational) corporations—an apartment is simply a housing investment.
These financiers and owners are concerned primarily with maximizing profit, not with solving
social problems (Feagin 1983; Gottdiener and Hutchison 2000).
As we have seen throughout this textbook, in studying such varied issues as deviance, race and
ethnicity, and aging, no single theoretical approach necessarily offers the only valuable
perspective. As Table 20-3 shows, urban ecology and new urban sociology offer significantly
different ways of viewing urbanization, both of which enrich our understanding of this complex
phenomenon.
9
TYPES OF COMMUNITIES
Communities vary substantially in the degree to which their members feel connected and share a
common identity. Ferdinand Tonnies ([1887] 1988) used the term Gemeinschaft to describe a
close-knit community where social interaction among people is intimate and familiar. It is the
kind of place where people in a coffee shop will stop talking whenever anyone enters, because
they are sure to know whoever walks through the door. A shopper at the small grocery store in
this town would expect to know every employee, and probably every other customer as well. In
contrast, the ideal type of the Gesellschaft describes modern urban life, in which people have
little in common with others. Social relationships often result from interactions focused on
immediate tasks, such as purchasing a product. Contemporary city life in the United States
generally resembles a Gesellschaft.
The following sections will examine different types of communities found in the United States,
focusing on the distinctive characteristics and problems of central cities, suburbs, and rural
communities.
Central Cities
In terms of both land and population, the United States is the fourth-largest nation in the world.
Yet three-quarters
Table 20-3: Major Perspectives on Urbanization
Theoretical perspective
Primary focus
Key source of change
Initiator of actions
Allied disciplines
Urban Ecology
Functionalist
Relationship of urban areas to
their spatial setting and physical
environment
Technological innovations such
as
new
methods
of
transportation
Individuals,
neighborhoods,
communities
Geography, architecture
New Urban Sociology
Conflict
Relationship of urban areas to
global, national, and local forces
Economic
competition
monopolization of power
and
Real estate developers, banks and
other
financial
institutions,
multinational corporations
Political science, economics
of the population is concentrated in a mere 1.5 percent of the nation's land area. In 2000 some
226 million people—accounting for 80 percent of the nation's population—lived in metropolitan
areas. Even those who live outside central cities, such as residents of sububran and rural
communities, find that urban centers heavily influence their lifestyles (Bureau of the Census:
2002a:30).
Urban Dwellers
Many urban residents are the descendants of European emigrants—Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles,
and others ho came to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The cities socialized
10
these newcomers to the norms, values, and language of their new homeland and gave them an
opportunity to work their way up the economic ladder. In addition, a substantial number of lowincome African Americans and Whites came to the cities from rural areas in the period following
World War II.
Even today, cities in the United States are the destinations of immigrants from around the
world—including Mexico, Ireland, Cuba, Vietnam, and Haiti—as well as of migrants from the
U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Yet unlike those who came to this country 100 years ago,
current immigrants are arriving at a time of growing urban decay. Thus they have more difficulty
finding employment and decent housing.
Urban life is noteworthy for its diversity, so it would be a serious mistake to see all city residents
as being alike.
Sociologist Herbert J. Gans (1991) has distinguished five types of people found in cities:
1. Cosmopolites: These residents remain in cities to take advantage of unique cultural and
intellectual benefits. Writers, artists, and scholars fall into this category.
2. Unmarried and childless people: Such people choose to live in cities because of the active
nightlife and varied recreational opportunities.
3. Ethnic villagers: These urban residents prefer to live in their own tight-knit communities.
Typically, immigrant groups isolate themselves in such neighborhoods to avoid resentment from
well-established urban dwellers.
4. The deprived: Very poor people and families have little choice but to live in low-rent, and
often rundown, urban neighborhoods.
5. The trapped: Some city residents wish to leave urban centers but cannot because of their
limited economic resources and prospects. Gans includes the "downward mobiles" in this
category—people who once held higher social positions, but who are forced to live in less
prestigious neighborhoods owing to loss of a job, death of a wage earner, or old age. Both elderly
individuals living alone and families may feel trapped in part because they resent changes in
their communities. Their desire to live elsewhere may reflect their uneasiness with unfamiliar
immigrant groups who have become their neighbors.
These categories remind us that the city represents a choice (even a dream) for certain people and
a nightmare for others.
Gans's work underscores the importance of neighborhoods in contemporary urban life. Ernest
Burgess, in his study of life in Chicago in the 1920s, gave special attention to the ethnic
neighborhoods of that city. Many decades later, residents in such districts as Chinatowns or
Greek towns continue to feel attached to their own ethnic communities rather than to the larger
unit of a city. Even outside ethnic enclaves, a special sense of belonging can take hold in a
neighborhood.
In a more recent study in Chicago, Gerald Suttles (1972) coined the term defended neighborhood
to refer to people's definitions of their community boundaries. Neighborhoods acquire unique
11
identities because residents view them as geographically separate—and socially different—from
adjacent areas. The defended neighborhood, in effect, becomes a sentimental union of similar
people. Neighborhood phone directories, community newspapers, school and parish boundaries,
and business advertisements all serve to define an area and distinguish it from nearby
communities.
Issues Feeing Cities
People and neighborhoods vary greatly within any city in the United States. Yet all residents of a
central city—regardless of social class, racial, and ethnic differences— face certain common
problems. Crime, air pollution, noise, unemployment, overcrowded schools, inadequate public
transportation—these unpleasant realities and many more are an increasingly common feature of
contemporary urban life.
Perhaps the single most dramatic reflection of the nation's urban ills has been the apparent death
of entire neighborhoods. In some urban districts, business activity seems virtually nonexistent.
Visitors can walk for blocks and find little more than a devastating array of deteriorating,
boarded-up, abandoned, and burned-out buildings. Such urban devastation has greatly
contributed to the growing problem of homelessness.
Residential segregation has also been a persistent problem in cities across the United States.
Segregation has resulted from the policies of financial institutions, the business practices of real
estate agents, the actions of home sellers, and even urban planning initiatives (for example,
decisions about where to locate public housing). Sociologists Douglas Massey and Nancy
Denton (1993) have used the term American apartheid to refer to such residential patterns. In
their view, we no longer perceive segregation as a problem but rather accept it as a feature of the
urban landscape. For subordinate minority groups, segregation means not only limited housing
opportunities but reduced access to employment, retail outlets, and medical services.
Another critical problem for the cities has been mass transportation. Since 1950, the number of
cars in the United States has multiplied twice as fast as the number of people. Growing traffic
congestion in metropolitan areas has led many cities to recognize a need for safe, efficient, and
inexpensive mass transit systems. However, the federal government has traditionally given much
more assistance to highway programs than to public transportation. Conflict theorists note that
such a bias favors the relatively affluent (automobile owners) as well as corporations such as
auto manufacturers, tire makers, and oil companies. Meanwhile, low-income residents of
metropolitan areas, who are much less likely to own cars than members of the middle and upper
classes, face higher fares on public transit along with deteriorating service (Mason 1998).
Asset-Based Community Development
For many people, the words South Bronx, South Central Los Angeles, or even public housing call
forth a variety of negative stereotypes and stigmas. How do communities—whether
neighborhoods or cities—that have been labeled as ghettos address the challenges they face?
Typically, policymakers have identified an area's problems, needs, or deficiencies and then tried
12
to find solutions. But in the last decade, community leaders, policymakers, and applied
sociologists have begun to advocate an approach called asset-based community development
(ABCD), in which they first identify a community's strengths and then seek to mobilize those
assets.
In a distressed community, the ABCD approach helps people to recognize human resources they
might otherwise overlook. A community's assets may include its residents' skills; the power of
local associations; its institutional resources, whether public, private, or nonprofit; and any
physical and economic resources it has. By identifying these assets, planners can help to counter
negative images and rebuild even the most devastated communities. The anticipated result is to
strengthen the community's capacity to help itself and diminish its need to rely on outside
organizations or providers. In fact, one consequence of this approach is to direct assistance to
agencies within the community rather than to outside service providers (Asset-Based Community
Development Institute 2001; Kretzmann and McKnight 1993; McKnight and Kretzmann 1996).
Tragically, the events of September 11, 2001, have caused many communities both large and
small to recognize the ways in which neighbors can depend on one another. Middletown, New
Jersey, a suburban community that lost 36 residents in the terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center, is one example. In response to the catastrophe, a group of townspeople founded Friends
Assisting Victims of Terror (FAVOR) and began canvassing every homeowner and business in
the community on behalf of the bereaved families, most of whom had lost a breadwinner. At the
end of the first year, the group had collected more than $700,000, along with donations of goods
and services ranging from plumbing, car repair, and tree removal to haircuts, karate lessons, and
chiropractor's appointments. The town also set up a scholarship fund for the three dozen children
who had lost their fathers or mothers. In taking care of their own, the people of Middletown
discovered the richness and variety of their resources (A. Jacobs 2001a, 2001b, 2002; G. Sheehy
2003).
Suburbs
The term suburb derives from the Latin sub urbe, meaning "under the city." Until recent times,
most suburbs were just that—tiny communities totally dependent on urban centers for jobs,
recreation, and even water.
Today, the term suburb defies simple definition. The term generally refers to any community
near a large city—or as the Census Bureau would say, any territory within a metropolitan area
that is not included in the central city. By that definition, more than 138 million people, or about
51 percent of the population of the United States, live in the suburbs (Kleniewski 2002).
Three social factors differentiate suburbs from cities. First, suburbs are generally less dense than
cities; in the newest suburbs, no more than two dwellings may occupy an acre of land. Second,
the suburbs consist almost exclusively of private space. For the most part, private ornamental
lawns replace common park areas. Third, suburbs have more exacting building design codes than
cities, and those codes have become increasingly precise in the last decade. While the suburbs
may be diverse in population, their design standards give the impression of uniformity.
Distinguishing between suburbs and rural areas can also be difficult. Certain criteria generally
define suburbs: Most people work at urban (as opposed to rural) jobs, and local governments
provide services such as water supply, sewage disposal, and fire protection. In rural areas, these
13
services are less common, and a greater proportion of residents is employed in farming and
related activities.
Suburban Expansion
Whatever the precise definition of a suburb, it is clear that suburbs have expanded. In fact,
suburbanization was the most dramatic population trend in the United States throughout the 20th
century. Suburban areas grew at first along railroad lines, then at the termini of streetcar tracks,
and by the 1950s along the nation's growing systems of freeways and expressways. The suburban
boom has been especially evident since World War II.
Proponents of the new urban sociology contend that initially, industries moved their factories
from central cities to suburbs to reduce the power of labor unions. Subsequently, many suburban
communities induced businesses to relocate there by offering them subsidies and tax incentives.
As sociologist William Julius Wilson (1996) has observed, federal housing policies contributed
to the suburban boom by withholding mortgage capital from inner-city neighborhoods, by
offering favorable mortgages to military veterans, and by assisting the rapid development of
massive amounts of affordable tract housing in the suburbs. Moreover, federal highway and
transportation policies provided substantial funding for expressway systems (which made
commuting to the cities much easier), while undermining urban communities by building
freeway networks through the heart of cities.
All these factors contributed to the movement of the (predominantly White) middle class out of
the central cities, and as we shall see, out of the suburbs as well. From the perspective of new
urban sociology', suburban expansion is far from a natural ecological process; rather, it reflects
the distinct priorities of powerful economic and political interests.
Diversity in the Suburbs
In the United States, race and ethnicity remain the most important factors that distinguish cities
from suburbs. Nevertheless, the common assumption that suburbia includes only prosperous
Whites is far from correct. The last 20 years have witnessed the diversification of suburbs in
terms of race and ethnicity. For example, by 2000, 34 percent of Blacks in the United States, 46
percent of Latinos, and 53 percent of Asians lived in the suburbs. Like the rest of the nation,
members of racial and ethnic minorities are becoming suburban dwellers (El Nasser 2001; Frey
2001).
But are the suburban areas re-creating the racial segregation of the central cities? A definite
pattern of clustering, if not outright segregation, is emerging. A study of suburban residential
patterns in 11 metropolitan areas found that Asian Americans and Hispanics tend to reside in
equivalent socioeconomic areas with Whites—that is, affluent Hispanics live alongside affluent
Whites, poor Asians near poor Whites, and so on. However, the case for African Americans is
quite distinct. Suburban Blacks live in poorer suburbs than Whites, even after taking into account
differences in individuals' income, education, and homeownership.
Again, in contrast to prevailing stereotypes, the suburbs include a significant number of lowincome people from all backgrounds—White, Black, and Hispanic. Poverty is not conventionally
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associated with the suburbs, partly because the suburban poor tend to be scattered among more
affluent people. In some instances, suburban communities intentionally hide social problems
such as homelessness so they can maintain a "respectable image." Soaring housing costs have
contributed to suburban poverty, which is rising at a faster rate than urban poverty (Jargowsky
2003).
Some urban and suburban residents are moving to communities even more remote from the
central city, or to rural areas altogether. Initial evidence suggests that this move to rural areas is
only intensifying the racial disparities in our metropolitan areas (Bureau of the Census 1997b;
Holmes 1997).
Rural Communities
As we have seen, the people of the United States live mainly in urban areas. Yet one-fourth of
the population lives in towns of 2,500 people or less that are not adjacent to a city. As is true of
the suburbs, it would be a mistake to view rural communities as fitting one set image. Turkey
farms, coal mining towns, cattle ranches, and gas stations along interstate highways are all part
of the rural landscape in the United States.
Today, many rural areas are facing problems that were first associated with the central cities, and
are now evident in the suburbs. Overdevelopment, gang warfare, and drug trafficking can be
found on the policymaking agenda far outside major metropolitan areas. While the magnitude of
the problems may not be as great as in the central cities, rural resources cannot begin to match
those that city mayors can marshall in an attempt to address social ills (T. Egan 2002; Osgood
and Chambers 2003).
The postindustrial revolution has been far from kind to the rural communities of the United
States. Agriculture accounts for only 9 percent of employment in nonurban counties. Moreover,
in 1993, the Bureau of the Census calculated that farm residents accounted for only 2 percent of
the nation's population, compared to 95 percent in 1790. At the same time that farming has been
declining, so have mining and logging—the two nonagricultural staples of the rural economy.
When these jobs disappear, the rural poor who want to be economically self-sufficient face
problems. Even low-wage jobs are few, distances to services and better-paying jobs are long, and
child care options are scarce (Dirk Johnson 1996).
In desperation, residents of depressed rural areas have begun to encourage prison construction,
which they once discouraged, to bring in badly needed economic development. Ironically, in
regions where the prison population has declined, communities have been hurt yet again by their
dependence on a single industry (Kilborn 2001).
The construction of large businesses can create its own problems, as small communities that
have experienced the arrival of large discount stores, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, or
Costco, have discovered. Although many residents welcome the new employment opportunities
and the convenience of one-stop shopping, local merchants see their longtime family businesses
endangered by formidable 200,000-square-foot competitors with a national reputation. Even
when such discount stores provide a boost to a town's economy (and they do not always do so),
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they can undermine the town's sense of community and identity. Box 20-2 chronicles the "store
wars" that often ensue.
Rural communities that do survive may feel threatened by other changes intended to provide
jobs, income, and financial security. For example, the town of Postville, Iowa—with a
population of only 1,478—was dying in 1987 when an entrepreneur from New York City bought
a run-down meat processing plant. The plant was subsequently transformed into a kosher
slaughtering house, and today 150 Postville residents are devout Hasidic Jews from the
Lubavitcher sect. The new residents occupy key managerial positions in the slaughtering house,
while Lubavitcher rabbis supervise the kosher processing of the meat to ensure that it is acceptable under Jewish dietary laws. Initially, there was distrust between longtime residents of
Postville and their new neighbors, but gradually each group came to realize that it needed the
other (S. Bloom 2000; B. Simon 2001).
On a more positive note, advances in electronic communication have allowed some people in the
United States to work wherever they wish. For those who are concerned about quality-of-life
issues, working at home in a rural area that has access to the latest high-tech services is the
perfect arrangement. No matter where people make their homes—whether in the city, the
suburbs, or a country village—economic and technological change will have an impact on their
quality of life.