Prof. M.
Week Five Questions and Notes
Park, Burgess, Zorbaugh, Dear
Park, “Human Ecology”

Introduced the concept of “web of life, “which explained that “all living organisms, plants
and animals alike are bound together in a vast system of interlinked and interdependent
lives.”

Two concepts of human ecology: First, the processes that maintain the balance between
species; second, the processes that disturbed that balance.

The concept of symbiosis: Different species, such as plants and animals, live together in the
same habitat and develop a mutually beneficial relationship.
*Park compared the symbiotic habitats where plants and animals live together and are
interdependent with humans living in a city. The relationships among humans in the same city is
treated like an organism. Individuals with different customs and beliefs, language, and ethnicity live
in the same area and form symbiotic relationships.
*These urban areas where different groups interact and form symbiotic relationships are called
“natural areas.” The process of competition, dominance and succession can be identified in human
society. In the plant world, this process will bring a change in the balance due to the appearance
and invasion of alien species. Thus, the stronger will survive expanding its population, while the
weaker will most likely disappear.
*In human ecology, this process may be produced by a rapid change in population, high levels of
industrialization and immigration. These rapid changes will break the balance bringing various
degrees of rule breaking in those communities.
Summary:
-Dominance: Competitive clash among dissimilar members or groups for standing or resources.
Succession: An orderly process through which all biotic orders develop and change.
In the metropolitan community, territorial zones or areas reflect by the social conditions of their
population the struggle for power. Yet, the population of such "spaces" does not remain fixed.
For example, the immigrant newcomers routinely settle near the city center. City centers are
typically decaying areas that are ripe for commercialization and industrialization. However, Park
argued that the immigrants did not stay there. Rather, they moved, over time and generations,
outward through other concentric zones toward the suburbs. This is the movement of succession.
-Dominance and succession both stem from the most basic social process: (1) competition. This
form of interaction is universal and elementary in all natural or biotic orders. However, he identified
other processes that are distinctively societal. While competition over resources and space is
ongoing and impersonal, (2) conflict is a conscious process intended to secure social status and
relative control. (3) Accommodation, temporarily end conflict and support the prevailing hierarchy
through measures of social control (such as law and custom) (4) Assimilation, in which dissimilar
people and groups share their experiences and form a truly common culture.
Part I:
One. Explain the following Concepts in Park's “Human Ecology”
"Biotic" arrangement
Symbiotic relationship
Natural areas
Dominance
Succession
competition
conflict
Accommodation
Assimilation
Part II: Burgess “The Growth of the City”
• Examined the process of competition, dominance and succession in a city context.
• Burgess explained the process of city expansion by dividing the city of Chicago into five concentric
zones expanding from the center of the city. Zone I was the business center of the city.
• Zone II is the so-called “area of transition” where business and industry expand from Zone I.
Housing in Zone II is generally substandard and its inhabitants move as soon as they can afford
better housing in the outer areas of the city to escape these poor neighborhoods.
• Zone III is occupied by individuals that need easy and quick access to their jobs in Zones I and II.
• Zone IV is the residential area of the city populated with single homes.
• Zone V is considered outside the city limits.
• The city acts like an organic entity; they both need a process of metabolism, which in the case of
cities include a process of social disorganization and later organization to bring back biotic balance.
• However, the Zone II or area of transition was constantly going through the processes of invasion,
dominance and succession, it failed to recover its natural balance and had the highest rates of
unemployment, crime and poverty.
Questions:
Describe each Zone in the Concentric Zone Model
Describe social disorganization theory and its consequences.
How is disorganization “normal?”
Why is zone two the area of transition?
Give an example of invasion, dominance, and succession in the St. Louis area.
How does Burgess, in general, describe the city?
Create a similar model to describe St. Louis and its surrounding areas.
Create a descriptive map of St Louis that include the various neighborhoods and its essential
characteristics.
Harvey Zorbaugh “The Natural Areas of the City”
--The city is not an artifact of human creation, but a natural phenomenon with a natural history.
--Codified the concept of Natural Areas in the urban sociology
--As cities grow, they segregate into broad zones. In addition, the structure of the city is built
about this framework of transportation, business organizations and industry, park and boulevard
systems, and topographical features.
--All of these break the city up into numerous smaller areas that Zorbaugh calls ''natural areas''
because they are the unplanned, natural product of the city's growth. It is a geographical area
characterized both by a physical individuality and by the cultural characteristics of the people who
live in it.
--Natural areas are but one of the ecological processes occurring in cities. In addition, there is
competition for position in the community, segregation along cultural (ethnic) lines, and succession
(predictable change of natural areas).
--Zorbaugh uses locational features (landmarks) ‘to break up the city into numerous smaller areas,
which we may
call natural areas, in that they are unplanned, natural product of the city’s
growth
.
--Natural areas in the city tend to be distinct cultural areas as well, each with complex institutions,
customs, beliefs, traditions, attitudes, sentiments, and interests.
--Natural areas emerge through a coincidence of physical boundaries and cultural forces.
--A region is called “a natural area” because it comes into existence without
design, and performs a function, though the function, as in the case of the
slum, may be contrary to anybody’s desire. It is a natural area because it
has a natural history
.
--To Zorbaugh, segregation results from purely natural and cultural forces, not economically or
racially determined.
Natural areas collect particular city dwellers predestined to it. (DETERMINISM)
--The land market sifts and sorts the urban population into small enclaves the culturally segregates
the population.
Administrative units rarely coincide with natural areas. Thus, city planning and zoning, which
attempt to control the growth of the city, can only be economical and successful where they
recognize the natural organization of the city, the natural groupings of the city's population, and the
natural processes of the city's growth. In addition, researchers should note that the statistics of
natural areas are more often more appropriate to study than those of administrative units.
Questions:
One. Zorbaugh explained that natural areas in the city tend to be distinct cultural areas as well, ech
with complex institutions, customs, beliefs, traditions, attitudes, sentiments, and interests. Give an
example of “natural areas” in St. Louis that represent the following enclaves:
a. Race/Ethnic (Harlem, Little Havana, Little Italy, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Koreatown):
b. Affluent enclaves: (Gold Coast, Beverly Hills, Park Avenue):
c. Bohemia/Hobohemia (Greenwich Village, Barbary Coast, Hell's Kitchen, the Bowery, Decatur
St.)
Two. Explain some of the causes of racial/ethnic segregation (see quote on page 85)?
Three. What does it mean that everyone in the city is in an impersonal competition with all other
city dwellers? What are they competing for (85)?
Four. How does Zorbaugh define the “natural area?” What is the same about these so called natural
areas from city to city?
Five. According to Zorbaugh, explain some of the problems with administrative areas and natural
areas in the city?
Six. Explain one of the major problems with uniting administrative units (self-government) with
natural areas (86)?
Dear, “Los Angeles and the Chicago School: invitation to a debate”
--Los Angeles School of urban scholars. (Michael Dear, Michael Davis, and Edward Soja)
--Set themselves up in direct opposition to the Chicago School. They suggest that Los Angeles,
with its fragmented spatial and social pattern, rather than Chicago with its dominant central core, is
the model for the future—the prototype of a new kind of urbanism.
--The culturally and socially diverse Los Angeles metro area is not an exception to the pattern,
they argue; it is the new pattern--a "polygot, polycentric, polycultural pastiche that is deeply
involved in rewriting American urbanism."
--The L.A. School turns the older Chicago School on its head by arguing that the multicultural way
of life is the new postmodern norm in which the periphery is now the core.
--Los Angeles, like all cities, is unique, but in one way it may typify the world city of the future:
there are only minorities. No single ethnic group, nor way of life, nor industrial sector dominates the
scene. Pluralism has gone further here than in any city in the world and for this reason it may
characterize the global metropolis of the future.” Los Angeles is not an exception to the rule; it is
the rule.
Questions:
One. According to Dear, how was the Chicago School a modernist analytical paradigm?
Two. Explain each of the following characteristics of the the postmodern metropolis:
a. Edge City:
b. Privatopia:
c. Cultures of Heteropolis:
d. City as Theme Park:
e. Fortified City:
f. Interdictory Spaces:
Three: According to Dear, how is the Los Angeles School distinguishable from the Chicago School
(113)?