Full Description
The fifth edition of this text presents a balanced review of the ecological arguments that the urban arena produces unique experiential and urban-based cultural effects while exploring the broader political and economic contexts that produce and modify the urban environment. In addition to examining the urban dimensions of such topics as community formation and continuity, minority and majority dynamics, ethnic experience, poverty, power, and crime, it provides an analysis of the spatial distribution of population and resources with regard to the metropolitanization of the urban form, and the interaction between urban concentration and development and underdevelopment. From a first chapter that begins with a discussion of some of the more micrological features of the urban experience, the text focuses on the significance of the more macrological cultural, social organizational, and political dimensions of urban change, in an historical span that includes the first cities and concludes with an exploration of the implications of cyberspace, transnationalism, and global terrorism for the future of urban sociology. While the work focuses primarily on the North American case, its analytical and integrated discussion makes it applicable to urban societies in general.
Contents
Chapter 1 An Invitation to Urban Studies Chapter 2 From Ancient Cities to an Urban World Chapter 3 The Urban Tradition in Sociology Chapter 4 Community and the City Chapter 5 Ethnic and Minority Groups Chapter 6 Patterns and Consequences of Urbanization in Poor Countries Chapter 7 Urban Growth and Transitions in the United States Chapter 8 Ecology, Capitalism, and the Expanding Scope of Urban Analysis Chapter 9 Poverty, Power, and Crime Chapter 10 Urban Policy Chapter 11 Urban Sociology: An Evolving Perspective on the World
