Urban sociology

The urban sociology is concerned as a special sociology with the relationships between social groups in urban areas.

Its importance arises from the fact that the modern industrial and service society as well as the growth of cities in the "third world ", the urban population has made ​​the numerically predominant.

Subject

The conceptual- analytical intensification of urban sociology depends on what exactly is characterized as urban ( urban ). Is the pure population density criterion, then suffice for the constitution of an object of urban sociology many people on a few square kilometers. Such a definition, however, is the definition of the " typical urban " for example, from the slum, from the warehouse or from the company's own factory housing problematic. So the urban (or urban areas ) is usually determined differently: characterize, for example, policy sociology additional criteria ( such as Max Weber, where the city a politically (often city government is ) protected market town, see also the discussion of the polis ), or with mentality -related arguments (such as Georg Simmel the Metropolis and mental Life, or the social heterogeneity Stressing like Louis Wirth Urbanism as a way of life ) define network theoretically certain dense tangle (cluster ) as a typical urban and assign cities - but then will probably show that not all (public ) cities "urban" are what for large villages ( in Nigeria) already Bascom rus in urbe as (Latin, something like: " country in the City" ) has designated.

In that regard, the urban sociology " social problems " treated (eg so-called " problem district " ), sees them often from the urban sociological debate on principles from, but invests globally important (cf. also " Current research approaches ").

Trade history

An interesting precursor to the modern urban sociology is developed by the Chicago School since 1920 Social Ecology.

Important impulses for discussion about the city as a social phenomenon came from authors outside the discipline ( Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Alexander Mitscherlich, etc.).

In the 1970s, was in critical delineation of the human ecology of the Chicago School, the New Urban Sociology, with Marxist approaches have played a central role ( Henri Lefebvre, Manuel Castells, David Harvey and others).

Since the 1980s, there was a sociology of the city in the narrow sense -ranging discussion on the topic of gentrification. In the context of globalization, there was an extensive debate on the so-called Global City.

Relationships with other disciplines

The urban sociology has overlap with the urban geography, urban planning, urban ecology and architecture. Are there, however, spatial pattern or space- effective systems in the foreground, as is set centrally by some representatives of urban sociology, the social, political and economic interaction of individuals or groups with different interests. Overlaps with the local policy research, there are, among others, by the practiced in the more English-speaking approach of " urban regime research." Alliances between different groups of public and private actors are here under the heading of governance at the center.

Current research approaches

One among many debated, current research approaches is the " internal logic " approach. The inherent logic approach differs from other perspectives in urban studies, not to search only in the city and to see the city only as a given, not to be examined size, but to make the city itself the object of study. " Internal logic " stands as a working concept for each specific and "typical" properties as well as tacitly effective processes shaping the sense of a city. The aim is to understand the basic structures of the cities as well as to understand relations and similarities between cities. The central methodological tool is the comparison of cities.

364742
de