URBANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE
URBANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE
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DOI：
10.1086/217913
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发表时间：
1938-07-01
影响因子：
4.4
通讯作者：
Wirth, Louis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wirth, Louis
世界的城市化是现代最令人印象深刻的事实之一，它几乎在社会生活的每一个阶段都造成了深刻的变化。美国城市化的近代性和快速性说明了我们城市问题的尖锐性和我们对这些问题的缺乏认识。尽管城市主义在现代世界占据主导地位，但我们仍然缺乏一个能够充分考虑到以下事实的城市社会学定义：虽然城市是城市主义的典型场所，但城市生活方式并不局限于城市。从社会学的角度来看，城市是一个相对较大的、密集的、异质个体的永久聚居地。大量的数字解释了个体的可变性，亲密的个人熟人的相对缺乏，人际关系的分割，主要是匿名的，肤浅的，短暂的，以及相关的特征。密度包括多样化和专业化、社会关系的巧合、明显的对比、复杂的隔离模式、正式的社会控制占主导地位以及加剧的摩擦等现象。异质性倾向于打破僵化的社会结构，并产生更多的流动性、不稳定性和不安全感，以及个人与各种交叉和切线的社会群体的隶属关系，其成员流动率很高。金钱联系倾向于取代个人关系，机构倾向于迎合大众而不是个人需求。因此，个人只有通过有组织的群体才能发挥作用。如果在这样一个理论体系下进行社会学分析，那么复杂的城市现象可能会获得统一和连贯。关于城市生活模式的生态学、社会组织和社会心理学的经验证据证实了这种方法的丰硕成果。
The urbanization of the world, which is one of the most impressive facts of modern times, has wrought profound changes in virtually every phase of social life. The recency and rapidity of urbanization in the United States accounts for the acuteness of our urban problems and our lack of awareness of them. Despite the dominance of urbanism in the modern world we still lack a sociological definition of the city which would take adequate account of the fact that while the city is the characteristic locus of urbanism, the urban mode of life is not confined to cities. For sociological purpose a city is a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of heterogenous individuals. Large numbers account for inidividual variability, the relative absence of intimate personal acquaintanceship, the segmentalization of human relations which are largely anonymous, superficial, and transitory, and associated characteristic. Density involves diversification and specialization, the coincidence of social relations, glaring contrasts, a complex pattern of segregation, the predominance of formal social control, and accentuated friction, among other phenomena. Heterogeneity tends to break down rigid social structures and to produce increased mobility, instability, and insecurity, and the affilitation of the individuals with a variety of intersecting and tangential social groups with a high rate of membership turnover. The pecuniary nexus tends to displace personal relations, institutions tend to cater to mass rather than to individual requirements. The individual thus becomes effective only as he acts through organized groups. The complicated phenomena of urbanism may acquire unity and coherence if the sociological analysis proceeds in the light of such a body of theory. The empirical evidence concerning the ecology, the social organization, and the social psychology of the urban mode of life confirms the fruitfulness of this approach.