Significance of

Urban Sociology

Submitted by: Anjali Purohit

Sem-1 M.plan
What is Urban Sociology?

• According to Simmel [1903], urban sociology is the impressionistic discussion of

1. Urban life-style and personality.
2. Urban social organization and culture.
3. Physical characteristics of cities.
4. Social characteristics of the inhabitants.

• According to Flanagan ‘A cohesive sub-discipline within sociology, related in some systematic manner to
a particular kind of social space, the urban arena.’

• According to Barker, “Urban Sociology deals with the impact of the city life on social action, social
relationship, social instruction and the types of civilization derived from and based on urban modes of
living.”

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What is Urban Sociology?

• Urban sociology is the sociological study of life and human interaction in metropolitan areas.

• It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, environmental processes, changes
and problems of an urban area and by doing so provide inputs for urban planning and policy making.

• In other words, it is the sociological study of cities and their role in the development of society. Like most
areas of sociology, urban sociologists use statistical analysis, observation, social theory, interviews, and
other methods to study a range of topics, including migration and demographic trends, economics,
poverty, race relations and economic trends.

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Historical Background

• The philosophical
foundations of modern urban
sociology originate from the
work of sociologists such as
Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies,
Émile Durkheim, Max Weber
and Georg Simmel who
studied and theorized the
economic, social and cultural
processes of urbanization
and its effects on social
alienation, class formation,
and the production or
destruction of collective and
individual identities.
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Scope of Urban Sociology

• In general, Urban Sociology is concerned about the everyday life in the suburban (suburban
settlement space as well as in the city or urban settlement space). Yet, it has three addition
dimensions-

1. The shift to a global perspective.

2. Attention to the political economy of pull factors (government policies including mortgage
guarantees for lenders, tax deductions for homeowners, and the like) in urban and suburban
development.

3. A appreciate for the role of culture in metropolitan life and in the construction of the built
environment.

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Classification of Urban Sociology

• Azam and Ali [2005] have classified the scope of urban sociology into five dimensions:

1. The social change perspectives (morphology of cities, population dynamics, Change in behavioral
pattern of city-dwellers)

2. The social organization perspectives (individuals, groups, Bureaucracy etc.)

3. The ecological perspective (population, environment, technology)

4. The social problem perspectives (illness, poverty, unemployment, etc.)

5. The social policy perspectives (Recognition and identification of the problems, and ability to solve the
identified problems.)

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Characteristics/importance of Urban Sociology

• Urban sociology is the sociological analysis of city and its life style.

• It concerns the dynamism of society stimulated by urbanization.

• It tends to identify the urban problems and implement possible remedies to solve them.

• It is a factual study of urban social living.

• It plays attention to the social relation among the city dwellers.

• It concerned with the geo-spatial cultural issues and comparative analysis of urban ecology.

• It studies the social relation which may harmonious or conflicting.

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Characteristics/importance of Urban Sociology

• It is the subtract area of general sociology.

• It is a social science.

• It is a theoretical as well as an applied science.

• It is a categorical science not a normative science.

• It is an abstract not a concrete science.

• It is a special not a general science.

• It is value free science.

• It is based on universal, authentic and valid scientific data.

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