An Essay on Urban Sociologist's Concept of 'Community'

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to clarify and better understand the underlying assumptions made by Japanese urban sociologists in the 1950's through the 1980's. It is done by examining the community theories and the studies of neighborhood associations called “Chonaikai”.Urbanization and industrialization after the World War II encouraged the mobility of the population and the change in the community's social structure. Although their ideological positions were varied, many urban sociologists proposed new images of community that were considered to be ideal and consistent with the societal goals. They explored the possibility of realizing such images and pursued the way to reorganize the communities.These new images of community have the following three characteristics in common : 1. Despite its unclear boundaries and unfixed population, a community is discussed as though it existed independently of and isolated from the outside world. 2. A community is viewed as a society made of permanent settlers. Thus, its mobile population is treated either as marginal or as a factor that causes disorganization. 3. The existence of multiple life worlds in a city is ignored in the discussion and the necessity for establishing the community's identity is overly emphasized.Many Japanese urban sociologists claim to have followed Chicago School's tradition. However, they have failed to pay attention to the dynamic social processes involving interactions between various communities and between diverse individuals. Therefore, their studies have neglected to deal with the fluid population of minority and their social world, handing such issues over to social pathologists as their research topics.