Comparative Urban Structure from an Interorganizational Perspective

Abstract

consensus and community-wide voluntary associations. An interorganizational view of the city also implies that a certain level of abstract consensus is likely among organizations. Either because of their search for predictability in uncertain environments (Form and Miller, 1960: 6; Emery and Trist, 1965; Terreberry, 1968) or because of their penetration by broader structures, like nonlocally based organizations or community federations (Parsons, 1960; Eisenstadt, 1965; Warren, 1970), organizations can hold certain abstract and overarching norms and values in common that regulate their interaction with one another. One might expect that the greater a community's organizational density, the more likely is such penetration to occur and thus the more likely are shared standards (Coleman, 1957; Stinchcombe, 1965). The integration associated with shared standards is partly a function of voluntary associations having uncontested, communitywide significance. Belonging to a general class of structures having integrative significance for broader social contexts (Goldhammer, 1964; Babchuk and Edwards, 1965), voluntary associations often pursue diffuse goals that may reflect whatever consensus exists among the other organizations in the