Human Ecology

Abstract

The major current issues in theory and research concerning urban phenomena are considered before dealing with the general problems occupying ecologists at this tiem. Attention is directed to the urban community (spatial pattern population density the gravity model dominance and the urban hierarchy hierarchy and the division of labor dominance and power) system-environment interaction (population ecology evolution and organizational ecology expansion and the spatial pattern expansion and population distribution expansion and technology the world system) and ecology and institutional convergence. The revival of interest in the urban spatial pattern has resulted in a resurrection of the concept of the natural area but under the rubric segregation. The index of dissimilarity of distribution and changes of distribution over census tracts has been applied to both race and ethnicity. The distribution of population in the urban place may be treated more abstractly as density or number of people per unit of area. Voluminous research literature has accumulated around the issue of the meaning of density for a community. From an ecological perspective the important issue is the effect of density for the functioning of the communal system. The marked convergence of the 2 macro-level approaches in sociology -- ecological and institutional -- is apparent and most visible in the similarity of phenomena selected for study. These include the structure of organization and of interorganizational relations; urbanization and its relation to societal properties; and hierarchy in roles organizations and cities.