Modernus miestas kaip socioekologinė struktūra: 1870–1914 metų Kauno miesto struktūros ir plėtros analizės bandymas

Abstract

The article analyzes the socioecological structure of Kaunas city (one the centers of the Russian Empire’s provinces) in 1870–1914 based on the ideas for the analysis of the structure and development of modern cities proposed by the Chicago School of Sociology. The first part introduces Burgess’s “Concentric City Model”, which is considered to be the most representative theoretical tool for modern urban structure and development analysis. In the second part, this model is applied to the analysis of the Kaunas socioecological structure in 1870–1914. The conclusions give an answer in which stage of the modern urban structure and development Kaunas city was during the period under investigation. The novelty and relevance of the researchcan be seen: 1) in the first attempt to present the analysis of the structure and development of Kaunas city in 1870–1914 with the help of socio-ecological concepts; 2) in the contribution to the development of interdisciplinary dialogue between history and social sciences (namely, urban ecology theories); 3) in the continuation of the research on the socioecological structure of the major cities of Lithuania during the period of the Russian Empire. Keywords: modern city, Chicago School of Sociology, Burgess’s Ring-Theory of City Development, Kaunas city history. Summary The article analyzes the socioecological structure of Kaunas city (one of the centers of the Russian Empire’s provinces) in 1870–1914 based on the ideas for the analysis of the structure and development of modern cities proposed by the Chicago School of Sociology. The application of Burgess’s “Concentric City Model” made it possible to analyze the Kaunas socioecological structure in 1870–1914 and to answer the question: In what stage of modern urban structure and development was the Kaunas city during the period under investigation? The findings suggest a different arrangement of concentration zones in Kaunas in the period 1870–1914 compared to the Burgess model. The functions of Kaunas districts and the quality of their residential buildings, the contingent of the residents concentrating in them and the occupational layout ofthe population, income and the resulting differences allow us to state that the origin of concentric zones (or their segments) visible in Kaunas during the period in question is not a unique feature of Kaunas development/expansion. Instead, it shows that the process of the colonization of emerging social groups in the cities of the late industrialization in Lithuanian provinces was not completed, and modernization was late in Kaunas, as well as in Vilnius, compared to modern cities in the Western world (especially in the USA) in the period from the 2nd half of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century.