Settlement Type and Interpersonal Estrangement: A Test of the Theories of Wirth and Gans

Abstract

In response to Wirth's claim that settlement type influences interpersonal relationships, Gans has argued that such influences can be completely explained by demographic differences between the populations of the various settlement types. However, Gans has ignored the possibility of interaction between settlement type and demographic characteristics. This study tests the influence of city versus suburban settlement type on interpersonal estrangement. In anticipating that interaction effects will be found, it is hypothesized that the influence on estrangement of demographic variables which represent to strangers will differ between city and suburb. This vulnerability hypothesis is supported, particularly as it pertains to the child-rearing lifecycle stage. It is concluded that while the effect of settlement type on estrangement cannot be explained by demographic characteristics, it is largely confined to persons who possess certain characteristics. The relationship between settlement type and the quality of interpersonal relationships has long been debated in urban sociology. The debate rests on two divergent points of view, the first of which is associated with Louis Wirth. Wirth argues that the ecological characteristics of the city settlement type, that is, its great population size, density, and social heterogeneity,. independently reduce the quality of interpersonal relationships generally, and in particular produce interpersonal enstrangement (see also Park; Simmel). Wirth notes that in the city, it is not possible for residents to know all others personally, and those who are known tend to be so in a distant and secondary way. Further, city-dwellers treat each other with indifference and not infrequently with distrust owing to the competitive, exploitive, and predatory social relationships engendered by large population size. The alternative point of view is associated with Herbert Gans. Gans (a) argues that the ecological characteristics of cities have little effect on