Urban Sociology

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Urban sociology is among the earliest and richest areas of sociological inquiry. It touches on topics and problems related to the way urban areas develop and the way people live in urban areas. While most of the attention of urban sociologists has been on more contemporary urban settings in Western societies, they’ve shown increasing interest in urban development and urban life in so-called developing countries and the Far East, especially India and China. By nature an interdisciplinary pursuit, five major academic fields contribute to urban sociology: anthropology, economics, history, political science, and social psychology. Specialists in these respective disciplines read and cite each other’s work and borrow from each other’s theoretical insights. One major profession, urban planning, is affiliated with urban sociology. It, too, has its own entry in Oxford Bibliographies in Geography: “Urban Planning and Geography.” Other Oxford Bibliographies touch on themes discussed here. Among them are “The Chicago School of Urban Sociology,” “Suburbanism,” “Gentrification,” “Residential Segregation,” “Community,” “Urban Economics,” “Social Movements in Cities,” and “Riots.” Given the rich disciplinary sources that feed into urban sociology, this area of inquiry probably can be best understood by the themes that allow researchers to connect the disparate kinds of studies they do. The several sections into which this essay is divided have works that reflect one or more of the following four themes: (1) Urban sociologists focus on either the physical development of urban places (i.e., urbanization) or the way of life or culture practiced there (i.e., urbanism). (2) The work of urban sociologists asks how urban places are built and laid out as cities and metropolitan areas. It also asks how urban settlements might be rebuilt or developed so they better serve or complement the way people live there. (3) Some sociologists look at smaller groups of urban dwellers or venues in urban areas such as neighborhoods (i.e., “micro” studies) and other kinds of “communities” such as those one might find in a suburb. Others look at much larger geographic landscapes such as metropolitan areas and urban regions (i.e., “macro” studies). (4) Urban sociologists can be optimistic about the prospects for urban places and people or, more frequently, pessimistic about how well they will fare. The resilience and effectiveness of people living in urban settings are more often subordinated to a view of them as part of a marginalized and less well-regarded group, surviving rather than accomplishing much in the places they live, work, and practice politics.