Chapter 20 Population, Communities, and Urbanization€¦ · •Currently, there are 20 million legal immigrants in western Europe, along with an estimated 2 million illegal immigrants.

Chapter 20Population, Communities, and

Urbanization

Introduction to Sociology

Spring 2010

Discuss Malthus’s thesis and Marx’s response

• Essentially, Malthus held that the world’s population was growing more rapidly than the available food supply. He argued that food supply increases in arithmetic progression (1,2,3, 4, and so on), whereas population expands by geometric progression (1, 2, 4, 8, and so on). He argued people should take responsibility for the number of children they choose to bear, and take measures to lessen population, like marrying later.

• Karl Marx strongly criticized Malthus’s views on population. Marx pointed to the nature of economic relations in Europe’s industrial societies as the central problem. He could not accept the Malthusian notion that rising world population, rather than capitalism, was the cause of social ills. If society were well ordered, increases in population would lead to greater wealth, not to hunger and misery.

Identify and discuss the various elements of studying population.

• The census is an enumeration or counting of the population. In the U.S. and most other countries, the census is the primary mechanism for collecting population info. This periodic investigation is supplemented by vital statistics such as records of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces that are gathered through a registration system maintained by governments.

Discuss the various patterns of world populations.

• In many nations today, we are seeing a demographic transition from high birthrates and death rates to low birthrates and death rates. This process typically takes place in 3 stages:

1. Pretransition stage: high birthrates and death rates with little population growth.

2. Transition stage: declining death rates –primarily the result of reductions in infant deaths – along with high to medium fertility, resulting in significant population growth.

3. Posttransition stage: low birthrates and death rates with little population growth.

Discuss the various patterns of fertility in the U.S.

• The most recent period of high fertility in the U.S. has often been referred to as the baby boom. The peak in 1957 of over 20 live births per 1,000 population compares today with 14 live births per 1,000 population.

• The total fertility rate (TFR) is the average # of children born alive to any woman, assuming that she conforms to current fertility rates. U.S. TFR 2.1 live births per woman in 2008.

Describe the various types of population migration patterns.

• International migration:

• Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, legal immigrants to the U.S. account for about 45% of the nation’ s growth.

• Currently, there are 20 million legal immigrants in western Europe, along with an estimated 2 million illegal immigrants.

• Internal migration:

• Suburbanization – During the period 2000-2008, US. Suburbs grew by about 15 million people as the central cities shrank, losing 13.4 million people.

• Sunning of America – Since 1970, the sun belt has absorbed almost 2/3rds of the population growth of the U.S.

• Rural life rebound – In the early 1990s, nonmetropolitan counties gained in population, though the trend began to level off in 1998.

Discuss early communities and the shift to preindustrial cities.

Early communities were hunting and gathering societies who satisfied their need for food through hunting, foraging for fruits or vegetables, fishing, and herding. Later, with farming, and better tools, farming communities could accumulate a surplus of food, which allowed some people to turn to the production of other goods and services.

• This economic breakthrough laid the foundation for social stratification and the eventual rise of preindustrial cities. The preindustrial city generally only had a few thousand people living within its borders, and was characterized by a relatively closed class system and limited mobility. Why so small?

1. Reliance on animal power (human and beast) as a source of energy for economic production.

2. Modest levels of surplus produced by the agricultural sector.

3. Problems in transportation and the storage of food and other goods.

4. Hardships of migration to the city.

5. Dangers of city life (attacks, plagues, fires).

Discuss the nature of industrial and postindustrial cities.

• The industrial city was based on very different principles of social organization, which included a more open class system and more mobility. It was spawned by the Industrial Revolution, which began in the middle of the 18th century, with factories.

• The postindustrial city is one in which global finance and the electronic flow of information dominate the economy. Production is decentralized and often takes place outside urban centers, but control is centralized in multinational corporations whose influence transcends urban and even national boundaries.

Discuss the functionalist view of urban ecology.

• Human ecology is an area of study that is concerned with the interrelationships between people and their environment. Early urban ecologists concentrated on city life, but drew on the approaches used by ecologists in studying plant and animal communities. In the 1920’s, Ernest Burgess devised the concentric zone theory that suggested that families and businesses compete for the most valuable land.

• Because of its functionalist orientation and its emphasis on stability, the concentric zone theory tended to understate certain tensions apparent in metropolitan areas. Multiple-nuclei theory contends that a metropolitan area may have many centers of development, each of which reflects a particular urban need or activity. Contemporary urban ecologists have begun to study “edge cities” that have grown up on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, which have social centers and identities of their own.

Discuss the conflict view of new urban sociology.

• Drawing on the conflict theory, an approach that has come to be called the new urban sociology considers the interplay of local, national, and worldwide forces and their effect on local space, with special emphasis on the impact of global economic activity. The new urban sociology utilizes the work of Immanuel Wallerstein’s world systems analysis.

• Wallerstein argues that certain industrialized nations such as the U.S., Japan, and Germany hold a dominant position at the core of the global economic system. They view cities not as independent and autonomous entities but rather as the outcome of decision-making processes directed or influenced by a society’s dominant classes and by core industrialized nations.

Describe the nature of central cities, suburbs, and rural areas.

• Communities vary substantially n the degree to which their members feel connected and share a common identity. In 2000, some 226 million people, or 79% of the population of the U.S., lived in metropolitan areas. Many urban residents are descendents of European immigrants. Urban devastation through the death of entire neighborhoods has greatly

• contributed to the growing problem of homelessness. Lack of funding for mass transportation programs has assisted in the decline of urban neighborhoods. As urban areas decline, suburbanization expands. The suburban boom has been especially evident since WW II. From the perspective of new urban sociology, suburban expansion reflects the distinct priorities of powerful economic and political interests. Suburbs include a significant number of low-income people from all backgrounds. 21% of the American population lives in rural areas.

Discuss the issues surrounding homelessness worldwide.

• It can happen to anyone. Homelessness is evident in both industrialized and developing countries. According to estimates, on any given night, the # of homeless persons in the U.S. is at least 670,000, only about ½ of whom are sheltered. By 1998, in urban areas alone, 600 million people around the world were either homeless or inadequately housed.

• In the past most homeless people were older White males living as alcoholics in skid-row areas. Today the average age is in the low 30s. Overall, an estimated 74% of homeless people in the U.S. are from racial and ethnic minority groups. The resettlement of low-income city neighborhoods by prosperous families and business firms (gentrification) has contributed to homelessness.

• The major federal program intended to assist the homeless is the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, passed in 1987. This act authorizes federal aid for emergency food, shelter, physical, and mental health care, job training, and education for homeless children and adults.

• According to an analysis by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (2006), the past 20 years have seen a growing trend toward the adoption of anti-homeless public policies and the “criminalization” of homeless people.