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Title: The city
Author: Ernest W. Burgess
Roderick D. McKenzie
Robert E. Park
Contributor: Louis Wirth
Release date: March 29, 2024 [eBook #73285]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1925
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Will Cohen and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY ***
THE CITY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED
TORONTO
THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON
The MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI
THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY
SHANGHAI
THE CITY
BY
ROBERT E. PARK
ERNEST W. BURGESS
RODERICK D. McKENZIE
WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY BY
LOUIS WIRTH
[Illustration: [Logo]]
THE
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO·ILLINOIS
COPYRIGHT 1925 BY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
All Rights Reserved
Published December 1925
Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
PREFACE
Some years ago I was asked to outline a program of studies of human
nature and social life under modern city conditions. The first paper in
this volume was written in response to that request. The other chapters
are by-products of the more detailed monographic studies suggested in
that paper and already measurably carried to completion. They have
arisen naturally as a commentary upon and interpretation of these larger
studies, exploring and delimiting the field of observation and research
in which these subjects lie. It has seemed, therefore, that although
they were written at different times and by different hands, they might
serve as a general introduction to further studies in the field. Some of
the larger monographs referred to above are nearly ready for the press
and when published will constitute, with this volume, a series in the
sociology of urban life.
Most of the papers in this volume have already found their way into
print, in whole or in part, either in the _Proceedings of the American
Sociological Society_ or in the pages of other sociological
publications.
The chapter “The City,” which gives the title to this volume, was first
published in the _American Journal of Sociology_ for March, 1915. It has
been revised and to some extent rewritten for publication in this
volume. No attempt has been made, however, to redefine the point of view
or the project as originally outlined.
The chapter “The Growth of the City” was presented first as a paper at
the meeting of the Sociological Society in Washington, in 1923. It was
subsequently printed in the _Proceedings_ of the Society for that year.
It is intended to sketch a point of view for the study of the expansion
of the urban area and the growth of the urban community, particularly as
they are related to the recognized problems, communal and personal, of
the city.
Professor McKenzie’s paper, “The Ecological Approach to the Study of the
Human Community,” was first published in the _American Journal of
Sociology_ for November, 1925. It is intended to emphasize the fact that
the conceptions and methods of study of plant and animal ecology may be
profitably applied to the analysis and description of certain aspects of
human society. These three papers, with the classified bibliography by
Louis Wirth, represent whatever is novel in the point of view and the
methods of study of the urban community, to which this volume is
intended as an introduction.
Certain of the remaining chapters, including the paper “The Natural
History of the Newspaper,” first published in the _American Journal of
Sociology_, November, 1923; the paper “Magic, Mentality, and City Life,”
presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society, in
Washington, D.C., December, 1923; and the brief paper on the “Mind of
the Hobo,” first printed under the title “The Mind of the Rover,” in the
_World Tomorrow_, September, 1923, will no doubt seem rather remote from
the theme of this volume. The justification for including them here is
that they suggest lines of observation in a field that students are just
now beginning to explore. It seems evident that there is a very definite
relation between human intelligence and community organization. Although
no specific studies have been made in this field, they should be
included, at least prospectively, in the list of problems for further
study.
The substance of the chapter “Community Organization and Juvenile
Delinquency” was presented at the annual meeting of the Recreation
Congress, in Springfield, Illinois, October 8–12, 1923, but has not been
previously published. The paper “Community Organization and the Romantic
Temper” was read at the meeting of the American Sociological Society in
Washington, D.C., in 1923, in the section on Community Organization. It
was published in the _Journal of Social Forces_, May, 1925.
Professor Burgess’ paper, “Can Neighborhood Work Have a Scientific
Basis?” was presented at the annual meeting of the National Conference
of Social Work, in Toronto, May 1924. An abstract of this paper was
published in the _Proceedings_ of the conference for that year.
In conclusion, the authors wish to take this occasion to acknowledge
their indebtedness to the publishers for using here the papers in the
journals mentioned.
ROBERT E. PARK
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
November 2, 1925
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CITY: SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF HUMAN
BEHAVIOR IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT. _Robert E. Park_ 1
II. THE GROWTH OF THE CITY: AN INTRODUCTION TO A RESEARCH
PROJECT. _Ernest W. Burgess_ 47
III. THE ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF THE HUMAN
COMMUNITY. _R. D. McKenzie_ 63
IV. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE NEWSPAPER. _Robert E. Park_ 80
V. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY. _Robert
E. Park_ 99
VI. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION AND THE ROMANTIC TEMPER. _Robert E.
Park_ 113
VII. MAGIC, MENTALITY, AND CITY LIFE. _Robert E. Park_ 123
VIII. CAN NEIGHBORHOOD WORK HAVE A SCIENTIFIC BASIS? _Ernest W.
Burgess_ 142
IX. THE MIND OF THE HOBO: REFLECTIONS UPON THE RELATION
BETWEEN MENTALITY AND LOCOMOTION. _Robert E. Park_ 156
X. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE URBAN COMMUNITY. _Louis Wirth_ 161
INDEXES 229
CHAPTER I
THE CITY: SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN THE
URBAN ENVIRONMENT
The city, from the point of view of this paper, is something more than a
congeries of individual men and of social conveniences—streets,
buildings, electric lights, tramways, and telephones, etc.; something
more, also, than a mere constellation of institutions and administrative
devices—courts, hospitals, schools, police, and civil functionaries of
various sorts. The city is, rather, a state of mind, a body of customs
and traditions, and of the organized attitudes and sentiments that
inhere in these customs and are transmitted with this tradition. The
city is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an
artificial construction. It is involved in the vital processes of the
people who compose it; it is a product of nature, and particularly of
human nature.
The city has, as Oswald Spengler has recently pointed out, its own
culture: “What his house is to the peasant, the city is to civilized
man. As the house has its household gods, so has the city its protecting
Deity, its local saint. The city also, like the peasant’s hut, has its
roots in the soil.”[1]
The city has been studied, in recent times, from the point of view of
its geography, and still more recently from the point of view of its
ecology. There are forces at work within the limits of the urban
community—within the limits of any natural area of human habitation, in
fact—which tend to bring about an orderly and typical grouping of its
population and institutions. The science which seeks to isolate these
factors and to describe the typical constellations of persons and
institutions which the co-operation of these forces produce, is what we
call human, as distinguished from plant and animal, ecology.
Transportation and communication, tramways and telephones, newspapers
and advertising, steel construction and elevators—all things, in fact,
which tend to bring about at once a greater mobility and a greater
concentration of the urban populations—are primary factors in the
ecological organization of the city.
The city is not, however, merely a geographical and ecological unit; it
is at the same time an economic unit. The economic organization of the
city is based on the division of labor. The multiplication of
occupations and professions within the limits of the urban population is
one of the most striking and least understood aspects of modern city
life. From this point of view, we may, if we choose, think of the city,
that is to say, the place and the people, with all the machinery and
administrative devices that go with them, as organically related; a kind
of psychophysical mechanism in and through which private and political
interests find not merely a collective but a corporate expression.
Much of what we ordinarily regard as the city—its charters, formal
organization, buildings, street railways, and so forth—is, or seems to
be, mere artifact. But these things in themselves are utilities,
adventitious devices which become part of the living city only when, and
in so far as, through use and wont they connect themselves, like a tool
in the hand of man, with the vital forces resident in individuals and in
the community.
The city is, finally, the natural habitat of civilized man. It is for
that reason a cultural area characterized by its own peculiar cultural
type:
“It is a quite certain, but never fully recognized, fact,” says
Spengler, “that all great cultures are city-born. The outstanding man of
the second generation is a city-building animal. This is the actual
criterion of world-history, as distinguished from the history of
mankind: world-history is the history of city men. Nations, governments,
politics, and religions—all rest on the basic phenomenon of human
existence, the city.”[2]
Anthropology, the science of man, has been mainly concerned up to the
present with the study of primitive peoples. But civilized man is quite
as interesting an object of investigation, and at the same time his life
is more open to observation and study. Urban life and culture are more
varied, subtle, and complicated, but the fundamental motives are in both
instances the same. The same patient methods of observation which
anthropologists like Boas and Lowie have expended on the study of the
life and manners of the North American Indian might be even more
fruitfully employed in the investigation of the customs, beliefs, social
practices, and general conceptions of life prevalent in Little Italy on
the lower North Side in Chicago, or in recording the more sophisticated
folkways of the inhabitants of Greenwich Village and the neighborhood of
Washington Square, New York.
We are mainly indebted to writers of fiction for our more intimate
knowledge of contemporary urban life. But the life of our cities demands
a more searching and disinterested study than even Émile Zola has given
us in his “experimental” novels and the annals of the Rougon-Macquart
family.
We need such studies, if for no other reason than to enable us to read
the newspapers intelligently. The reason that the daily chronicle of the
newspaper is so shocking, and at the same time so fascinating, to the
average reader is because the average reader knows so little about the
life of which the newspaper is the record.
The observations which follow are intended to define a point of view and
to indicate a program for the study of urban life: its physical
organization, its occupations, and its culture.
I. THE CITY PLAN AND LOCAL ORGANIZATION
The city, particularly the modern American city, strikes one at first
blush as so little a product of the artless processes of nature and
growth, that it is difficult to recognize it as a living entity. The
ground plan of most American cities, for example, is a checkerboard. The
unit of distance is the block. This geometrical form suggests that the
city is a purely artificial construction which might conceivably be
taken apart and put together again, like a house of blocks.
The fact is, however, that the city is rooted in the habits and customs
of the people who inhabit it. The consequence is that the city possesses
a moral as well as a physical organization, and these two mutually
interact in characteristic ways to mold and modify one another. It is
the structure of the city which first impresses us by its visible
vastness and complexity. But this structure has its basis, nevertheless,
in human nature, of which it is an expression. On the other hand, this
vast organization which has arisen in response to the needs of its
inhabitants, once formed, imposes itself upon them as a crude external
fact, and forms them, in turn, in accordance with the design and
interests which it incorporates. Structure and tradition are but
different aspects of a single cultural complex which determines what is
characteristic and peculiar to city, as distinguished from village, life
and the life of the open fields.
_The city plan._—It is because the city has a life quite its own that
there is a limit to the arbitrary modifications which it is possible to
make (1) in its physical structure and (2) in its moral order.
The city plan, for example, establishes metes and bounds, fixes in a
general way the location and character of the city’s constructions, and
imposes an orderly arrangement, within the city area, upon the buildings
which are erected by private initiative as well as by public authority.
Within the limitations prescribed, however, the inevitable processes of
human nature proceed to give these regions and these buildings a
character which it is less easy to control. Under our system of
individual ownership, for instance, it is not possible to determine in
advance the extent of concentration of population which is likely to
occur in any given area. The city cannot fix land values, and we leave
to private enterprise, for the most part, the task of determining the
city’s limits and the location of its residential and industrial
districts. Personal tastes and convenience, vocational and economic
interests, infallibly tend to segregate and thus to classify the
populations of great cities. In this way the city acquires an
organization and distribution of population which is neither designed
nor controlled.
The Bell Telephone Company is now making, particularly in New York and
Chicago, elaborate investigations, the purpose of which is to determine,
in advance of its actual changes, the probable growth and distribution
of the urban population within the metropolitan areas. The Sage
Foundation, in the course of its city-planning studies, sought to find
mathematical formulae that would enable them to predict future expansion
and limits of population in New York City. The recent development of
chain stores has made the problem of location a matter of concern to
different chain-store corporations. The result has been the rise of a
new profession.
There is now a class of experts whose sole occupation is to discover and
locate, with something like scientific accuracy, taking account of the
changes which present tendencies seem likely to bring about,
restaurants, cigar stores, drug-stores, and other smaller retail
business units whose success depends largely on location. Real-estate
men are not infrequently willing to finance a local business of this
sort in locations which they believe will be profitable, accepting as
their rent a percentage of the profits.
Physical geography, natural advantages and disadvantages, including
means of transportation, determine in advance the general outlines of
the urban plan. As the city increases in population, the subtler
influences of sympathy, rivalry, and economic necessity tend to control
the distribution of population. Business and industry seek advantageous
locations and draw around them certain portions of the population. There
spring up fashionable residence quarters from which the poorer classes
are excluded because of the increased value of the land. Then there grow
up slums which are inhabited by great numbers of the poorer classes who
are unable to defend themselves from association with the derelict and
vicious.
In the course of time every section and quarter of the city takes on
something of the character and qualities of its inhabitants. Each
separate part of the city is inevitably stained with the peculiar
sentiments of its population. The effect of this is to convert what was
at first a mere geographical expression into a neighborhood, that is to
say, a locality with sentiments, traditions, and a history of its own.
Within this neighborhood the continuity of the historical processes is
somehow maintained. The past imposes itself upon the present, and the
life of every locality moves on with a certain momentum of its own, more
or less independent of the larger circle of life and interests about it.
The organization of the city, the character of the urban environment and
of the discipline which it imposes is finally determined by the size of
the population, its concentration and distribution within the city area.
For this reason it is important to study the growth of cities, to
compare the idiosyncrasies in the distribution of city populations. Some
of the first things we want to know about the city, therefore are:
What are the sources of the city’s population?
What part of its population growth is normal, i.e., due to excess of
births over deaths?
What part is due to migration (_a_) of native stocks? (_b_) foreign
stocks?
What are the outstanding “natural” areas, i.e., areas of population
segregation?
How is distribution of population within the city area affected by
(_a_) economic interest, i.e., land values? (_b_) by sentimental
interest, race? vocation, etc.?
Where within the city is the population declining? Where is it
expanding?
Where are population growth and the size of families within the
different natural areas of the city correlated with births and deaths,
with marriages and divorces, with house rents and standards of living?
_The neighborhood._—Proximity and neighborly contact are the basis for
the simplest and most elementary form of association with which we have
to do in the organization of city life. Local interests and associations
breed local sentiment, and, under a system which makes residence the
basis for participation in the government, the neighborhood becomes the
basis of political control. In the social and political organization of
the city it is the smallest local unit.
It is surely one of the most remarkable of all social facts that,
coming down from untold ages, there should be this instinctive
understanding that the man who establishes his home beside yours
begins to have a claim upon your sense of comradeship.... The
neighborhood is a social unit which, by its clear definition of
outline, its inner organic completeness, its hair-trigger reactions,
may be fairly considered as functioning like a social mind.... The
local boss, however autocratic he may be in the larger sphere of the
city with the power he gets from the neighborhood, must always be in
and of the people; and he is very careful not to try to deceive the
local people so far as their local interests are concerned. It is hard
to fool a neighborhood about its own affairs.[3]
The neighborhood exists without formal organization. The local
improvement society is a structure erected on the basis of the
spontaneous neighborhood organization and exists for the purpose of
giving expression to the local sentiment in regard to matters of local
interest.
Under the complex influences of the city life, what may be called the
normal neighborhood sentiment has undergone many curious and interesting
changes, and produced many unusual types of local communities. More than
that, there are nascent neighborhoods and neighborhoods in process of
dissolution. Consider, for example, Fifth Avenue, New York, which
probably never had an improvement association, and compare with it 135th
Street in the Bronx (where the Negro population is probably more
concentrated than in any other single spot in the world), which is
rapidly becoming a very intimate and highly organized community.
In the history of New York the significance of the name Harlem has
changed from Dutch to Irish to Jewish to Negro. Of these changes the
last has come most swiftly. Throughout colored America, from
Massachusetts to Mississippi and across the continent to Los Angeles
and Seattle, its name, which as late as fifteen years ago has scarcely
been heard, now stands for the Negro metropolis. Harlem is, indeed,
the great Mecca for the sight-seer, the pleasure-seeker, the curious,
the adventurous, the enterprising, the ambitious, and the talented of
the Negro world; for the lure of it has reached down to every island
of the Carib Sea and has penetrated even into Africa.[4]
It is important to know what are the forces which tend to break up the
tensions, interests, and sentiments which give neighborhoods their
individual character. In general these may be said to be anything and
everything that tends to render the population unstable, to divide and
concentrate attentions upon widely separated objects of interest.
What part of the population is floating?
Of what elements, i.e., races, classes, etc., is this population
composed?
How many people live in hotels, apartments, and tenements?
How many people own their own homes?
What proportion of the population consists of nomads, hobos, gypsies?
On the other hand, certain urban neighborhoods suffer from isolation.
Efforts have been made at different times to reconstruct and quicken the
life of city neighborhoods and to bring them in touch with the larger
interests of the community. Such is, in part, the purpose of the social
settlements. These organizations and others which are attempting to
reconstruct city life have developed certain methods and a technique for
stimulating and controlling local communities. We should study, in
connection with the investigation of these agencies, these methods and
this technique, since it is just the method by which objects are
practically controlled that reveals their essential nature, that is to
say, their predictable character (_Gesetzmässigkeit_).[5]
In many of the European cities, and to some extent in this country,
reconstruction of city life has gone to the length of building garden
suburbs, or replacing unhealthful and run-down tenements with model
buildings owned and controlled by the municipality.
In American cities the attempt has been made to renovate evil
neighborhoods by the construction of playgrounds and the introduction of
supervised sports of various kinds, including municipal dances in
municipal dance halls. These and other devices which are intended
primarily to elevate the moral tone of the segregated populations of
great cities should be studied in connection with the investigation of
the neighborhood in general. They should be studied, in short, not
merely for their own sake, but for what they can reveal to us of human
behavior and human nature generally.
_Colonies and segregated areas._—In the city environment the
neighborhood tends to lose much of the significance which it possessed
in simpler and more primitive forms of society. The easy means of
communication and of transportation, which enable individuals to
distribute their attention and to live at the same time in several
different worlds, tend to destroy the permanency and intimacy of the
neighborhood. On the other hand, the isolation of the immigrant and
racial colonies of the so-called ghettos and areas of population
segregation tend to preserve and, where there is racial prejudice, to
intensify the intimacies and solidarity of the local and neighborhood
groups. Where individuals of the same race or of the same vocation live
together in segregated groups, neighborhood sentiment tends to fuse
together with racial antagonisms and class interests.
Physical and sentimental distances reinforce each other, and the
influences of local distribution of the population participate with the
influences of class and race in the evolution of the social
organization. Every great city has its racial colonies, like the
Chinatowns of San Francisco and New York, the Little Sicily of Chicago,
and various other less pronounced types. In addition to these, most
cities have their segregated vice districts, like that which until
recently existed in Chicago, their rendezvous for criminals of various
sorts. Every large city has its occupational suburbs, like the
Stockyards in Chicago, and its residential enclaves, like Brookline in
Boston, the so-called “Gold Coast” in Chicago, Greenwich Village in New
York, each of which has the size and the character of a complete
separate town, village, or city, except that its population is a
selected one. Undoubtedly the most remarkable of these cities within
cities, of which the most interesting characteristic is that they are
composed of persons of the same race, or of persons of different races
but of the same social class, is East London, with a population of
2,000,000 laborers.
The people of the original East London have now overflowed and crossed
the Lea, and spread themselves over the marshes and meadows beyond.
This population has created new towns which were formerly rural
villages, West Ham, with a population of nearly 300,000; East Ham,
with 90,000; Stratford, with its “daughters,” 150,000; and other
“hamlets” similarly overgrown. Including these new populations, we
have an aggregate of nearly two millions of people. The population is
greater than that of Berlin or Vienna, or St. Petersburg, or
Philadelphia.
It is a city full of churches and places of worship, yet there are no
cathedrals, either Anglican or Roman; it has a sufficient supply of
elementary schools, but it has no public or high school, and it has no
colleges for the higher education and no university; the people all
read newspapers; yet there is no East London paper except of the
smaller and local kind.... In the streets there are never seen any
private carriages; there is no fashionable quarter ... one meets no
ladies in the principal thoroughfares. People, shops, houses,
conveyances—all together are stamped with the unmistakable seal of the
working class.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all is this: in a city of two millions
of people there are no hotels! That means, of course, that there are
no visitors.[6]
In the older cities of Europe, where the processes of segregation have
gone farther, neighborhood distinctions are likely to be more marked
than they are in America. East London is a city of a single class, but
within the limits of that city the population is segregated again and
again by racial, cultural, and vocational interests. Neighborhood
sentiment, deeply rooted in local tradition and in local custom,
exercises a decisive selective influence upon the populations of the
older European cities and shows itself ultimately in a marked way in the
characteristics of the inhabitants.
What we want to know of these neighborhoods, racial communities, and
segregated city areas, existing within or on the outer rims of great
cities, is what we want to know of all other social groups:
What are the elements of which they are composed?
To what extent are they the product of a selective process?
How do people get in and out of the group thus formed?
What are the relative permanence and stability of their populations?
What about the age, sex, and social condition of the people?
What about the children? How many of them are born, and how many of
them remain?
What is the history of the neighborhood? What is there in the
subconsciousness—in the forgotten or dimly remembered experiences—of
this neighborhood which determines its sentiments and attitudes?
What is there in clear consciousness, i.e., what are its avowed
sentiments, doctrines, etc.?
What does it regard as matter of fact? What is news? What is the
general run of attention? What models does it imitate and are these
within or without the group?
What is the social ritual, i.e., what things must one do in the
neighborhood in order to escape being regarded with suspicion or
looked upon as peculiar?
Who are the leaders? What interests of the neighborhood do they
incorporate in themselves and what is the technique by which they
exercise control?
II. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION AND THE MORAL ORDER
The ancient city was primarily a fortress, a place of refuge in time of
war. The modern city, on the contrary, is primarily a convenience of
commerce, and owes its existence to the market place around which it
sprang up. Industrial competition and the division of labor, which have
probably done most to develop the latent powers of mankind, are possible
only upon condition of the existence of markets, of money, and other
devices for the facilitation of trade and commerce.
An old German adage declares that “city air makes men free” (_Stadt Luft
macht frei_). This is doubtless a reference to the days when the free
cities of Germany enjoyed the patronage of the emperor, and laws made
the fugitive serf a free man if he succeeded for a year and a day in
breathing city air. Law, of itself, could not, however, have made the
craftsman free. An open market in which he might sell the products of
his labor was a necessary incident of his freedom, and it was the
application of the money economy to the relations of master and man that
completed the emancipation of the serf.
_Vocational classes and vocational types._—The old adage which describes
the city as the natural environment of the free man still holds so far
as the individual man finds in the chances, the diversity of interests
and tasks, and in the vast unconscious co-operation of city life the
opportunity to choose his own vocation and develop his peculiar
individual talents. The city offers a market for the special talents of
individual men. Personal competition tends to select for each special
task the individual who is best suited to perform it.
The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality,
much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which
appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to
maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect
of the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar
characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for
example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit,
custom, and education. When they came into the world, and for the
first six or eight years of their existence, they were perhaps very
much alike, and neither their parents nor playfellows could perceive
any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to
be employed in different occupations. The difference of talents comes
then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last the
vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any
resemblance. But without the disposition to truck, barter, and
exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and
conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties
to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no such
difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great
difference of talent....
As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division
of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by
the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the
market.... There are some sorts of industry, even of the lowest kind,
which can be carried on nowhere but in a great town.[7]
Success, under conditions of personal competition, depends upon
concentration upon some single task, and this concentration stimulates
the demand for rational methods, technical devices, and exceptional
skill. Exceptional skill, while based on natural talent, requires
special preparation, and it has called into existence the trade and
professional schools, and finally bureaus for vocational guidance. All
of these, either directly or indirectly, serve at once to select and
emphasize individual differences.
Every device which facilitates trade and industry prepares the way for a
further division of labor and so tends further to specialize the tasks
in which men find their vocations.
The outcome of this process is to break down or modify the older social
and economic organization of society, which was based on family ties,
local associations, on culture, caste, and status, and to substitute for
it an organization based on occupation and vocational interests.
In the city every vocation, even that of a beggar, tends to assume the
character of a profession and the discipline which success in any
vocation imposes, together with the associations that it enforces,
emphasizes this tendency—the tendency, namely, not merely to specialize,
but to rationalize one’s occupation and to develop a specific and
conscious technique for carrying it on.
The effect of the vocations and the division of labor is to produce, in
the first instance, not social groups, but vocational types: the actor,
the plumber, and the lumber-jack. The organizations, like the trade and
labor unions which men of the same trade or profession form, are based
on common interests. In this respect they differ from forms of
association like the neighborhood, which are based on contiguity,
personal association, and the common ties of humanity. The different
trades and professions seem disposed to group themselves in classes,
that is to say, the artisan, business, and professional classes. But in
the modern democratic state the classes have as yet attained no
effective organization. Socialism, founded on an effort to create an
organization based on “class consciousness,” has never succeeded,
except, perhaps, in Russia, in creating more than a political party.
The effects of the division of labor as a discipline, i.e., as means of
molding character, may therefore be best studied in the vocational types
it has produced. Among the types which it would be interesting to study
are: the shopgirl, the policeman, the peddler, the cabman, the
nightwatchman, the clairvoyant, the vaudeville performer, the quack
doctor, the bartender, the ward boss, the strike-breaker, the labor
agitator, the school teacher, the reporter, the stockbroker, the
pawnbroker; all of these are characteristic products of the conditions
of city life; each, with its special experience, insight, and point of
view determines for each vocational group and for the city as a whole
its individuality.
To what extent is the grade of intelligence represented in the
different trades and professions dependent upon natural ability?
To what extent is intelligence determined by the character of the
occupation and the conditions under which it is practiced?
To what extent is success in the occupations dependent upon sound
judgment and common sense; to what extent upon technical ability?
Does native ability or special training determine success in the
different vocations?
What prestige and what prejudices attach to different trades and
professions and why?
Is the choice of the occupation determined by temperamental, by
economic, or by sentimental considerations?
In what occupations do men, in what occupations do women, succeed
better, and why?
How far is occupation, rather than association, responsible for the
mental attitude and moral predilections? Do men in the same profession
or trade, but representing different nationalities and different
cultural groups, hold characteristic and identical opinions?
To what extent is the social or political creed, that is, socialism,
anarchism, syndicalism, etc., determined by occupation? by
temperament?
To what extent have social doctrine and social idealism superseded and
taken the place of religious faith in the different occupations, and
why?
Do social classes tend to assume the character of cultural groups?
That is to say, do the classes tend to acquire the exclusiveness and
independence of a caste or nationality; or is each class always
dependent upon the existence of a corresponding class?
To what extent do children follow the vocations of their parents and
why?
To what extent do individuals move from one class to another, and how
does this fact modify the character of class relationships?
_News and the mobility of the social group._—The division of labor, in
making individual success dependent upon concentration upon a special
task, has had the effect of increasing the interdependence of the
different vocations. A social organization is thus created in which the
individual becomes increasingly dependent upon the community of which he
is an integral part. The effect, under conditions of personal
competition, of this increasing interdependence of the parts is to
create in the industrial organization as a whole a certain sort of
social solidarity, but a solidarity based, not on sentiment and habit,
but on community of interests.
In the sense in which the terms are here used, sentiment is the more
concrete, interest the more abstract, term. We may cherish a sentiment
for a person, a place, or any object whatsoever. It may be a sentiment
of aversion, or a sentiment of possession. But to possess or to be
possessed by a sentiment for, or in regard to, anything means that we
are incapable of acting toward it in a thoroughly rational way. It means
that the object of our sentiment corresponds in some special way to some
inherited or acquired disposition. Such a disposition is the affection
of a mother for her child, which is instinctive. Or even the feeling she
may have for the child’s empty cradle, which is acquired.
The existence of a sentimental attitude indicates that there are motives
for action of which the individual who is moved by them is not wholly
conscious; motives over which he has only a partial control. Every
sentiment has a history, either in the experience of the individual, or
in the experience of the race, but the person who acts on that sentiment
may not be aware of the history.
Interests are directed less toward specific objects than toward the ends
which this or that particular object at one time or another embodies.
Interests imply, therefore, the existence of means and a consciousness
of the distinction between means and ends. Our sentiments are related to
our prejudices, and prejudices may attach to anything—persons, races, as
well as inanimate things. Prejudices are related also to taboos, and so
tend to maintain “social distances” and the existing social
organization. Sentiment and prejudice are elementary forms of
conservatism. Our interests are rational and mobile, and make for
change.
Money is the cardinal device by which values have become rationalized
and sentiments have been replaced by interests. It is just because we
feel no personal and no sentimental attitude toward our money, such as
we do toward, for example, our home, that money becomes a valuable means
of exchange. We will be interested in acquiring a certain amount of
money in order to achieve a certain purpose, but provided that purpose
may be achieved in any other way we are likely to be just as well
satisfied. It is only the miser who becomes sentimental about money, and
in that case he is likely to prefer one sort of money, say gold, to
another, irrespective of its value. In this case the value of gold is
determined by personal sentiment rather than by reason.
An organization which is composed of competing individuals and of
competing groups of individuals is in a state of unstable equilibrium,
and this equilibrium can be maintained only by a process of continuous
readjustment. This aspect of social life and this type of social
organization are best represented in the world of business which is the
special object of investigation of political economy.
The extension of industrial organization, which is based on the
impersonal relations defined by money, has gone forward hand in hand
with an increasing mobility of the population. The laboring man and the
artisan fitted to perform a specific task are compelled, under the
conditions created by city life, to move from one region to another in
search of the particular kind of employment which they are fitted to
perform. The tide of immigration which moves back and forth between
Europe and America is to some extent a measure of this same mobility.[8]
On the other hand, the tradesman, the manufacturer, the professional
man, the specialist in every vocation, seeks his clients as the
difficulties of travel and communication decrease over an ever widening
area of territory. This is another way in which the mobility of the
population may be measured. However, mobility in an individual or in a
population is measured, not merely by change of location, but rather by
the number and variety of the stimulations to which the individual or
the population responds. Mobility depends, not merely upon
transportation, but upon communication. Education and the ability to
read, the extension of the money economy to an ever increasing number of
the interests of life, in so far as it has tended to depersonalize
social relations, has at the same time vastly increased the mobility of
modern peoples.
The term “mobility,” like its correlative, “isolation,” covers a wide
range of phenomena. It may represent at the same time a character and
a condition. As isolation may be due to the existence of purely
physical barriers to communication, or to a peculiarity of temperament
and a lack of education, so mobility may be a consequence of the
natural means of communication or of an agreeable manner and a college
education.
It is now clearly recognized that what we ordinarily call a lack of
intelligence in individuals, races, and communities is frequently a
result of isolation. On the other hand, the mobility of a population
is unquestionably a very large factor in its intellectual development.
There is an intimate connection between the immobility of the
primitive man and his so-called inability to use abstract ideas. The
knowledge which a peasant ordinarily possesses, from the very nature
of his occupation is, concrete and personal. He knows individually and
personally every member of the flock he tends. He becomes in the
course of years so attached to the land he tills that the mere
transposition from the strip of soil on which he has grown up to
another with which he is less intimately acquainted is felt by him as
a personal loss. For such a man the neighboring valley, or even the
strip of land at the other end of the village is in a certain sense
alien territory. A large part of the peasant’s efficiency as an
agricultural laborer depends upon this intimate and personal
acquaintance with the idiosyncrasies of a single plot of land to the
care of which he has been bred. It is apparent that, under conditions
like these, very little of the peasant’s practical knowledge will take
the abstract form of scientific generalization. He thinks in concrete
terms because he knows and needs no other.
On the other hand, the intellectual characteristics of the Jew and his
generally recognized interest in abstract and radical ideas are
unquestionably connected with the fact that the Jews are, before all
else, a city folk. The “Wandering Jew” acquires abstract terms with
which to describe the various scenes which he visits. His knowledge of
the world is based upon identities and differences, that is to say, on
analysis and classification. Reared in intimate association with the
bustle and business of the market place, constantly intent on the
shrewd and fascinating game of buying and selling, in which he employs
that most interesting of abstractions, money, he has neither
opportunity nor inclination to cultivate that intimate attachment to
places and persons which is characteristic of the immobile person.[9]
Concentration of populations in cities, the wider markets, the division
of labor, the concentration of individuals and groups on special tasks,
have continually changed the material conditions of life, and in doing
this have made readjustments to novel conditions increasingly necessary.
Out of this necessity there have grown up a number of special
organizations which exist for the special purpose of facilitating these
readjustments. The market which brought the modern city into existence
is one of these devices. More interesting, however, are the exchanges,
particularly the stock exchange and the board of trade, where prices are
constantly being made in response to changes, or rather the reports of
changes, in economic conditions all over the world.
These reports, so far as they are calculated to cause readjustments,
have the character of what we call news. It is the existence of a
critical situation which converts what were otherwise mere information
into news. Where there is an issue at stake, where, in short, there is
crisis, there information which might affect the outcome one way or
another becomes “live matter,” as the newspaper men say. Live matter is
news; dead matter is mere information.
What is the relation of mobility to suggestion, imitation, etc.?
What are the practical devices by which suggestibility and mobility
are increased in a community or in an individual?
Are there pathological conditions in communities corresponding to
hysteria in individuals? If so, how are they produced and how
controlled?
To what extent is fashion an indication of mobility?
What is the difference in the manner in which fashions and customs are
transmitted?
What is social unrest, and what are the conditions under which it
manifests itself?
What are the characteristics of a progressive, what the
characteristics of a static, community in respect to its resistance to
novel suggestions?
What mental characteristics of the gypsy, of the hobo, and of the
nomad generally can be traced to these nomadic habits?
_The stock exchanges and the mob._—The exchanges, upon which we may
watch the fluctuation of prices in response to the news of economic
conditions in different parts of the world, are typical. Similar
readjustments are taking place in every department of social life,
where, however, the devices for making these readjustments are not so
complete and perfect. For example, the professional and trade papers,
which keep the professions and the trades informed in regard to new
methods, experiences, and devices, serve to keep the members of these
trades and professions abreast of the times, which means that they
facilitate readjustments to changing conditions.
There is, however, this important distinction to be made: Competition in
the exchanges is more intense; changes are more rapid and, as far as the
individuals directly concerned, more momentous. In contrast with such a
constellation of forces as we find on the exchanges, where competing
dealers meet to buy and sell, so mobile a form of social organization as
the crowd and the mob exhibits a relative stability.
It is a commonplace that decisive factors in the movements of crowds, as
in the fluctuations of markets, are psychologic. This means that among
the individuals who make up the crowd, or who compose the public which
participates in the movements reflected in the market, a condition of
instability exists which corresponds to what has been defined elsewhere
as crisis. It is true of the exchanges, as it is of crowds, that the
situation they represent is always critical, that is to say, the
tensions are such that a slight cause may precipitate an enormous
effect. The current euphemism, “the psychological moment,” defines such
a critical condition.
Psychological moments may arise in any social situation, but they occur
more frequently in a society which has acquired a high state of
mobility. They occur more frequently in a society where education is
general, where railways, telegraph, and the printing press have become
an indispensable part of the social economy. They occur more frequently
in cities than in smaller communities. In the crowd and the public every
moment may be said to be “psychological.”
Crisis may be said to be the normal condition on the exchanges. What are
called financial crises are merely an extension of this critical
condition to the larger business community. Financial panics which
sometimes follow upon financial crises are a precipitate of this
critical condition.
The fascinating thing about the study of crises, as of crowds, is that
in so far as they are in fact due to psychological causes, that is, in
so far as they are the result of the mobility of the communities in
which they occur, they can be controlled. The evidence for this is the
fact that they can be manipulated, and there is abundant evidence of
manipulation in the transactions of the stock market. The evidence for
the manipulation of crowds is less accessible. Labor organizations have,
however, known how to develop a pretty definite technique for the
instigation and control of strikes. The Salvation Army has worked out a
book of tactics which is very largely devoted to the handling of street
crowds; and professional revivalists, like Billy Sunday, have an
elaborate technique for conducting their revivals.
Under the title of collective psychology much has been written in recent
years in regard to crowds and kindred phenomena of social life. Most
that has been written thus far has been based upon general observation
and almost no systematic methods exist for the study of this type of
social organization. The practical methods which practical men like the
political boss, the labor agitator, the stock-exchange speculator, and
others have worked out for the control and manipulation of the public
and the crowd furnish a body of materials from which it is possible to
make a more detailed, a more intimate study of what may be called, in
order to distinguish it from that of more highly organized groups,
collective behavior.
The city, and particularly the great city, in which more than elsewhere
human relations are likely to be impersonal and rational, defined in
terms of interest and in terms of cash, is in a very real sense a
laboratory for the investigation of collective behavior. Strikes and
minor revolutionary movements are endemic in the urban environment.
Cities, and particularly the great cities, are in unstable equilibrium.
The result is that the vast casual and mobile aggregations which
constitute our urban populations are in a state of perpetual agitation,
swept by every new wind of doctrine, subject to constant alarms, and in
consequence the community is in a chronic condition of crisis.
What has been said suggests first of all the importance of a more
detailed and fundamental study of collective behavior. The questions
which follow will perhaps suggest lines of investigation that could be
followed profitably by students of urban life.
What is the psychology of crisis? What is the cycle of events involved
in the evolution of a crisis, political or economic?
To what extent may the parliamentary system, including the electoral
system, be regarded as an attempt to regularize revolution and to meet
and control crises?
To what extent are mob violence, strikes, and radical political
movements the results of the same general conditions that provoke
financial panics, real estate booms, and mass movements in the
population generally?
To what extent are the existing unstable equilibrium and social
ferment due to the extent and speed of economic changes as reflected
in the stock exchange?
What are the effects of the extension of communication and of news
upon fluctuations in the stock market and economic changes generally?
Does the scale of stocks on the exchanges tend to exaggerate the
fluctuations in the market, or to stabilize them?
Do the reports in the newspapers, so far as they represent the facts,
tend to speed up social changes, or to stabilize a movement already in
progress?
What is the effect of propaganda and rumor, in cases where the sources
of accurate information are cut off?
To what extent can fluctuations of the stock market be controlled by
formal regulation?
To what extent can social changes, strikes, and revolutionary
movements be controlled by the censorship?
To what extent can the scientific forecasting of economic and social
changes exercise a useful control over the trend of prices and of
events?
To what extent can the prices recorded by the stock exchange be
compared with public opinion as recorded by the newspaper?
To what extent can the city, which responds more quickly and more
decisively to changing events, be regarded as nerve centers of the
social organism?
III. SECONDARY RELATIONS AND SOCIAL CONTROL
Modern methods of urban transportation and communication—the electric
railway, the automobile, the telephone, and the radio—have silently and
rapidly changed in recent years the social and industrial organization
of the modern city. They have been the means of concentrating traffic in
the business districts, have changed the whole character of retail
trade, multiplying the residence suburbs and making the department store
possible. These changes in the industrial organization and in the
distribution of population have been accompanied by corresponding
changes in the habits, sentiments, and character of the urban
population.
The general nature of these changes is indicated by the fact that the
growth of cities has been accompanied by the substitution of indirect,
“secondary,” for direct, face-to-face, “primary” relations in the
associations of individuals in the community.
By primary groups I mean those characterized by intimate face-to-face
association and co-operation. They are primary in several senses, but
chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming the social nature and
ideals of the individual. The result of intimate association,
psychologically, is a certain fusion of individualities in a common
whole, so that one’s very self, for many purposes at least, is the
common life and purpose of the group. Perhaps the simplest way of
describing this wholeness is by saying that it is a “we”; it involves
the sort of sympathy and mutual identification for which “we” is the
natural expression. One lives in the feeling of the whole and finds
the chief aims of his will in that feeling....[10]
Touch and sight, physical contact, are the basis for the first and most
elementary human relationships. Mother and child, husband and wife,
father and son, master and servant, kinsman and neighbor, minister,
physician, and teacher—these are the most intimate and real
relationships of life, and in the small community they are practically
inclusive.
The interactions which take place among the members of a community so
constituted are immediate and unreflecting. Intercourse is carried on
largely within the region of instinct and feeling. Social control
arises, for the most part spontaneously, in direct response to personal
influences and public sentiment. It is the result of a personal
accommodation, rather than the formulation of a rational and abstract
principle.
_The church, the school, and the family._—In a great city, where the
population is unstable, where parents and children are employed out of
the house and often in distant parts of the city, where thousands of
people live side by side for years without so much as a bowing
acquaintance, these intimate relationships of the primary group are
weakened and the moral order which rested upon them is gradually
dissolved.
Under the disintegrating influences of city life most of our traditional
institutions, the church, the school, and the family, have been greatly
modified. The school, for example, has taken over some of the functions
of the family. It is around the public school and its solicitude for the
moral and physical welfare of the children that something like a new
neighborhood and community spirit tends to get itself organized.
The church, on the other hand, which has lost much of its influence
since the printed page has so largely taken the place of the pulpit in
the interpretation of life, seems at present to be in process of
readjustment to the new conditions.
It is important that the church, the school, and the family should be
studied from the point of view of this readjustment to the conditions
of city life.
What changes have taken place in recent years in the family
sentiments? in the attitudes of husbands toward wives? of wives toward
husbands? of children toward parents, etc.?
What do the records of the juvenile and morals courts indicate in
regard to this matter?
In what regions of social life have the mores on the subject of the
family life changed most?
To what extent have these changes taken place in response to the
influences of the city environment?
Similarly, investigations might be carried on with reference to the
school and the church. Here, too, there is a changed attitude and
changed policy in response to a changed environment. This is important
because it is, in the last analysis, upon these institutions in which
the immediate and vital interests of life find a corporate expression
that social organization ultimately rests.
It is probably the breaking down of local attachments and the weakening
of the restraints and inhibitions of the primary group, under the
influence of the urban environment, which are largely responsible for
the increase of vice and crime in great cities. It would be interesting
in this connection to determine by investigation how far the increase in
crime keeps pace with the increasing mobility of the population and to
what extent this mobility is a function of the growth of population. It
is from this point of view that we should seek to interpret all those
statistics which register the disintegration of the moral order, for
example, the statistics of divorce, of truancy, and of crime.
What is the effect of ownership of property, particularly of the home,
on truancy, on divorce, and on crime?
In what regions and classes are certain kinds of crime endemic?
In what classes does divorce occur most frequently? What is the
difference in this respect between farmers and, say, actors?
To what extent in any given racial group, for example, the Italians in
New York or the Poles in Chicago, do parents and children live in the
same world, speak the same language, and share the same ideas, and how
far do the conditions found account for juvenile delinquency in that
particular group?
How far are the home mores responsible for criminal manifestations of
an immigrant group?
_Crisis and the courts._—It is characteristic of city life that all
sorts of people meet and mingle together who never fully comprehend one
another. The anarchist and the club man, the priest and the Levite, the
actor and the missionary who touch elbows on the street still live in
totally different worlds. So complete is the segregation of vocational
classes that it is possible within the limits of the city to live in an
isolation almost as complete as that of some remote rural community.
Walter Besant tells the following anecdote of his experience as editor
of the _People’s Palace Journal_:
In that capacity I endeavored to encourage literary effort, in the
hope of lighting upon some unknown and latent genius. The readers of
the _Journal_ were the members of the various classes connected with
the educational side of the place. They were young clerks chiefly—some
of them very good fellows. They had a debating society which I
attended from time to time. Alas! They carried on their debates in an
ignorance the most profound, the most unconscious, and the most
satisfied. I endeavored to persuade them that it was desirable at
least to master the facts of the case before they spoke. In vain. Then
I proposed subjects for essays, and offered prizes for verses. I
discovered, to my amazement, that among all the thousands of these
young people, lads and girls, there was not discoverable the least
rudimentary indication of any literary power whatever. In all other
towns there are young people who nourish literary ambitions, with some
measure of literary ability. How should there be any in this town,
where there were no books, no papers, no journals, and, at that time,
no free libraries?[11]
In the immigrant colonies which are now well established in every large
city, foreign populations live in an isolation which is different from
that of the population of East London, but in some respects more
complete.
The difference is that each one of these little colonies has a more or
less independent political and social organization of its own, and is
the center of a more or less vigorous nationalist propaganda. For
example, each one of these groups has one or more papers printed in its
own language. In New York City there were, a few years ago, 270
publications, most of them supported by the local population, printed in
23 different languages. In Chicago there were 19 daily papers published
in 7 foreign languages with a combined daily circulation of 368,000
papers.
Under these conditions the social ritual and the moral order which these
immigrants brought with them from their native countries have succeeded
in maintaining themselves for a considerable time under the influences
of the American environment. Social control, based on the home mores,
breaks down, however, in the second generation.
We may express the relation of the city to this fact in general terms by
saying that the effect of the urban environment is to intensify all
effects of crisis.
The term “crisis” is not to be understood in a violent sense. It is
involved in any disturbance of habit. There is a crisis in the boy’s
life when he leaves home. The emancipation of the Negro and the
immigration of the European peasant are group crises. Any strain of
crisis involves three possible changes: greater fitness, reduced
efficiency, or death. In biological terms, “survival” means successful
adjustment to crisis, accompanied typically by a modification of
structure. In man it means mental stimulation and greater
intelligence, or mental depression, in case of failure.[12]
Under the conditions imposed by city life in which individuals and
groups of individuals, widely removed in sympathy and understanding,
live together under conditions of interdependence, if not of intimacy,
the conditions of social control are greatly altered and the
difficulties increased.
The problem thus created is usually characterized as one of
“assimilation.” It is assumed that the reason for rapid increase of
crime in our large cities is due to the fact that the foreign element in
our population has not succeeded in assimilating American culture and
does not conform to the American mores. This would be interesting, if
true, but the facts seem to suggest that perhaps the truth must be
sought in the opposite direction.
One of the most important facts established by the investigation
concerns the American-born children of immigrants—the “second
generation.” The records of convictions in the New York Court of
General Sessions during the period from October 1, 1908, to June 30,
1909, and of all commitments to Massachusetts penal institutions,
except those to the state farm, during the year ending September 30,
1909, form the basis of this analysis of the criminal tendencies of
the second generation.
From these records it appears that a clear tendency exists on the part
of the second generation to differ from the first or immigrant
generation in the character of its criminality. It also appears that
this difference is much more frequently in the direction of the
criminality of the American-born of non-immigrant parentage than it is
in the opposite direction. This means that the movement of the
second-generation crime is away from the crimes peculiar to immigrants
and toward those of the American of native parentage. Sometimes this
movement has carried second-generation criminality even beyond that of
the native-born of native parentage. Of the second-generation groups
submitted to this comparison, one maintains a constant adherence to
the general rule above referred to, while all the others at some point
fail to follow it. This unique group is the Irish second
generation.[13]
What we do observe, as a result of the crisis, is that control that was
formerly based on mores was replaced by control based on positive law.
This change runs parallel to the movement by which secondary
relationships have taken the place of primary relationships in the
association of individuals in the city environment.
It is characteristic of the United States that great political changes
should be effected experimentally under the pressure of agitation or
upon the initiative of small but militant minorities. There is probably
no other country in the world in which so many “reforms” are in progress
as at the present time in the United States. Reform has, in fact, become
a kind of popular “indoor sport.” The reforms thus effected, almost
without exception, involve some sort of restriction or governmental
control over activities that were formerly “free” or controlled only by
the mores and public opinion.
The effect of this extension of what is called the police power has been
to produce a change, not merely in the fundamental policy of the law,
but in the character and standing of the courts.
The juvenile and morals courts illustrate a change which is perhaps
taking place elsewhere. In these courts the judges have assumed
something of the functions of administrative officers, their duties
consisting less in the interpretation of law than in prescribing
remedies and administering advice intended to restore delinquents
brought before them to their normal place in society.
A similar tendency to give judges a wide discretion and to impose upon
them a further responsibility is manifest in those courts which have to
deal with the technical affairs of the business world, and in the growth
in popularity of commissions in which judicial and administrative
functions are combined, for example, the Interstate Commerce Commission.
In order to interpret in a fundamental way the facts in regard to social
control it is important to start with a clear conception of the nature
of corporate action.
Corporate action begins when there is some sort of communication between
individuals who constitute a group. Communication may take place at
different levels; that is, suggestions may be given and responded to on
the instinctive, senso-motor, or ideo-motor levels. The mechanism of
communication is very subtle, so subtle, in fact, that it is often
difficult to conceive how suggestions are conveyed from one mind to
another. This does not imply that there is any special form of
consciousness, any special sense of kinship or consciousness of kind,
necessary to explain corporate action.
In fact, it has recently been shown that in the case of certain highly
organized and static societies, like that of the well-known ant,
probably nothing that we would call communication takes place.
It is a well-known fact that if an ant be removed from a nest and
afterward put back it will not be attacked, while almost invariably an
ant belonging to another nest will be attacked. It has been customary
to use the words memory, enmity, friendship, in describing this fact.
Now Bethe made the following experiment. An ant was placed in the
liquids (blood and lymph) squeezed out from the bodies of nest
companions and was then put back into its nest; it was not attacked.
It was then put in the juice taken from the inmates of a “hostile”
nest, and was at once attacked and killed.[14]
A further instance of the manner in which ants communicate will
illustrate how simple and automatic communication may become on the
instinctive level.
An ant, when taking a new direction from the nest for the first time,
always returns by the same path. This shows that some trace must be
left behind which serves as a guide back to the nest. If an ant
returning by this path bears no spoils, Bethe found that no other ants
try this direction. But if it bring back honey or sugar, other ants
are sure to try the path. Hence something of the substances carried
over this path by the ants must remain on the path. These substances
must be strong enough to affect the ants chemically.[15]
The important fact is that by means of this comparatively simple device
corporate action is made possible.
Individuals not only react upon one another in this reflex way, but they
inevitably communicate their sentiments, attitudes, and organic
excitements, and in doing so they necessarily react, not merely to what
each individual actually does, but to what he intends, desires, or hopes
to do. The fact that individuals often betray sentiments and attitudes
to others of which they are themselves only dimly conscious makes it
possible for individual A, for example, to act upon motives and tensions
in B as soon, or even before, B is able to do so. Furthermore, A may act
upon the suggestions that emanate from B without himself being clearly
conscious of the source from which his motives spring. So subtle and
intimate may the reactions be which control individuals who are bound
together in a social-psychological process.
It is upon the basis of this sort of instinctive and spontaneous control
that every more formal sort of control must be based in order to be
effective.
Changes in the form of social control may for the purposes of
investigation be grouped under the general heads:
1. The substitution of positive law for custom, and the extension of
municipal control to activities that were formerly left to individual
initiative and discretion.
2. The disposition of judges in municipal and criminal courts to
assume administrative function so that the administration of the
criminal law ceases to be a mere application of the social ritual and
becomes an application of rational and technical methods, requiring
expert knowledge or advice, in order to restore the individual to
society and repair the injury that his delinquency has caused.
3. Changes and divergencies in the mores among the different isolated
and segregated groups in the city. What are the mores, for example, of
the shopgirl? the immigrant? the politician? and the labor agitator?
It should be the aim of these investigations to distinguish not merely
the causes of these changes, the direction in which they are moving,
but also the forces that are likely to minimize and neutralize them.
For example, it is important to know whether the motives which are at
present multiplying the positive restrictions on the individual will
necessarily go as far in this country as they have already done in
Germany. Will they eventually bring about a condition approaching
socialism?
_Commercialized vice and the liquor traffic._—Social control, under the
conditions of city life, can, perhaps, be best studied in its attempts
to stamp out vice and control the liquor traffic.
The saloon and the vice establishments have come into existence as a
means of exploiting appetites and instincts fundamental to human nature.
This makes the efforts that have been made to regulate and suppress
these forms of exploitation and traffic interesting and important as
subjects of investigation.
Such an investigation should be based upon thorough study: (1) of the
human nature upon which the commerce has been erected, (2) of the social
conditions which tend to convert normal appetites into social vices, (3)
of the practical effects of the efforts to limit, control, and stamp out
the vice traffic and to do away with the use and sale of liquor.
Among the things that we should desire to know are:
To what extent is the appetite for alcoholic stimulus a prenatal
disposition?
To what extent may such an appetite be transferred from one form of
stimulation to another; that is, e.g., from whiskey to cocaine, etc.?
To what extent is it possible to substitute normal and healthful for
pathological and vicious stimulations?
What are the social and moral effects of secret drinking?
Where a taboo is established early in life, does it have the effect of
idealizing the delights of indulgence? Does it do this in some cases
and not in others? If so, what are the contributing circumstances? Do
men suddenly lose the taste for liquor and other stimulants? What are
the conditions under which this happens?
Many of these questions can be answered only by a study of individual
experiences. Vices undoubtedly have their natural history, like
certain forms of disease. They may therefore be regarded as
independent entities which find their habitat in human environment,
are stimulated by certain conditions, inhibited by others, but
invariably exhibit through all changes a character that is typical.
In the early days the temperance movement had something of the character
of a religious revival, and the effects were highly picturesque. In
recent years the leaders have displayed a more deliberate strategy, but
the struggle against the liquor traffic still has all the
characteristics of a big popular movement, a movement which, having
first conquered the rural districts, is now seeking to enforce itself in
the cities.
On the other hand, the vice crusade started with the cities, where, in
fact, commercialized vice is indigenous. The mere discussion of this
subject in public has meant an enormous change in the sex mores. The
fact that this movement is everywhere coincident with the entrance of
women into a greater freedom, into industry, the professions, and party
politics, is significant.
There are conditions peculiar to the life of great cities (referred to
under the heading “Mobility of the Population of Great Cities”) which
make the control of vice especially difficult. For example, crusades and
religious movements generally do not have the same success in the city
environment that they do in the smaller and less heterogeneous
communities. What are the conditions which make this true?
Perhaps the facts most worth studying in connection with the movement
for suppression of vice are those which indicate the changes which have
taken place in fifty years in sex mores, particularly with reference to
what is regarded as modest and immodest in the dress and behavior, and
with reference to the freedom with which sexual matters are now
discussed by young men and young women.
It seems, in fact, as if we were in the presence of two epoch-making
changes, the one which seems destined finally to put intoxicating
liquors in the category of poisonous drugs, and the other to lift the
taboo which, particularly among Anglo-Saxon peoples, has effectually
prevented up to the present time the frank discussion of the facts of
sex.
_Party politics and publicity._—There is everywhere at present a
disposition to increase the power of the executive branch of the
government at the expense of the legislative. The influence of state
legislatures and of city councils has been diminished in some instances
by the introduction of the referendum and the recall. In others they
have been largely superseded by the commission form of government. The
ostensible reason for these changes is that they offer a means for
overthrowing the power of the professional politicians. The real ground
seems to me the recognition of the fact that the form of government
which had its origin in the town meeting and was well suited to the
needs of a small community based on primary relations is not suitable to
the government of the changing and heterogeneous populations of cities
of three or four millions.
Much, of course, depends upon the character and size of the
population. Where it is of American stock, and the number of voting
citizens is not too great for thorough and calm discussion, no better
school of politics can be imagined nor any method of managing affairs
more certain to prevent jobbery and waste, to stimulate vigilance and
breed contentment. When, however, the town meeting has grown to exceed
seven or eight hundred persons, and, still more, when any considerable
section are strangers, such as Irish or French Canadians, who have
latterly poured into New England, the institution works less perfectly
because the multitude is too large for debate, factions are likely to
spring up, and the immigrants, untrained in self-government, become
the prey of wire pullers or petty demagogues.[16]
For one thing, the problems of city government have become, with the
growth and organization of city life, so complicated that it is no
longer desirable to leave them to the control of men whose only
qualification for handling them consists in the fact that they have
succeeded in gaining office through the ordinary machinery of ward
politics.
Another circumstance which has made the selection of city officials by
popular vote impractical under the conditions of city life is the fact
that, except in special cases, the voter knows little or nothing about
the officials he is voting for; knows little or nothing about the
functions of the office to which that official is to be elected; and,
besides all the rest, is too busy elsewhere to inform himself about
conditions and needs of the city as a whole.
At a recent election in Chicago, for example, voters were called upon to
select candidates from a ballot containing 250 names, most of them
unknown to the voters. Under these circumstances the citizen who wishes
to vote intelligently relies on some more or less interested
organization or some more or less interested advisor to tell him how to
vote.
To meet this emergency, created primarily by conditions imposed by city
life, two types of organization have come into existence for controlling
those artificial crises that we call elections. One of these is the
organization represented by the political boss and the political
machine. The other is that represented by the independent voters’
leagues, taxpayers’ associations, and organizations like the bureaus of
municipal research.
It is an indication of the rather primitive conditions in which our
political parties were formed that they sought to govern the country on
the principle that the remedy for all sorts of administrative evils was
to “turn the rascals out,” as the popular phrase expressed it, a change
of government. The political machine and the political boss have come
into existence in the interest of party politics. The parties were
necessarily organized to capture elections. The political machine is
merely a technical device invented for the purpose of achieving this
end. The boss is the expert who runs the machine. He is as necessary to
the winning of an election as a professional coach is necessary to
success at football.
It is characteristic of the two types of organization which have grown
up for the purpose of controlling the popular vote that the first, the
political machine, is based, on the whole, on local, personal, that is
to say, primary, relationships. The second, the good-government
organizations, make their appeal to the public, and the public, as we
ordinarily understand that expression, is a group based on secondary
relationships. Members of a public are not as a rule personally
acquainted.
The political machine is, in fact, an attempt to maintain, inside the
formal administrative organization of the city, the control of a primary
group. The organizations thus built up, of which Tammany Hall is the
classic illustration, appear to be thoroughly feudal in their character.
The relations between the boss and his ward captain seem to be precisely
that, of personal loyalty on one side and personal protection on the
other, which the feudal relation implies. The virtues which such an
organization calls out are the old tribal ones of fidelity, loyalty, and
devotion to the interests of the chief and the clan. The people within
the organization, their friends and supporters, constitute a “we” group,
while the rest of the city is merely the outer world, which is not quite
alive and not quite human in the sense in which the members of the “we”
group are. We have here something approaching the conditions of
primitive society.
The conception of “primitive society” which we ought to form is that
of small groups scattered over a territory. The size of the groups is
determined by the conditions of the struggle for existence. The
internal organization of each group corresponds to its size. A group
of groups may have some relation to each other (kin, neighborhood,
alliance, _connubium_, and _commercium_) which draws them together and
differentiates them from others. Thus a differentiation arises between
ourselves, the we-group or in-group, and everybody else or the
others-groups, out-groups. The insiders in a we-group are in a
relation of peace, order, law, government, and industry, to each
other. Their relation to all outsiders, or others-groups, is one of
war and plunder, except so far as agreements have modified it.
The relation of comradeship and peace in the we-group and that of
hostility and war toward others-groups are correlative to each other.
The exigencies of war with outsiders are what make peace inside, lest
internal discord should weaken the we-group for war. These exigencies
also make government and law in the in-group, in order to prevent
quarrels and enforce discipline.[17]
The politics of most great cities offer abundant materials for the study
of the type represented by the political boss, as well as the social
mechanisms created by and embodied in the political machine. It is
necessary, however, that we study them disinterestedly. Some of the
questions we should seek to answer are:
What, as a matter of fact, is the political organization at any point
within the city? What are the sentiments and attitudes and interests
which find expression through it?
What are the practical devices it employs for mobilizing its forces
and putting them into action?
What is the character of the party appeal in the different moral
regions of which the city is made up?
How much of the interest in politics is practical and how much is mere
sport?
What part of the cost of elections is advertising? How much of it can
be classed as “educational publicity,” and how much is pure graft?
To what extent, under existing conditions, particularly as we find
them in great cities, can elections be practically controlled by
purely technical devices, card catalogues, torch-light processions,
spell binders—machinery?
What effect will the introduction of the referendum and recall have
upon present methods of conducting elections in cities?
_Advertising and social control._—In contrast with the political
machine, which has founded its organized action on the local, personal,
and immediate interests represented by the different neighborhoods and
localities, the good-government organizations, the bureaus of municipal
research, and the like have sought to represent the interests of the
city as a whole and have appealed to a sentiment and opinion neither
local nor personal. These agencies have sought to secure efficiency and
good government by the education of the voter, that is to say, by
investigating and publishing the facts regarding the government.
In this way publicity has come to be a recognized form of social
control, and advertising—“social advertising”—has become a profession
with an elaborate technique supported by a body of special knowledge.
It is one of the characteristic phenomena of city life and of society
founded on secondary relationships that advertising should have come to
occupy so important a place in its economy.
In recent years every individual and organization which has had to deal
with the public, that is to say the public outside the smaller and more
intimate communities of the village and small town, has come to have its
press agent, who is often less an advertising man than a diplomatic man
accredited to the newspapers, and through them to the world at large.
Institutions like the Russell Sage Foundation, and to a less extent, the
General Education Board have sought to influence public opinion directly
through the medium of publicity. The Carnegie Report upon Medical
Education, the Pittsburgh Survey, the Russel Sage Foundation Report on
Comparative Costs of Public-School Education in the several states, are
something more than scientific reports. They are rather a high form of
journalism, dealing with existing conditions critically, and seeking
through the agency of publicity to bring about radical reforms. The work
of the Bureau of Municipal Research in New York has had a similar
practical purpose. To these must be added the work accomplished by the
child-welfare exhibits, by the social surveys undertaken in different
parts of the country, and by similar propaganda in favor of public
health.
As a source of social control public opinion becomes important in
societies founded on secondary relationships, of which great cities are
a type. In the city every social group tends to create its own milieu
and, as these conditions become fixed, the mores tend to accommodate
themselves to the conditions thus created. In secondary groups and in
the city fashion tends to take the place of custom, and public opinion,
rather than the mores, becomes the dominant force in social control.
In any attempt to understand the nature of public opinion and its
relation to social control it is important to investigate first of all
the agencies and devices which have come into practical use in the
effort to control, enlighten, and exploit it.
The first and the most important of these is the press, that is, the
daily newspaper and other forms of current literature, including books
classed as current.[18]
After the newspaper, the bureaus of research which are now springing up
in all the large cities are the most interesting and the most promising
devices for using publicity as a means of control.
The fruits of these investigations do not reach the public directly, but
are disseminated through the medium of the press, the pulpit, and other
sources of popular enlightenment.
In addition to these there are the educational campaigns in the interest
of better health conditions, the child-welfare exhibits, and the
numerous “social advertising” devices which are now employed, sometimes
upon the initiative of private societies, sometimes upon that of popular
magazines or newspapers, in order to educate the public and enlist the
masses of the people in the movement for the improvement of conditions
of community life.
The newspaper is the great medium of communication within the city, and
it is on the basis of the information which it supplies that public
opinion rests. The first function which a newspaper supplies is that
which formerly was performed by the village gossip.
In spite, however, of the industry with which newspapers pursue facts of
personal intelligence and human interest, they cannot compete with the
village gossips as a means of social control. For one thing, the
newspaper maintains some reservations not recognized by gossip, in the
matters of personal intelligence. For example, until they run for office
or commit some other overt act that brings them before the public
conspicuously, the private life of individual men or women is a subject
that is, for the newspaper, taboo. It is not so with gossip, partly
because in a small community no individual is so obscure that his
private affairs escape observation and discussion; partly because the
field is smaller. In small communities there is a perfectly amazing
amount of personal information afloat among the individuals who compose
them.
The absence of this in the city is what, in large part, makes the city
what it is.
Some of the questions that arise in regard to the nature and function
of the newspaper and of publicity generally are:
What is news?
What are the methods and motives of the newspaper man? Are they those
of an artist? a historian? or merely those of a merchant?
To what extent does the newspaper control and to what extent is it
controlled by public sentiment?
What is a “fake” and why?
What is yellow journalism and why is it yellow?
What would be the effect of making the newspaper a municipal monopoly?
What is the difference between advertising and news?
IV. TEMPERAMENT AND THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT
Great cities have always been the melting-pots of races and of cultures.
Out of the vivid and subtle interactions of which they have been the
centers, there have come the newer breeds and the newer social types.
The great cities of the United States, for example, have drawn from the
isolation of their native villages great masses of the rural populations
of Europe and America. Under the shock of the new contacts the latent
energies of these primitive peoples have been released, and the subtler
processes of interaction have brought into existence not merely
vocational, but temperamental, types.
_Mobilization of the individual man._—Transportation and communication
have effected, among many other silent but far-reaching changes, what I
have called the “mobilization of the individual man.” They have
multiplied the opportunities of the individual man for contact and for
association with his fellows, but they have made these contacts and
associations more transitory and less stable. A very large part of the
populations of great cities, including those who make their homes in
tenements and apartment houses, live much as people do in some great
hotel, meeting but not knowing one another. The effect of this is to
substitute fortuitous and casual relationship for the more intimate and
permanent associations of the smaller community.
Under these circumstances the individual’s status is determined to a
considerable degree by conventional signs—by fashion and “front”—and the
art of life is largely reduced to skating on thin surfaces and a
scrupulous study of style and manners.
Not only transportation and communication, but the segregation of the
urban population tends to facilitate the mobility of the individual man.
The processes of segregation establish moral distances which make the
city a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.
This makes it possible for individuals to pass quickly and easily from
one moral milieu to another, and encourages the fascinating but
dangerous experiment of living at the same time in several different
contiguous, but otherwise widely separated, worlds. All this tends to
give to city life a superficial and adventitious character; it tends to
complicate social relationships and to produce new and divergent
individual types. It introduces, at the same time, an element of chance
and adventure which adds to the stimulus of city life and gives it, for
young and fresh nerves, a peculiar attractiveness. The lure of great
cities is perhaps a consequence of stimulations which act directly upon
the reflexes. As a type of human behavior it may be explained, like the
attraction of the flame for the moth, as a sort of tropism.
The attraction of the metropolis is due in part, however, to the fact
that in the long run every individual finds somewhere among the varied
manifestations of city life the sort of environment in which he expands
and feels at ease; finds, in short, the moral climate in which his
peculiar nature obtains the stimulations that bring his innate
dispositions to full and free expression. It is, I suspect, motives of
this kind which have their basis, not in interest nor even in sentiment,
but in something more fundamental and primitive which draw many, if not
most, of the young men and young women from the security of their homes
in the country into the big, booming confusion and excitement of city
life. In a small community it is the normal man, the man without
eccentricity or genius, who seems most likely to succeed. The small
community often tolerates eccentricity. The city, on the contrary,
rewards it. Neither the criminal, the defective, nor the genius has the
same opportunity to develop his innate disposition in a small town that
he invariably finds in a great city.
Fifty years ago every village had one or two eccentric characters who
were treated ordinarily with a benevolent toleration, but who were
regarded meanwhile as impracticable and queer. These exceptional
individuals lived an isolated existence, cut off by their very
eccentricities, whether of genius or of defect, from genuinely intimate
intercourse with their fellows. If they had the making of criminals, the
restraints and inhibitions of the small community rendered them
harmless. If they had the stuff of genius in them, they remained sterile
for lack of appreciation or opportunity. Mark Twain’s story of _Pudd’n
Head Wilson_ is a description of one such obscure and unappreciated
genius. It is not so true as it was that
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its fragrance on the desert air.
Gray wrote the “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” before the rise of the
modern metropolis.
In the city many of these divergent types now find a milieu in which,
for good or for ill, their dispositions and talents parturiate and bear
fruit.
In the investigation of those exceptional and temperamental types
which the city has produced we should seek to distinguish, as far as
possible, between those abstract mental qualities upon which technical
excellence is based and those more fundamental native characteristics
which find expression in temperament. We may therefore ask:
To what extent are the moral qualities of individuals based on native
character? To what extent are they conventionalized habits imposed
upon by them or taken over by them from the group?
What are the native qualities and characteristics upon which the moral
or immoral character accepted and conventionalized by the group are
based?
What connection or what divorce appears to exist between mental and
moral qualities in the groups and in the individuals composing them?
Are criminals as a rule of a lower order of intelligence than
non-criminals? If so, what types of intelligence are associated with
different types of crime? For example, do professional burglars and
professional confidence men represent different mental types?
What are the effects upon these different types of isolation and of
mobility, of stimulus and of repression?
To what extent can playgrounds and other forms of recreation supply
the stimulation which is otherwise sought for in vicious pleasures?
To what extent can vocational guidance assist individuals in finding
vocations in which they will be able to obtain a free expression of
their temperamental qualities?
_The moral region._—It is inevitable that individuals who seek the same
forms of excitement, whether that excitement be furnished by a horse
race or by grand opera, should find themselves from time to time in the
same places. The result of this is that in the organization which city
life spontaneously assumes the population tends to segregate itself, not
merely in accordance with its interests, but in accordance with its
tastes or its temperaments. The resulting distribution of the population
is likely to be quite different from that brought about by occupational
interests or economic conditions.
Every neighborhood, under the influences which tend to distribute and
segregate city populations, may assume the character of a “moral
region.” Such, for example, are the vice districts, which are found in
most cities. A moral region is not necessarily a place of abode. It may
be a mere rendezvous, a place of resort.
In order to understand the forces which in every large city tend to
develop these detached milieus in which vagrant and suppressed impulses,
passions, and ideals emancipate themselves from the dominant moral
order, it is necessary to refer to the fact or theory of latent impulses
of men.
The fact seems to be that men are brought into the world with all the
passions, instincts, and appetites, uncontrolled and undisciplined.
Civilization, in the interests of the common welfare, demands the
suppression sometimes, and the control always, of these wild, natural
dispositions. In the process of imposing its discipline upon the
individual, in making over the individual in accordance with the
accepted community model, much is suppressed altogether, and much more
finds a vicarious expression in forms that are socially valuable, or at
least innocuous. It is at this point that sport, play, and art function.
They permit the individual to purge himself by means of symbolic
expression of these wild and suppressed impulses. This is the catharsis
of which Aristotle wrote in his _Poetic_, and which has been given new
and more positive significance by the investigations of Sigmund Freud
and the psychoanalysts.
No doubt many other social phenomena such as strikes, wars, popular
elections, and religious revivals perform a similar function in
releasing the subconscious tensions. But within smaller communities,
where social relations are more intimate and inhibitions more
imperative, there are many exceptional individuals who find within the
limits of the communal activity no normal and healthful expression of
their individual aptitudes and temperaments.
The causes which give rise to what are here described as “moral regions”
are due in part to the restrictions which urban life imposes; in part to
the license which these same conditions offer. We have, until very
recently, given much consideration to the temptations of city life, but
we have not given the same consideration to the effects of inhibitions
and suppressions of natural impulses and instincts under the changed
conditions of metropolitan life. For one thing, children, which in the
country are counted as an asset, become in the city a liability. Aside
from this fact it is very much more difficult to rear a family in the
city than on the farm. Marriage takes place later in the city, and
sometimes it doesn’t take place at all. These facts have consequences
the significance of which we are as yet wholly unable to estimate.
Investigation of the problems involved might well begin by a study and
comparison of the characteristic types of social organization which
exist in the regions referred to.
What are the external facts in regard to the life in Bohemia, the
half-world, the red-light district, and other “moral regions” less
pronounced in character?
What is the nature of the vocations which connect themselves with the
ordinary life of these regions? What are the characteristic mental
types which are attracted by the freedom which they offer?
How do individuals find their way into these regions? How do they
escape from them?
To what extent are the regions referred to the product of the license;
to what extent are they due to the restrictions imposed by city life
on the natural man?
_Temperament and social contagion._—What lends special importance to the
segregation of the poor, the vicious, the criminal, and exceptional
persons generally, which is so characteristic a feature of city life, is
the fact that social contagion tends to stimulate in divergent types the
common temperamental differences, and to suppress characters which unite
them with the normal types about them. Association with others of their
own ilk provides also not merely a stimulus, but a moral support for the
traits they have in common which they would not find in a less select
society. In the great city the poor, the vicious, and the delinquent,
crushed together in an unhealthful and contagious intimacy, breed in and
in, soul and body, so that it has often occurred to me that those long
genealogies of the Jukes and the tribes of Ishmael would not show such a
persistent and distressing uniformity of vice, crime, and poverty unless
they were peculiarly fit for the environment in which they are condemned
to exist.
We must then accept these “moral regions” and the more or less eccentric
and exceptional people who inhabit them, in a sense, at least, as part
of the natural, if not the normal, life of a city.
It is not necessary to understand by the expression “moral region” a
place or a society that is either necessarily criminal or abnormal. It
is intended rather to apply to regions in which a divergent moral code
prevails, because it is a region in which the people who inhabit it are
dominated, as people are ordinarily not dominated, by a taste or by a
passion or by some interest which has its roots directly in the original
nature of the individual. It may be an art, like music, or a sport, like
horse-racing. Such a region would differ from other social groups by the
fact that its interests are more immediate and more fundamental. For
this reason its differences are likely to be due to moral, rather than
intellectual, isolation.
Because of the opportunity it offers, particularly to the exceptional
and abnormal types of man, a great city tends to spread out and lay bare
to the public view in a massive manner all the human characters and
traits which are ordinarily obscured and suppressed in smaller
communities. The city, in short, shows the good and evil in human nature
in excess. It is this fact, perhaps, more than any other, which
justifies the view that would make of the city a laboratory or clinic in
which human nature and social processes may be conveniently and
profitably studied.
ROBERT E. PARK.
CHAPTER II
THE GROWTH OF THE CITY: AN INTRODUCTION TO A RESEARCH PROJECT
The outstanding fact of modern society is the growth of great cities.
Nowhere else have the enormous changes which the machine industry has
made in our social life registered themselves with such obviousness as
in the cities. In the United States the transition from a rural to an
urban civilization, though beginning later than in Europe, has taken
place, if not more rapidly and completely, at any rate more logically in
its most characteristic forms.
All the manifestations of modern life which are peculiarly urban—the
skyscraper, the subway, the department store, the daily newspaper, and
social work—are characteristically American. The more subtle changes in
our social life, which in their cruder manifestations are termed “social
problems,” problems that alarm and bewilder us, as divorce, delinquency,
and social unrest, are to be found in their most acute forms in our
largest American cities. The profound and “subversive” forces which have
wrought these changes are measured in the physical growth and expansion
of cities. That is the significance of the comparative statistics of
Weber, Bücher, and other students.
These statistical studies, although dealing mainly with the effects of
urban growth, brought out into clear relief certain distinctive
characteristics of urban as compared with rural populations. The larger
proportion of women to men in the cities than in the open country, the
greater percentage of youth and middle-aged, the higher ratio of the
foreign-born, the increased heterogeneity of occupation increase with
the growth of the city and profoundly alter its social structure. These
variations in the composition of population are indicative of all the
changes going on in the social organization of the community. In fact,
these changes are a part of the growth of the city and suggest the
nature of the processes of growth.
The only aspect of growth adequately described by Bücher and Weber was
the rather obvious process of the _aggregation_ of urban population.
Almost as overt a process, that of _expansion_, has been investigated
from a different and very practical point of view by groups interested
in city planning, zoning, and regional surveys. Even more significant
than the increasing density of urban population is its correlative
tendency to overflow, and so to extend over wider areas, and to
incorporate these areas into a larger communal life. This paper,
therefore, will treat first of the expansion of the city, and then of
the less-known processes of urban metabolism and mobility which are
closely related to expansion.
EXPANSION AS PHYSICAL GROWTH
The expansion of the city from the standpoint of the city plan, zoning,
and regional surveys is thought of almost wholly in terms of its
physical growth. Traction studies have dealt with the development of
transportation in its relation to the distribution of population
throughout the city. The surveys made by the Bell Telephone Company and
other public utilities have attempted to forecast the direction and the
rate of growth of the city in order to anticipate the future demands for
the extension of their services. In the city plan the location of parks
and boulevards, the widening of traffic streets, the provision for a
civic center, are all in the interest of the future control of the
physical development of the city.
This expansion in area of our largest cities is now being brought
forcibly to our attention by the Plan for the Study of New York and Its
Environs, and by the formation of the Chicago Regional Planning
Association, which extends the metropolitan district of the city to a
radius of 50 miles, embracing 4,000 square miles of territory. Both are
attempting to measure expansion in order to deal with the changes that
accompany city growth. In England, where more than one-half of the
inhabitants live in cities having a population of 100,000 and over, the
lively appreciation of the bearing of urban expansion on social
organization is thus expressed by C. B. Fawcett:
One of the most important and striking developments in the growth of
the urban populations of the more advanced peoples of the world during
the last few decades has been the appearance of a number of vast urban
aggregates, or conurbations, far larger and more numerous than the
great cities of any preceding age. These have usually been formed by
the simultaneous expansion of a number of neighboring towns, which
have grown out toward each other until they have reached a practical
coalescence in one continuous urban area. Each such conurbation still
has within it many nuclei of denser town growth, most of which
represent the central areas of the various towns from which it has
grown, and these nuclear patches are connected by the less densely
urbanized areas which began as suburbs of these towns. The latter are
still usually rather less continuously occupied by buildings, and
often have many open spaces.
These great aggregates of town dwellers are a new feature in the
distribution of man over the earth. At the present day there are from
thirty to forty of them, each containing more than a million people,
whereas only a hundred years ago there were, outside the great centers
of population on the waterways of China, not more than two or three.
Such aggregations of people are phenomena of great geographical and
social importance; they give rise to new problems in the organization
of the life and well-being of their inhabitants and in their varied
activities. Few of them have yet developed a social consciousness at
all proportionate to their magnitude, or fully realized themselves as
definite groupings of people with many common interests, emotions and
thoughts.[19]
In Europe and America the tendency of the great city to expand has been
recognized in the term “the metropolitan area of the city,” which far
overruns its political limits, and in the case of New York and Chicago,
even state lines. The metropolitan area may be taken to include urban
territory that is physically contiguous, but it is coming to be defined
by that facility of transportation that enables a business man to live
in a suburb of Chicago and to work in the loop, and his wife to shop at
Marshall Field’s and attend grand opera in the Auditorium.
EXPANSION AS A PROCESS
No study of expansion as a process has yet been made, although the
materials for such a study and intimations of different aspects of the
process are contained in city planning, zoning, and regional surveys.
The typical processes of the expansion of the city can best be
illustrated, perhaps, by a series of concentric circles, which may be
numbered to designate both the successive zones of urban extension and
the types of areas differentiated in the process of expansion.
This chart represents an ideal construction of the tendencies of any
town or city to expand radially from its central business district—on
the map “The Loop” (I). Encircling the downtown area there is normally
an area in transition, which is being invaded by business and light
manufacture (II). A third area (III) is inhabited by the workers in
industries who have escaped from the area of deterioration (II) but who
desire to live within easy access of their work. Beyond this zone is the
“residential area” (IV) of high-class apartment buildings or of
exclusive “restricted” districts of single family dwellings. Still
farther, out beyond the city limits, is the commuters’ zone (V)—suburban
areas, or satellite cities—within a thirty- to sixty-minute ride of the
central business district.
This chart brings out clearly the main fact of expansion, namely, the
tendency of each inner zone to extend its area by the invasion of the
next outer zone. This aspect of expansion may be called _succession_, a
process which has been studied in detail in plant ecology. If this chart
is applied to Chicago, all four of these zones were in its early history
included in the circumference of the inner zone, the present business
district. The present boundaries of the area of deterioration were not
many years ago those of the zone now inhabited by independent
wage-earners, and within the memories of thousands of Chicagoans
contained the residences of the “best families.” It hardly needs to be
added that neither Chicago nor any other city fits perfectly into this
ideal scheme. Complications are introduced by the lake front, the
Chicago River, railroad lines, historical factors in the location of
industry, the relative degree of the resistance of communities to
invasion, etc.
[Illustration:
CHART I
The GROWTH OF THE CITY
]
Besides extension and succession, the general process of expansion in
urban growth involves the antagonistic and yet complementary processes
of concentration and decentralization. In all cities there is the
natural tendency for local and outside transportation to converge in the
central business district. In the downtown section of every large city
we expect to find the department stores, the skyscraper office
buildings, the railroad stations, the great hotels, the theaters, the
art museum, and the city hall. Quite naturally, almost inevitably, the
economic, cultural, and political life centers here. The relation of
centralization to the other processes of city life may be roughly gauged
by the fact that over half a million people daily enter and leave
Chicago’s “loop.” More recently sub-business centers have grown up in
outlying zones. These “satellite loops” do not, it seems, represent the
“hoped for” revival of the neighborhood, but rather a telescoping of
several local communities into a larger economic unity. The Chicago of
yesterday, an agglomeration of country towns and immigrant colonies, is
undergoing a process of reorganization into a centralized decentralized
system of local communities coalescing into sub-business areas visibly
or invisibly dominated by the central business district. The actual
processes of what may be called centralized decentralization are now
being studied in the development of the chain store, which is only one
illustration of the change in the basis of the urban organization.[20]
Expansion, as we have seen, deals with the physical growth of the city,
and with the extension of the technical services that have made city
life not only livable, but comfortable, even luxurious. Certain of these
basic necessities of urban life are possible only through a tremendous
development of communal existence. Three millions of people in Chicago
are dependent upon one unified water system, one giant gas company, and
one huge electric light plant. Yet, like most of the other aspects of
our communal urban life, this economic co-operation is an example of
co-operation without a shred of what the “spirit of co-operation” is
commonly thought to signify. The great public utilities are a part of
the mechanization of life in great cities, and have little or no other
meaning for social organization.
Yet the processes of expansion, and especially the rate of expansion,
may be studied not only in the physical growth and business development,
but also in the consequent changes in the social organization and in
personality types. How far is the growth of the city, in its physical
and technical aspects, matched by a natural but adequate readjustment in
the social organization? What, for a city, is a normal rate of
expansion, a rate of expansion with which controlled changes in the
social organization might successfully keep pace?
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND DISORGANIZATION AS PROCESSES OF METABOLISM
These questions may best be answered, perhaps, by thinking of urban
growth as a resultant of organization and disorganization analogous to
the anabolic and katabolic processes of metabolism in the body. In what
way are individuals incorporated into the life of a city? By what
process does a person become an organic part of his society? The natural
process of acquiring culture is by birth. A person is born into a family
already adjusted to a social environment—in this case the modern city.
The natural rate of increase of population most favorable for
assimilation may then be taken as the excess of the birth-rate over the
death-rate, but is this the normal rate of city growth? Certainly,
modern cities have increased and are increasing in population at a far
higher rate. However, the natural rate of growth may be used to measure
the disturbances of metabolism caused by any excessive increase, as
those which followed the great influx of southern Negroes into northern
cities since the war. In a similar way all cities show deviations in
composition by age and sex from a standard population such as that of
Sweden, unaffected in recent years by any great emigration or
immigration. Here again, marked variations, as any great excess of males
over females, or of females over males, or in the proportion of
children, or of grown men or women, are symptomatic of abnormalities in
social metabolism.
Normally the processes of disorganization and organization may be
thought of as in reciprocal relationship to each other, and as
co-operating in a moving equilibrium of social order toward an end
vaguely or definitely regarded as progressive. So far as disorganization
points to reorganization and makes for more efficient adjustment,
disorganization must be conceived not as pathological, but as normal.
Disorganization as preliminary to reorganization of attitudes and
conduct is almost invariably the lot of the newcomer to the city, and
the discarding of the habitual, and often of what has been to him the
moral, is not infrequently accompanied by sharp mental conflict and
sense of personal loss. Oftener, perhaps, the change gives sooner or
later a feeling of emancipation and an urge toward new goals.
[Illustration:
CHART II
URBAN AREAS
]
In the expansion of the city a process of distribution takes place which
sifts and sorts and relocates individuals and groups by residence and
occupation. The resulting differentiation of the cosmopolitan American
city into areas is typically all from one pattern, with only interesting
minor modifications. Within the central business district or on an
adjoining street is the “main stem” of “hobohemia,” the teeming Rialto
of the homeless migratory man of the Middle West.[21] In the zone of
deterioration encircling the central business section are always to be
found the so-called “slums” and “bad lands,” with their submerged
regions of poverty, degradation, and disease, and their underworlds of
crime and vice. Within a deteriorating area are rooming-house districts,
the purgatory of “lost souls.” Near by is the Latin Quarter, where
creative and rebellious spirits resort. The slums are also crowded to
overflowing with immigrant colonies—the Ghetto, Little Sicily,
Greektown, Chinatown—fascinatingly combining old world heritages and
American adaptations. Wedging out from here is the Black Belt, with its
free and disorderly life. The area of deterioration, while essentially
one of decay, of stationary or declining population, is also one of
regeneration, as witness the mission, the settlement, the artists’
colony, radical centers—all obsessed with the vision of a new and better
world.
The next zone is also inhabited predominatingly by factory and shop
workers, but skilled and thrifty. This is an area of second immigrant
settlement, generally of the second generation. It is the region of
escape from the slum, the _Deutschland_ of the aspiring Ghetto family.
For _Deutschland_ (literally “Germany”) is the name given, half in envy,
half in derision, to that region beyond the Ghetto where successful
neighbors appear to be imitating German Jewish standards of living. But
the inhabitant of this area in turn looks to the “Promised Land” beyond,
to its residential hotels, its apartment-house region, its “satellite
loops,” and its “bright light” areas.
This differentiation into natural economic and cultural groupings gives
form and character to the city. For segregation offers the group, and
thereby the individuals who compose the group, a place and a rôle in the
total organization of city life. Segregation limits development in
certain directions, but releases it in others. These areas tend to
accentuate certain traits, to attract and develop their kind of
individuals, and so to become further differentiated.
The division of labor in the city likewise illustrates disorganization,
reorganization, and increasing differentiation. The immigrant from rural
communities in Europe and America seldom brings with him economic skill
of any great value in our industrial, commercial, or professional life.
Yet interesting occupational selection has taken place by nationality,
explainable more by racial temperament or circumstance than by old-world
economic background, as Irish policemen, Greek ice-cream parlors,
Chinese laundries, Negro porters, Belgian janitors, etc.
The facts that in Chicago one million (996,589) individuals gainfully
employed reported 509 occupations, and that over 1,000 men and women in
_Who’s Who_ gave 116 different vocations, give some notion of how in the
city the minute differentiation of occupation “analyzes and sifts the
population, separating and classifying the diverse elements.”[22] These
figures also afford some intimation of the complexity and complication
of the modern industrial mechanism and the intricate segregation and
isolation of divergent economic groups. Interrelated with this economic
division of labor is a corresponding division into social classes and
into cultural and recreational groups. From this multiplicity of groups,
with their different patterns of life, the person finds his congenial
social world and—what is not feasible in the narrow confines of a
village—may move and live in widely separated, and perchance
conflicting, worlds. Personal disorganization may be but the failure to
harmonize the canons of conduct of two divergent groups.
If the phenomena of expansion and metabolism indicate that a moderate
degree of disorganization may and does facilitate social organization,
they indicate as well that rapid urban expansion is accompanied by
excessive increases in disease, crime, disorder, vice, insanity, and
suicide, rough indexes of social disorganization. But what are the
indexes of the causes, rather than of the effects, of the disordered
social metabolism of the city? The excess of the actual over the natural
increase of population has already been suggested as a criterion. The
significance of this increase consists in the immigration into a
metropolitan city like New York and Chicago of tens of thousands of
persons annually. Their invasion of the city has the effect of a tidal
wave inundating first the immigrant colonies, the ports of first entry,
dislodging thousands of inhabitants who overflow into the next zone, and
so on and on until the momentum of the wave has spent its force on the
last urban zone. The whole effect is to speed up expansion, to speed up
industry, to speed up the “junking” process in the area of deterioration
(II). These internal movements of the population become the more
significant for study. What movement is going on in the city, and how
may this movement be measured? It is easier, of course, to classify
movement within the city than to measure it. There is the movement from
residence to residence, change of occupation, labor turnover, movement
to and from work, movement for recreation and adventure. This leads to
the question: What is the significant aspect of movement for the study
of the changes in city life? The answer to this question leads directly
to the important distinction between movement and mobility.
MOBILITY AS THE PULSE OF THE COMMUNITY
Movement, per se, is not an evidence of change or of growth. In fact,
movement may be a fixed and unchanging order of motion, designed to
control a constant situation, as in routine movement. Movement that is
significant for growth implies a change of movement in response to a new
stimulus or situation. Change of movement of this type is called
_mobility_. Movement of the nature of routine finds its typical
expression in work. Change of movement, or mobility, is
characteristically expressed in adventure. The great city, with its
“bright lights,” its emporiums of novelties and bargains, its palaces of
amusement, its underworld of vice and crime, its risks of life and
property from accident, robbery, and homicide, has become the region of
the most intense degree of adventure and danger, excitement and thrill.
Mobility, it is evident, involves change, new experience, stimulation.
Stimulation induces a response of the person to those objects in his
environment which afford expression for his wishes. For the person, as
for the physical organism, stimulation is essential to growth. Response
to stimulation is wholesome so long as it is a correlated _integral_
reaction of the entire personality. When the reaction is _segmental_,
that is, detached from, and uncontrolled by, the organization of
personality, it tends to become disorganizing or pathological. That is
why stimulation for the sake of stimulation, as in the restless pursuit
of pleasure, partakes of the nature of vice.
The mobility of city life, with its increase in the number and intensity
of stimulations, tends inevitably to confuse and to demoralize the
person. For an essential element in the mores and in personal morality
is consistency, consistency of the type that is natural in the social
control of the primary group. Where mobility is the greatest, and where
in consequence primary controls break down completely, as in the zone of
deterioration in the modern city, there develop areas of demoralization,
of promiscuity, and of vice.
In our studies of the city it is found that areas of mobility are also
the regions in which are found juvenile delinquency, boys’ gangs, crime,
poverty, wife desertion, divorce, abandoned infants, vice.
These concrete situations show why mobility is perhaps the best index of
the state of metabolism of the city. Mobility may be thought of in more
than a fanciful sense, as the “pulse of the community.” Like the pulse
of the human body, it is a process which reflects and is indicative of
all the changes that are taking place in the community, and which is
susceptible of analysis into elements which may be stated numerically.
The elements entering into mobility may be classified under two main
heads: (1) the state of mutability of the person, and (2) the number and
kind of contacts or stimulations in his environment. The mutability of
city populations varies with sex and age composition, the degree of
detachment of the person from the family and from other groups. All
these factors may be expressed numerically. The new stimulations to
which a population responds can be measured in terms of change of
movement or of increasing contacts. Statistics on the movement of urban
population may only measure routine, but an increase at a higher ratio
than the increase of population measures mobility. In 1860 the horse-car
lines of New York City carried about 50,000,000 passengers; in 1890 the
trolley-cars (and a few surviving horse-cars) transported about
500,000,000; in 1921, the elevated, subway, surface, and electric and
steam suburban lines carried a total of more than 2,500,000,000
passengers.[23] In Chicago the total annual rides per capita on the
surface and elevated lines were 164 in 1890; 215 in 1900; 320 in 1910;
and 338 in 1921. In addition, the rides per capita on steam and electric
suburban lines almost doubled between 1916 (23) and 1921 (41), and the
increasing use of the automobile must not be overlooked.[24] For
example, the number of automobiles in Illinois increased from 131,140 in
1915 to 833,920 in 1923.[25]
Mobility may be measured not only by these changes of movement, but also
by increase of contacts. While the increase of population of Chicago in
1912–22 was less than 25 per cent (23.6 per cent), the increase of
letters delivered to Chicagoans was double that (49.6 per cent)—(from
693,084,196 to 1,038,007,854).[26] In 1912 New York had 8.8 telephones;
in 1922, 16.9 per 100 inhabitants. Boston had, in 1912, 10.1 telephones;
ten years later, 19.5 telephones per 100 inhabitants. In the same decade
the figures for Chicago increased from 12.3 to 21.6 per 100
population.[27] But increase of the use of the telephone is probably
more significant than increase in the number of telephones. The number
of telephone calls in Chicago increased from 606,131,928 in 1914 to
944,010,586 in 1922,[28] an increase of 55.7 per cent, while the
population increased only 13.4 per cent.
Land values, since they reflect movement, afford one of the most
sensitive indexes of mobility. The highest land values in Chicago are at
the point of greatest mobility in the city, at the corner of State and
Madison streets, in the Loop. A traffic count showed that at the rush
period 31,000 people an hour, or 210,000 men and women in sixteen and
one-half hours, passed the southwest corner. For over ten years land
values in the Loop have been stationary, but in the same time they have
doubled, quadrupled, and even sextupled in the strategic corners of the
“satellite loops,”[29] an accurate index of the changes which have
occurred. Our investigations so far seem to indicate that variations in
land values, especially where correlated with differences in rents,
offer perhaps the best single measure of mobility, and so of all the
changes taking place in the expansion and growth of the city.
In general outline, I have attempted to present the point of view and
methods of investigation which the department of sociology is employing
in its studies in the growth of the city, namely, to describe urban
expansion in terms of extension, succession, and concentration; to
determine how expansion disturbs metabolism when disorganization is in
excess of organization; and, finally, to define mobility and to propose
it as a measure both of expansion and metabolism, susceptible to precise
quantitative formulation, so that it may be regarded almost literally as
the pulse of the community. In a way, this statement might serve as an
introduction to any one of five or six research projects under way in
the department.[30] The project, however, in which I am directly engaged
is an attempt to apply these methods of investigation to a cross-section
of the city—to put this area, as it were, under the microscope, and so
to study in more detail and with greater control and precision the
processes which have been described here in the large. For this purpose
the West Side Jewish community has been selected. This community
includes the so-called “Ghetto,” or area of first settlement, and
Lawndale, the so-called “Deutschland,” or area of second settlement.
This area has certain obvious advantages for this study, from the
standpoint of expansion, metabolism, and mobility. It exemplifies the
tendency to expansion radially from the business center of the city. It
is now relatively a homogeneous cultural group. Lawndale is itself an
area in flux, with the tide of migrants still flowing in from the Ghetto
and a constant egress to more desirable regions of the residential zone.
In this area, too, it is also possible to study how the expected outcome
of this high rate of mobility in social and personal disorganization is
counteracted in large measure by the efficient communal organization of
the Jewish community.
ERNEST W. BURGESS
CHAPTER III
THE ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF THE HUMAN COMMUNITY
The young sciences of plant and animal ecology have become fairly well
established. Their respective fields are apparently quite well defined,
and a set of concepts for analysis is becoming rather generally
accepted. The subject of human ecology, however, is still practically an
unsurveyed field, that is, so far as a systematic and scientific
approach is concerned. To be sure, hosts of studies have been made which
touch the field of human ecology in one or another of its varied
aspects, but there has developed no science of human ecology which is
comparable in precision of observation or in method of analysis with the
recent sciences of plant and animal ecology.
I. THE RELATION OF HUMAN ECOLOGY TO PLANT AND ANIMAL ECOLOGY
Ecology has been defined as “that phase of biology that considers plants
and animals as they exist in nature, and studies their interdependence,
and the relation of each kind and individual to its environment.”[31]
This definition is not sufficiently comprehensive to include all the
elements that logically fall within the range of human ecology. In the
absence of any precedent let us tentatively define human ecology as a
study of the spatial and temporal[32] relations of human beings as
affected by the selective, distributive, and accommodative forces of the
environment. Human ecology is fundamentally interested in the effect of
_position_,[33] in both time and space, upon human institutions and
human behavior. “Society is made up of individuals spatially separated,
territorially distributed, and capable of independent locomotion.”[34]
These spatial relationships of human beings are the products of
competition and selection, and are continuously in process of change as
new factors enter to disturb the competitive relations or to facilitate
mobility. Human institutions and human nature itself become accommodated
to certain spatial relationships of human beings. As these spatial
relationships change, the physical basis of social relations is altered,
thereby producing social and political problems.
A great deal has been written about the biological, economic, and social
aspects of competition and selection, but little attention has been
given to the distributive and spatial aspects of these processes. The
plant ecologist is aware of the effect of the struggle for space, food,
and light upon the nature of a plant formation, but the sociologist has
failed to recognize that the same processes of competition and
accommodation are at work determining the size and ecological
organization of the human community.
The essential difference between the plant and animal organism is that
the animal has the power of locomotion which enables it to gather
nutriment from a wider environment, but, in addition to the power to
move in space, the human animal has the ability to contrive and adapt
the environment to his needs. In a word, the human community differs
from the plant community in the two dominant characteristics of mobility
and purpose, that is, in the power to select a habitat and in the
ability to control or modify the conditions of the habitat. On first
consideration this might seem to indicate that human ecology could have
nothing in common with plant ecology where the processes of association
and adjustment result from natural unmodifiable reactions, but closer
examination and investigation make it obvious that human communities are
not so much the products of artifact or design as many hero-worshipers
suppose.[35]
The human community has its inception in the traits of human nature and
the needs of human beings. Man is a gregarious animal: he cannot live
alone; he is relatively weak and needs not only the company of other
human associates but shelter and protection from the elements as well.
Brunhes says there are three essentials to the inception of the human
community: the house, the road, and water.[36] Food may be transported
more easily than shelter or water; the latter two therefore constitute,
even under the most nomadic conditions, the essential elements in giving
a location and a spatial fixity to human relations.[37] This is
exemplified under our present régime of automobile tourist life, where
water and shelter become the determining factors in the location of the
camp.
The size and stability of the human community is however a function of
the food supply and of the rôle played in the wider ecological process
of production and distribution of commodities. When man makes his living
from hunting or fishing, the community is small and of but temporary
duration; when agriculture becomes the chief source of sustenance, the
community is still small but assumes a more permanent character; when
trade and commerce develop, larger communities arise at points of break
in conveyance, that is, at the mouths of rivers, junctions of streams,
at waterfalls, and shallows where streams are forded. As new forms of
transportation arise, new points of concentration occur and old points
become accentuated or reduced. Again, as goods for trade are made in
communities, still other points of concentration come into existence,
determined largely by sources of power and raw material.[38]
II. ECOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF COMMUNITIES
From the standpoint of ecology, communities may be divided into four
general types: first, the primary service community, such as the
agricultural town, the fishing, mining, or lumbering community which
serves as the first step in the distributive process of the outgoing
basic commodity and as the last stage in the distributive process of the
product finished for consumption. The size of such communities depends
entirely upon the nature and form of utilization of the extractive
industry concerned, together with the extent of the surrounding trade
area. The community responds in size to any element that affects the
productivity of the economic base or the extent of the area from which
it draws its sustenance. But, in any event, so long as such a community
does not assume any other function in the larger ecological process, it
cannot grow in population beyond a few thousand inhabitants.
The next type of community is the one that fulfils the secondary
function in the distributive process of commodities. It collects the
basic materials from the surrounding primary communities and distributes
them in the wider markets of the world. On the other hand, it
redistributes the products coming from other parts of the world to the
primary service communities for final consumption. This is commonly
called the commercial community; it may, however, combine other
functions as well. The size of this type of community depends upon the
extent of its distributive functions. It may vary from a small wholesale
town in the center of an agricultural plain to that of a great port city
whose hinterland extends halfway across the continent. Growth depends
upon the comparative advantages of the site location.
The third type of community is the industrial town. It serves as the
locus for the manufacturing of commodities. In addition it may combine
the functions of the primary service and the commercial types. It may
have its local trade area and it may also be the distributing center for
the surrounding hinterland. The type is characterized merely by the
relative dominance of industry over the other forms of service. There is
practically no limit to the size to which an industrial community may
develop. Growth is dependent upon the scope and market organization of
the particular industries which happen to be located within its
boundaries. Industrial communities are of two general types: first,
those that have diversified and multiple industries organized on a local
sale of products, and, second, those that are dominated by one or two
highly developed industries organized on a national or world-sale of
products.
The fourth type of community is one which is lacking in a specific
economic base. It draws its economic sustenance from other parts of the
world, and may serve no function in the production or distribution of
commodities. Such communities are exemplified in our recreational
resorts, political and educational centers, communities of defense,
penal or charitable colonies. From the standpoint of growth or decline
such communities are not subject to the same laws that govern the
development of towns that play a part in the larger productive and
distributive processes.[39] They are much more subject to the
vicissitudes of human fancies and decrees than are the basic types of
human communities. Of course, any community may and usually does have
accretions added to its population as a result of such service. It may,
for instance, be the seat of a university, of a state prison, or it may
be a recreational resort for at least certain seasons of the year.
III. DETERMINING ECOLOGICAL FACTORS IN THE GROWTH OR DECLINE OF
COMMUNITY
The human community tends to develop in cyclic fashion. Under a given
state of natural resources and in a given condition of the arts the
community tends to increase in size and structure until it reaches the
point of population adjustment to the economic base. In an agricultural
community, under present conditions of production and transportation,
the point of maximum population seldom exceeds 5,000.[40] The point of
maximum development may be termed the point of culmination or climax, to
use the term of the plant ecologist.[41] The community tends to remain
in this condition of balance between population and resources until some
new element enters to disturb the _status quo_, such as the introduction
of a new system of communication, a new type of industry, or a different
form of utilization of the existing economic base. Whatever the
innovation may be that disturbs the equilibrium of the community, there
is a tendency toward a new cycle of adjustment. This may act in either a
positive or negative manner. It may serve as a _release_ to the
community, making for another cycle of growth and differentiation, or it
may have a retractive influence, necessitating emigration and
readjustment to a more circumscribed base.
In earlier conditions of life, population was kept down to the community
balance by variations in the death-rate, or, as in the case of Greek
cities, the surplus population emigrated in groups to establish new
colonies—offshoots of the mother-city. Under modern conditions of
communication and transportation, population adjustment is maintained by
a ceaseless process of individual migrations. As a result of the dynamic
conditions prevailing throughout the civilized world during the last
fifty years, many communities have passed through swift successive
cycles of growth or decline, the determining factors being changes in
forms and routes of transportation and communication and the rise of new
industries.
Some advantage in transportation is the most fundamental and most
important of the causes determining the location of a distributing
center. It may almost be said to be the only cause for the formation
of such centers. For some reason or reasons a particular place is more
conveniently and cheaply reached by many people than any surrounding
point; and, as a result, they naturally exchange commodities there.
The country store is located at the crossing of roads. There also is
the village. In a mountain country the market town is at the junction
of two, or, still better, of three valleys. Another favorite location
is the end of a mountain pass, or a gap that is a thoroughfare between
two valleys. If rivers are difficult to cross, settlements will spring
up at the safest ferries or fords. In a level plain, a town will be
near its center, and a focus of roads or railroads in such a plain,
fertile and populous, will almost surely make a city.[42]
It is the railroad and the steamship that determine where a new
business shall be developed, quite as often as the government policy.
The grant of special rates and privileges to shippers is nowadays the
most efficient kind of protection.
It is this quickening and cheapening of transportation that has given
such stimulus in the present day to the growth of large cities. It
enables them to draw cheap food from a far larger territory and it
causes business to locate where the widest business connection is to
be had, rather than where the goods or raw materials are most easily
produced. And the perfection of the means of communication, the
post-office and the telegraph, intensifies the same result.[43]
The entire net increase of the population of 1870 to 1890 in Illinois,
Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota was in cities and towns possessing
competitive rates, while those having non-competitive rates decreased
in population, and in Iowa it is the general belief that the absence
of large cities is due to the earlier policy of the railways giving
Chicago discriminating rates.[44]
The advent of the trolley line and more recently of the automobile has
produced still further disturbing elements in the growth of human
communities. Their effect has been chiefly to modify the life of the
small town or village, causing the decline of some and the sudden growth
of others. The introduction of these two forms of transportation, more
particularly of the automobile, has been the most potent force in our
recent American history in affecting redistribution of our population
and in the disorganization of our rural and small-town institutions
which grew up on the basis of a horse-and-vehicle type of mobility.[45]
The evolution of new types of industry is another feature that becomes a
determining factor in the redistribution of the country’s population. As
we review our census reports we see the emergence each decade of one or
more important industries; first, the textile industry causing
concentrations of population in the eastern states, then the development
of the iron and steel industry with its center of operations gradually
shifting farther and farther west, and more recently the advent of the
automobile and oil industries making for enormous concentration of
population in certain states of the Union, also the motion picture
industry with its concentrated center in southern California. The
emergence of a new industry has a far-reaching effect in disturbing the
_status quo_ of communal life. Competition soon forces the new industry
to concentrate its productive enterprises in one or two communities;
these communities then serve as great magnets drawing to themselves the
appropriate population elements from communities far and near.
IV. THE EFFECT OF ECOLOGICAL CHANGES ON THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF
COMMUNITY
Population migrations resulting from such sudden pulls as are the
outcomes of unusual forms of release in community growth may cause an
expansion in the community’s development far beyond the natural
culmination point of its cyclic development, resulting in a crisis
situation, a sudden relapse, disorganization, or even panic. So-called
“boom towns” are towns that have experienced herd movements of
population beyond the natural point of culmination.
On the other hand, a community which has reached the point of
culmination and which has experienced no form of release is likely to
settle into a condition of stagnation. Its natural surplus of population
is forced to emigrate. This type of emigration tends to occasion
folk-depletion in the parent community. The younger and more
enterprising population elements respond most sensitively to the absence
of opportunities in their home town. This is particularly true when the
community has but a single economic base, such as agriculture,
lumbering, mining. Reformers try in vain to induce the young people to
remain on the farms or in their native villages, little realizing that
they are working in opposition to the general principles of the
ecological order.
Again, when a community starts to decline in population due to a
weakening of the economic base, disorganization and social unrest
follow.[46] Competition becomes keener within the community, and the
weaker elements either are forced into a lower economic level or are
compelled to withdraw from the community entirely. There are, of course,
periodic and temporary fluctuations in the economic balance, due either
to circumstances which affect the entire economic order or to the
vicissitudes of the particular industry from which the community draws
its sustenance. These temporary fluctuations, however, while important
from the standpoint of social well-being, do not comprise the basic
determinants of community development.
The introduction of an innovating element into the adjustment of a
community may be designated as the initial stage of an invasion which
may make for a complete change in the structure and organization of the
community. The introduction of a new mode of transportation, for
instance, may transform the economic organization of a community and
make for a change in population type.
Thus the Harlem Railroad transformed Quaker Hill from a community of
diversified farming, producing, manufacturing, selling, consuming,
sufficient unto itself, into a locality of specialized farming. Its
market had been Poughkeepsie, twenty-eight miles away, over high hills
and indifferent roads. Its metropolis became New York, sixty-two miles
away by rail and four to eight miles by wagon-road.
With the railroad’s coming, the isolated homogeneous community
scattered. The sons of the Quakers emigrated. Laborers from Ireland
and other European lands, even negroes from Virginia, took their
places. New Yorkers became residents on the Hill, which became the
farthest terminus of suburban travel.[47]
The establishment of a new industry, especially if it displaces the
previous economic base, may also make for a more or less complete change
of population without greatly modifying the size of the community. This
condition is exemplified in many of the small towns of the state of
Washington which have changed from lumbering to agriculture or from one
type of agriculture to another. In many cases few of the previous
inhabitants remained after the invasion of the new economic base.
As a community increases in size, however, it becomes better able to
accommodate itself to invasions and to sudden changes in number of
inhabitants. The city tends to become the reservoir into which the
surplus population drains from the smaller communities round about.
V. ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES DETERMINING THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF COMMUNITY
In the process of community growth there is a development from the
simple to the complex, from the general to the specialized; first to
increasing centralization and later to a decentralization process. In
the small town or village the primary universal needs are satisfied by a
few general stores and a few simple institutions such as church, school,
and home. As the community increases in size specialization takes place
both in the type of service provided and in the location of the place of
service. The sequence of development may be somewhat as follows: first
the grocery store, sometimes carrying a few of the more staple dry
goods, then the restaurant, poolroom, barber shop, drug store, dry-goods
store, and later bank, haberdashery, millinery, and other specialized
lines of service.[48]
The axial or skeletal structure of a community is determined by the
course of the first routes of travel and traffic.[49] Houses and shops
are constructed near the road, usually parallel with it. The road may be
a trail, public highway, railroad, river, or ocean harbor, but, in any
case, the community usually starts in parallel relation to the first
main highway. With the accumulation of population and utilities the
community takes form, first along one side of the highway and later on
both sides. The point of junction or crossing of two main highways, as a
rule, serves as the initial center of the community.
As the community grows there is not merely a multiplication of houses
and roads but a process of differentiation and segregation takes place
as well. Residences and institutions spread out in centrifugal fashion
from the central point of the community, while business concentrates
more and more around the spot of highest land values. Each cyclic
increase of population is accompanied by greater differentiation in both
service and location. There is a struggle among utilities for the
vantage-points of position. This makes for increasing value of land and
increasing height of buildings at the geographic center of the
community. As competition for advantageous sites becomes keener with the
growth of population, the first and economically weaker types of
utilities are forced out to less accessible and lower-priced areas. By
the time the community has reached a population of about ten or twelve
thousand, a fairly well-differentiated structure is attained. The
central part is a clearly defined business area with the bank, the
drugstore, the department store, and the hotel holding the sites of
highest land value. Industries and factories usually comprise
independent formations within the city, grouping around railroad tracks
and routes of water traffic. Residence sections become established,
segregated into two or more types, depending upon the economic and
racial composition of the population.
The structural growth of community takes place in successional sequence
not unlike the successional stages in the development of the plant
formation. Certain specialized forms of utilities and uses do not appear
in the human community until a certain stage of development has been
attained, just as the beech or pine forest is preceded by successional
dominance of other plant species. And just as in plant communities
successions are the products of invasion, so also in the human community
the formations, segregations, and associations that appear constitute
the outcome of a series of invasions.[50]
There are many kinds of intra-community invasions, but in general they
may be grouped into two main classes: those resulting in change in use
of land, and those which introduce merely change in type of occupant. By
the former is meant change from one general use to another, such as of a
residential area into a business area or of a business into an
industrial district. The latter embraces all changes of type within a
particular use area, such as the changes which constantly take place in
the racial and economic complexion of residence neighborhoods, or of the
type of service utility within a business section. Invasions produce
successional stages of different qualitative significance, that is, the
economic character of the district may rise or fall as the result of
certain types of invasion. This qualitative aspect is reflected in the
fluctuations of land or rental values.
The conditions which initiate invasions are legion. The following are
some of the more important: (1) changes in forms and routes of
transportation;[51] (2) obsolescence resulting from physical
deterioration or from changes in use or fashion; (3) the erection of
important public or private structures, buildings, bridges,
institutions, which have either attractive or repellent significance;
(4) the introduction of new types of industry, or even a change in the
organization of existing industries; (5) changes in the economic base
which make for redistribution of income, thus necessitating change of
residence; (6) real estate promotion creating sudden demands for special
location sites, etc.
Invasions may be classified according to stage of development into (_a_)
initial stage, (_b_) secondary or developmental stage, (_c_) climax. The
initial stage of an invasion has to do with the point of entry, the
resistance or inducement offered the invader by the prior inhabitants of
the area, the effect upon land values and rentals. The invasion, of
course, may be into an unoccupied territory or into territory with
various degrees of occupancy. The resistance to invasion depends upon
the type of the invader together with the degree of solidarity of the
present occupants. The undesirable invader, whether in population type
or in use form, usually makes entry (that is, within an area already
completely occupied) at the point of greatest mobility. It is a common
observation that foreign races and other undesirable invaders, with few
exceptions, take up residence near the business center of the community
or at other points of high mobility and low resistance. Once established
they gradually push their way out along business or transportation
thoroughfares to the periphery of the community.
The commencement of an invasion tends to be reflected in changes in land
value. If the invasion is one of change in use the value of the land
generally advances and the value of the building declines. This
condition furnishes the basis for disorganization. The normal
improvements and repairs are, as a rule, omitted, and the owner is
placed under the economic urge of renting his property to parasitic and
transitory services which may be economically strong but socially
disreputable and therefore able and obliged to pay higher rentals than
the legitimate utilities can afford. It is a well-known fact that the
vices under the surveillance of the police usually segregate in such
transitional areas.[52]
During the course of development of an invasion into a new area, either
of use or type, there takes place a process of displacement and
selection determined by the character of the invader and of the area
invaded. The early stages are usually marked by keenness of competition
which frequently manifests itself in outward clashes. Business failures
are common in such areas and the rules of competition are violated. As
the process continues, competition forces associational groupings.
Utilities making similar or complementary demands of the area tend to
group in close proximity to one another, giving rise to subformations
with definite service functions. Such associations as amusement areas,
retail districts, market sections, financial sections, and automobile
rows are examples of this tendency.
The climax stage is reached in the invasion process, once the dominant
type of ecological organization emerges which is able to withstand the
intrusions of other forms of invasion. For example, in the development
of a residential district, when it is not controlled in advance by
building restrictions, the early stages of growth are usually marked by
wide variations in the type and value of buildings constructed. But, in
the process of development, a uniform cost type of structure tends to
dominate, gradually eliminating all other types that vary widely from
the norm, so that it is customary to find a considerable degree of
economic homogeneity in all established residential districts. The same
process operates in areas devoted to business uses, competition
segregates utilities of similar economic strength into areas of
corresponding land values, and at the same time forces into close
proximity those particular forms of service which profit from mutual
association such as financial establishments or automobile
display-rooms. Once a dominant use becomes established within an area,
competition becomes less ruthless among the associational units, rules
of control emerge, and invasion of a different use is for a time
obstructed.
The general effect of the continuous processes of invasions and
accommodations is to give to the developed community well-defined areas,
each having its own peculiar selective and cultural characteristics.
Such units of communal life may be termed “natural areas,”[53] or
formations, to use the term of the plant ecologist. In any case, these
areas of selection and function may comprise many subformations or
associations which become part of the organic structure of the district
or of the community as a whole. It has been suggested that these natural
areas or formations may be defined in terms of land values,[54] the
point of highest land value representing the center or head of the
formation (not necessarily the geographic center but the economic or
cultural center), while the points of lowest land value represent the
periphery of the formation or boundary line between two adjacent
formations.
Each formation or ecological organization within a community serves as a
selective or magnetic force attracting to itself appropriate population
elements and repelling incongruous units, thus making for biological and
cultural subdivisions of a city’s population. Everyone knows how racial
and linguistic colonies develop in all of our large cities, but the age
and sex segregations which take place are not quite so obvious to common
perception. In the city of Seattle, which has in general a sex
composition of 113 males to 100 females, the downtown district,
comprising an area inscribed by a radius of half a mile or so, has from
300 to 500 males to every 100 females. But in the outlying districts of
the city, except in one or two industrial sections, these ratios are
reversed. Females predominate in numbers over males in all the
residential neighborhoods and in the suburbs of the city. This same
condition is true with regard to the age distribution of population. The
school census shows an absolute decline in the number of children of
school age in the central districts of the city although the total
population for this area has shown an increase for each decade. It is
obvious, then, that the settler type of population, the married couples
with children, withdraw from the center of the city while the more
mobile and less responsible adults herd together in the hotel and
apartment regions near the heart of the community.
This process of population-sifting produces not only increasing mobility
with approach from the periphery to the center of the formation, but
also different cultural areas representing different mores, attitudes,
and degrees of civic interest. The neighborhoods in which the settler
type of population resides, with their preponderance of women and
children, serve as the custodians of the stabilizing and repressive
mores. It is in the Seattle neighborhoods, especially those on the
hill-tops, that the conservative, law-abiding, civic-minded population
elements dwell. The downtown section and the valleys, which are usually
industrial sites, are populated by a class of people who are not only
more mobile but whose mores and attitudes, as tested by voting habits,
are more vagrant and radical.
R. D. MCKENZIE
CHAPTER IV
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE NEWSPAPER
I. THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE
The newspaper has a history; but it has, likewise, a natural history.
The press, as it exists, is not, as our moralists sometimes seem to
assume, the wilful product of any little group of living men. On the
contrary, it is the outcome of a historic process in which many
individuals participated without foreseeing what the ultimate product of
their labors was to be.
The newspaper, like the modern city, is not wholly a rational product.
No one sought to make it just what it is. In spite of all the efforts of
individual men and generations of men to control it and to make it
something after their own heart, it has continued to grow and change in
its own incalculable ways.
The type of newspaper that exists is the type that has survived under
the conditions of modern life. The men who may be said to have made the
modern newspaper—James Gordon Bennett, Charles A. Dana, Joseph Pulitzer,
and William Randolph Hearst—are the men who discovered the kind of paper
that men and women would read and had the courage to publish it.
The natural history of the press is the history of this surviving
species. It is an account of the conditions under which the existing
newspaper has grown up and taken form.
A newspaper is not merely printed. It is circulated and read. Otherwise
it is not a newspaper. The struggle for existence, in the case of the
newspaper, has been a struggle for circulation. The newspaper that is
not read ceases to be an influence in the community. The power of the
press may be roughly measured by the number of people who read it.
The growth of great cities has enormously increased the size of the
reading public. Reading, which was a luxury in the country, has become a
necessity in the city. In the urban environment literacy is almost as
much a necessity as speech itself. That is one reason there are so many
foreign-language newspapers.
Mark Villchur, editor of the _Russkoye Slovo_, New York City, asked his
readers how many of them had read newspapers in the old country. He
found that out of 312 correspondents only 16 had regularly read
newspapers in Russia; 10 others from time to time read newspapers in the
Volast, the village administration center, and 12 were subscribers to
weekly magazines. In America all of them were subscribers or readers of
Russian newspapers.
This is interesting because the immigrant has had, first and last, a
profound influence on the character of our native newspapers. How to
bring the immigrant and his descendants into the circle of newspaper
readers has been one of the problems of modern journalism.
The immigrant who has, perhaps, acquired the newspaper habit from
reading a foreign-language newspaper is eventually attracted to the
native American newspapers. They are for him a window looking out into
the larger world outside the narrow circle of the immigrant community in
which he has been compelled to live. The newspapers have discovered that
even men who can perhaps read no more than the headlines in the daily
press will buy a Sunday paper to look at the pictures.
It is said that the most successful of the Hearst papers, the _New York
Evening Journal_, gains a new body of subscribers every six years.
Apparently it gets its readers mainly from immigrants. They graduate
into Mr. Hearst’s papers from the foreign-language press, and when the
sensationalism of these papers begins to pall, they acquire a taste for
some of the soberer journals. At any rate, Mr. Hearst has been a great
Americanizer.
In their efforts to make the newspaper readable to the least-instructed
reader, to find in the daily news material that would thrill the crudest
intelligence, publishers have made one important discovery. They have
found that the difference between the high-brow and the low-brow, which
once seemed so profound, is largely a difference in vocabularies. In
short, if the press can make itself intelligible to the common man, it
will have even less difficulty in being understood by the intellectual.
The character of present-day newspapers has been profoundly influenced
by this fact.
II. THE FIRST NEWSPAPERS
What is a newspaper? Many answers have been given. It is the tribune of
the people; it is the fourth estate; the Palladium of our civil
liberties, etc.
On the other hand, this same newspaper has been characterized as the
great sophist. What the popular teachers did for Athens in the period of
Socrates and Plato the press has done in modern times for the common
man.
The modern newspaper has been accused of being a business enterprise.
“Yes,” say the newspaper men “and the commodity it sells is news.” It is
the truth shop. (The editor is the philosopher turned merchant.) By
making information about our common life accessible to every individual
at less than the price of a telephone call we are to regain, it is
urged—even in the complicated life of what Graham Wallas calls the
“Great Society”—some sort of working democracy.
The advertising manager’s notion is again something different. For him
the newspaper is a medium for creating advertising values. The business
of the editor is to provide the envelope which incloses the space which
the advertising man sells. Eventually the newspaper may be conceived as
a sort of common carrier, like the railway or the post office.
The newspaper, according to the author of the _Brass Check_, is a crime.
The brass check is a symbol of prostitution. “The brass check is found
in your pay envelope every week—you who write and print and distribute
our newspapers and magazines. The brass check is the price of your
shame—you who take the fair body of truth and sell it in the market
place, who betray the virgin hopes of mankind into the loathsome brothel
of big business.”
This is the conception of a moralist and a socialist—Upton Sinclair.
Evidently the newspaper is an institution that is not yet fully
understood. What it is, or seems to be, for any one of us at any time is
determined by our differing points of view. As a matter of fact, we do
not know much about the newspaper. It has never been studied.
One reason we know so little about the newspaper is that as it exists
today it is a very recent manifestation. Besides, in the course of its
relatively brief history, it has gone through a remarkable series of
transfigurations. The press today is, however, all that it was and
something more. To understand it we must see in its historic
perspective.
The first newspapers were written or printed letters; news-letters they
were called. In the seventeenth century English country gentlemen used
to employ correspondents to write them once a week from London the
gossip of the court and of the town.
The first newspaper in America, at least the first newspaper that lasted
beyond its first issue, was the _Boston News-Letter_. It was published
by the postmaster. The village post-office has always been a public
forum, where all the affairs of the nation and the community were
discussed. It was to be expected that there, in close proximity to the
sources of intelligence, if anywhere, a newspaper would spring up. For a
long time the position of postmaster and the vocation of editor were
regarded as inseparable.
The first newspapers were simply devices for organizing gossip, and
that, to a greater or less extent, they have remained. Horace Greeley’s
advice to a friend who was about to start a country paper is as good
today as it was then.
Begin with a clear conception that the subject of deepest interest to
an average human being is himself; next to that, he is most concerned
about his neighbors. Asia and the Tongo Islands stand a long way after
these in his regard. It does seem to me that most country journals are
oblivious as to these vital truths. If you will, so soon as may be,
secure a wide awake, judicious correspondent in each village and
township of your county, some young lawyer, doctor, clerk in a store,
or assistant in a post office who will promptly send you whatever of
moment occurs in his vicinity, and will make up at least half your
journal of local matter thus collected, nobody in the county can long
do without it. Do not let a new church be organized, or new members be
added to one already existing, a farm be sold, a new house be raised,
a mill be set in motion, a store be opened, nor anything of interest
to a dozen families occur, without having the fact duly though briefly
chronicled in your columns. If a farmer cuts a big tree, or grows a
mammoth beet, or harvests a bounteous yield of wheat or corn, set
forth the fact as concisely and unexceptionally as possible.
What Greeley advises friend Fletcher to do with his country paper the
city editor of every newspaper, as far as it humanly is possible, is
still trying to do. It is not practicable, in a city of 3,000,000 and
more, to mention everybody’s name. For that reason attention is focused
upon a few prominent figures. In a city where everything happens every
day, it is not possible to record every petty incident, every variation
from the routine of the city life. It is possible, however, to select
certain particularly picturesque or romantic incidents and treat them
symbolically, for their human interest rather than their individual and
personal significance. In this way news ceases to be wholly personal and
assumes the form of art. It ceases to be the record of the doings of
individual men and women and becomes an impersonal account of manners
and life.
The motive, conscious or unconscious, of the writers and of the press in
all this is to reproduce, as far as possible, in the city the conditions
of life in the village. In the village everyone knew everyone else.
Everyone called everyone by his first name. The village was democratic.
We are a nation of villagers. Our institutions are fundamentally village
institutions. In the village, gossip and public opinion were the main
sources of social control.
“I would rather live,” said Thomas Jefferson, “in a country with
newspapers and without a government than in a country with a government
and without newspapers.”
If public opinion is to continue to govern in the future as it has in
the past, if we propose to maintain a democracy as Jefferson conceived
it, the newspaper must continue to tell us about ourselves. We must
somehow learn to know our community and its affairs in the same intimate
way in which we knew them in the country villages. The newspaper must
continue to be the printed diary of the home community. Marriages and
divorce, crime and politics, must continue to make up the main body of
our news. Local news is the very stuff that democracy is made of.
But that, according to Walter Lippmann, is just the difficulty. “As
social truth is organized today”, so he says, “the press is not
constituted to furnish from one edition to the next the amount of
knowledge which the democratic theory of public opinion demands.... When
we expect it to supply such a body of truth, we employ a misleading
standard of judgment. We misunderstand the limited nature of news, the
illimitable complexity of society; we overestimate our own endurance,
public spirit, and all-round competence. We suppose an appetite for
uninteresting truths which is not discovered by any honest analysis of
our own tastes.... Unconsciously the theory sets up the single reader as
theoretically incompetent, and puts upon the press the burden of
accomplishing whatever representative government, industrial
organization, and diplomacy have failed to accomplish. Acting upon
everybody for thirty minutes in twenty-four hours, the press is asked to
create a mystical force called ‘public opinion’ that will take up the
slack in public institutions.”[55]
It is evident that a newspaper cannot do for a community of 1,000,000
inhabitants what the village did spontaneously for itself through the
medium of gossip and personal contact. Nevertheless the efforts of the
newspaper to achieve this impossible result are an interesting chapter
in the history of politics as well as of the press.
III. THE PARTY PAPERS
The first newspapers, the news-letters, were not party papers. Political
journals began to supersede the news-letters at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. The news with which the reading public was most
concerned at that time was the reports of the debates in Parliament.
Even before the rise of the party press certain prying and curious
individuals had made a business of visiting the Strangers’ Gallery
during the sessions of the House of Commons in order to write up from
memory, or from notes taken down surreptitiously, accounts of the
speeches and discussions during an important debate. At this time all
the deliberations of Parliament were secret, and it was not until 100
years later that the right of reporters to attend the sessions of the
House of Commons and record its proceedings was officially recognized.
In the meantime reporters were compelled to resort to all sorts of
subterfuges and indirect methods in order to get information. It is upon
this information, gathered in this way, that much of our present history
of English politics is based.
One of the most distinguished of these parliamentary reporters was
Samuel Johnson. One evening in 1770, it is reported, Johnson, with a
number of other celebrities, was taking dinner in London. Conversation
turned upon parliamentary oratory. Someone spoke of a famous speech
delivered in the House of Commons by the elder Pitt in 1741. Someone
else, amid the applause of the company, quoted a passage from this
speech as an illustration of an orator who had surpassed in feeling and
beauty of language the finest efforts of the orators of antiquity. Then
Johnson, who up to that point had taken no part in the discussion, spoke
up. “I wrote that speech,” he said, “in a garret in Exeter Street.”
The guests were struck with amazement. He was asked, “How could it have
been written by you, sir?”
“Sir,” said Johnson, “I wrote it in Exeter Street. I never was in the
gallery of the House of Commons but once. Cave had interest with the
doorkeepers; he and the persons employed under him got admittance; they
brought away the subjects of discussion, the names of the speakers, the
side they took, and the order in which they rose, together with notes of
the various arguments adduced in the course of the debate. The whole was
afterward communicated to me, and I composed the speeches in the form
they now have in the “Parliamentary Debates,” for the speeches of that
period are all printed from Cave’s magazine.”[56]
Someone undertook to praise Johnson’s impartiality, saying that in his
reports he seems to have dealt out reason and eloquence with an equal
hand to both political parties. “That is not quite true,” was Johnson’s
reply. “I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that the
Whig dogs should not have the best of it.”
This speech of William Pitt, composed by Johnson in Exeter Street, has
long held a place in school books and collections of oratory. It is the
famous speech in which Pitt answered the accusation of the “atrocious
crime of being a young man.”
Perhaps Pitt thought he delivered that speech. At any rate there is no
evidence that he repudiated it. I might add that Pitt, if he was the
first, was not the last statesman who is indebted to the reporters for
his reputation as an orator.
The significant thing about this incident is that it illustrates the
manner in which, under the influence of the parliamentary reporters,
something like a constitutional change was effected in the character of
parliamentary government. As soon as the parliamentary orators
discovered that they were addressing not only their fellow-members but,
indirectly, through the medium of the press, the people of England, the
whole character of parliamentary proceedings changed. Through the
newspapers the whole country was enabled to participate in the
discussions by which issues were framed and legislation was enacted.
Meanwhile, the newspapers themselves, under the influence of the very
discussions which they themselves instigated, had become party organs.
Whereupon the party press ceased to be a mere chronicle of small gossip
and came to be what we know as a “journal of opinion.” The editor,
meanwhile, no longer a mere newsmonger and humble recorder of events,
found himself the mouthpiece of a political party, playing a rôle in
politics.
During the long struggle for freedom of thought and speech in the
seventeenth century, popular discontent had found literary expression in
the pamphlet and broadside. The most notable of these pamphleteers was
John Milton, and the most famous of these pamphlets was Milton’s
_Areopagitica: A Defence of the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_,
published in 1646; “the noblest piece of English prose” it has been
called by Henry Morley.
When the newspaper became, in the early part of the eighteenth century,
a journal of opinion, it took over the function of the political
pamphlet. The opinion that had formerly found expression in a broadside
was now expressed in the form of editorial leading articles. The
editorial writer, who had inherited the mantle of the pamphleteer, now
assumed the rôle of a tribune of the people.
It was in this rôle, as the protagonist of the popular cause, that the
newspaper captured the imagination of our intelligentsia.
When we read in the political literature of a generation ago references
to “the power of the press,” it is the editor and the editorial, rather
than the reporter and the news, of which these writers are thinking.
Even now when we speak of the liberty of the press it is the liberty to
express an opinion, rather than the liberty to investigate and publish
the facts, which is meant. The activities of the reporter, upon which
any opinion that is relevant to existing conditions is likely to be
based, are more often regarded as an infringement of our personal rights
than an exercise of our political liberties.
The liberty of the press for which Milton wrote the _Areopagitica_ was
the liberty to express an opinion. “Give me the liberty,” he said, “to
know, to alter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all
liberties.”
Carlyle was thinking of the editorial writer and not of the reporter
when he wrote: “Great is journalism! Is not every able editor a ruler of
the world, being a persuader of it?”
The United States inherited its parliamentary government, its party
system, and its newspapers from England. The rôle which the political
journals played in English politics was re-enacted in America. The
American newspapers were a power with which the British government had
to reckon in the struggle of the colonies for independence. After the
British took possession of New York City, Ambrose Serle, who had
undertaken to publish the _New York Gazette_ in the interest of the
invaders, wrote as follows to Lord Dartmouth in regard to the
patriot-party press.
Among other engines which have raised the present commotion, next to
the indecent harangues of the preachers, none has had a more extensive
or stronger influence than the newspapers of the respective colonies.
One is astonished to see with what avidity they are sought after, and
how implicitly they are believed by the great bulk of the people.[57]
It was nearly a century later, in the person of Horace Greeley, editor
of the _New York Tribune_ during the anti-slavery struggle, that the
journal of opinion reached its highest expression in America. America
has had better newspaper men than Horace Greeley, although none,
perhaps, whose opinions exercised so wide an influence. “The _New York
Tribune_,” says Charles Francis Adams, “during those years was the
greatest educational factor, economically and morally, this country has
ever known.”
IV. THE INDEPENDENT PRESS
The power of the press, as represented by the older type of newspaper,
rested in the final analysis upon the ability of its editors to create a
party and lead it. The journal of opinion is, by its very nature,
predestined to become the organ of a party, or at any rate the
mouthpiece of a school.
So long as political activities were organized on the basis of village
life, the party system worked. In the village community, where life was
and still is relatively fixed and settled, custom and tradition provided
for most of the exigencies of daily life. In such a community, where
every deviation from the ordinary routine of life was a matter of
observation and comment and all the facts were known, the political
process was, at any rate, a comparatively simple matter. Under these
circumstances the work of the newspaper, as a gatherer and interpreter
of the news, was but an extension of the function which was otherwise
performed spontaneously by the community itself through the medium of
personal contact and gossip.
But as our cities expanded and life grew more complicated, it turned out
that political parties, in order to survive, must have a permanent
organization. Eventually party morale became a greater value than the
issues for the determination of which the parties are supposed to exist.
The effect upon the party press was to reduce it to the position of a
sort of house organ of the party organization. It no longer knew from
day to day just what its opinions were. The editor was no longer a free
agent. It was of this subjugated _Tribune_ that Walt Whitman was
thinking when he coined the phrase, “the kept editor.”
When, finally, the exigencies of party politics, under conditions of
life in great cities, developed the political machine, some of the more
independent newspapers revolted. This was the origin of the independent
press. It was one of the independent papers, the _New York Times_ of
that day, that first assailed and eventually overthrew, with the aid of
a cartoonist, Thomas Nast, the Tweed Ring, the first and most outrageous
of the political machines that party politics in this country has so far
produced. Presently there was a general breaking away, particularly by
the metropolitan, as distinguished from the country, papers, from the
domination of the parties. Party loyalty ceased to be a virtue.
Meanwhile a new political power had arisen and found expression in the
press. This power was embodied, not in the editorial and the editorial
writer, however, but in the news and the reporter. In spite of the fact
that the prestige of the press, up to this time, had rested on its rôle
of champion of popular causes, the older newspapers were not read by the
masses of the people.
The ordinary man is more interested in news than he is in political
doctrines or abstract ideas. H. L. Mencken has called attention to the
fact that the average man does not understand more than two-thirds of
what “comes from the lips of the average political orator or clergyman.”
The ordinary man, as the _Saturday Evening Post_ has discovered, thinks
in concrete images, anecdotes, pictures, and parables. He finds it
difficult and tiresome to read a long article unless it is dramatized
and takes the form of what newspapers call a “story.” “News story” and
“fiction story” are two forms of modern literature that are now so like
one another that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them.
The _Saturday Evening Post_, for example, writes the news in the form of
fiction, while the daily press frequently writes fiction in the form of
news. When it is not possible to present ideas in the concrete, dramatic
form of a story, the ordinary reader likes them stated in a short
paragraph.
It is said that James E. Scripps, founder of the _Detroit News_, which
specializes in afternoon papers in secondary cities, built up his whole
string of papers upon the basis of the very simple psychological
principle that the ordinary man will read newspaper items in the inverse
ratio to their length. His method of measuring the efficiency of his
newspapers, therefore, was to count the number of items they contained.
The paper that had the largest number of items was the best paper. This
is just the reverse of Mr. Hearst’s methods; his papers have fewer items
than other papers.
The old-time journalist was inclined to have a contempt for news. News
was for him simply material upon which to base an editorial. If God let
things happen that were not in accordance with his conception of the
fitness of things, he simply suppressed them. He refused to take the
responsibility of letting his readers learn about things that he knew
ought not to have happened.
Manton Marble, who was editor of the _New York World_ before Joseph
Pulitzer took it and made it yellow, used to say there were not 18,000
people in New York City to whom a well-conducted newspaper could offer
to address itself. If the circulation of the paper went above that
figure he thought there must be something wrong with the paper. Before
Mr. Pulitzer took it over, the circulation had actually sunk to 10,000.
The old _New York World_ preserved the type of the old conservative
high-brow paper down to the eighties. By that time in the larger cities
the political independent newspapers had become the accepted type of
journal.
Long before the rise of what was later to be called the independent
press, there had appeared in New York two journals that were the
forerunners of the present-day newspapers. In 1883 Benjamin Day, with a
few associates, started a paper for “mechanics and the masses
generally.” The price of this paper was one cent, but the publishers
expected to make up by larger circulation and by advertising the loss
sustained by the lower price. At that time most of the other New York
papers were selling for six cents.
It was, however, the enterprise of James Gordon Bennett, the founder of
the _New York Herald_, who set the pace in the new form of journalism.
In fact, as Will Irwin says in the only adequate account that has ever
been written of the American newspaper, “James Gordon Bennett invented
news as we know it.” Bennett, like some others who have contributed most
to modern journalism, was a disillusioned man, and for that very reason,
perhaps, a ruthless and cynical one. “I renounce all so-called
principles,” he said in his announcement of the new enterprise. By
principles he meant, perhaps, editorial policies. His salutatory was at
the same time a valedictory. In announcing the purposes of the new
journalism he bade adieu to the aims and aspirations of the old.
Henceforth the editors were to be news gatherers and the newspaper
staked its future on its ability to gather, print, and circulate news.
What is news? There have been many answers. I think it was Charles A.
Dana who said, “News is anything that will make people talk.” This
definition suggests at any rate the aims of the new journalism. Its
purpose was to print anything that would make people talk and think, for
most people do not think until they begin to talk. Thought is after all
a sort of internal conversation.
A later version of the same definition is this: “News is anything that
makes the reader say, ‘Gee Whiz!’” This is the definition of Arthur
McEwen, one of the men who helped make the Hearst papers. It is at the
same time the definition of the latest and most successful type of
journal, the yellow press. Not all successful journals are, to be sure,
yellow. The _New York Times_, for example, is not. But the _New York
Times_ is not yet a type.
V. THE YELLOW PRESS
There seem to be, as Walter Lippmann has observed, two types of
newspaper readers. “Those who find their own lives interesting” and
“those who find their own lives dull, and wish to live a more thrilling
existence.” There are, correspondingly, two types of newspapers: papers
edited on the principle that readers are mainly interested in reading
about themselves, and papers edited upon the principle that their
readers, seeking some escape from the dull routine of their own lives,
are interested in anything which offers them what the psychoanalysts
call “a flight from reality.”
The provincial newspaper with its record of weddings, funerals, lodge
meetings, oyster suppers, and all the small patter of the small town
represents the first type. The metropolitan press, with its persistent
search in the drab episodes of city life for the romantic and the
picturesque, its dramatic accounts of vice and crime, and its unflagging
interest in the movements of personages of a more or less mythical high
society represents the latter type.
Up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, that is to say, up to
about 1880, most newspapers, even in our large cities, were conducted on
the theory that the best news a paper can print is a death notice or
marriage announcement.
Up to that time the newspapers had not yet begun to break into the
tenements, and most people who supported a newspaper lived in homes
rather than in apartments. The telephone had not yet come into popular
use; the automobile was unheard of; the city was still a mosaic of
little neighborhoods, like our foreign-language communities of the
present day, in which the city dweller still maintained something of the
provincialism of the small town.
Great changes, however, were impending. The independent press was
already driving some of the old-time newspapers to the wall. There were
more newspapers than either the public or the advertisers were willing
to support. It was at this time and under these circumstances that
newspaper men discovered that circulation could be greatly increased by
making literature out of the news. Charles A. Dana had already done this
in the _Sun_, but there still was a large section of the population for
whom the clever writing of Mr. Dana’s young men was caviar.
The yellow press grew up in an attempt to capture for the newspaper a
public whose only literature was the family story paper or the cheap
novel. The problem was to write the news in such a way that it would
appeal to the fundamental passions. The formula was: love and romance
for the women; sport and politics for the men.
The effect of the application of this formula was enormously to increase
the circulation of the newspapers, not only in the great cities, but all
over the country. These changes were brought about mainly under the
leadership of two men, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.
Pulitzer had discovered, while he was editor of the _St. Louis Post
Dispatch_, that the way to fight popular causes was not to advocate them
on the editorial page but to advertise them—write them up—in the news
columns. It was Pulitzer who invented muckraking. It was this kind of
journalism which enabled Pulitzer, within a period of six years, to
convert the old _New York World_, which was dying of inanition when he
took it, into the most talked about, if not the most widely circulated,
paper in New York City.
Meanwhile, out in San Francisco Mr. Hearst had succeeded in galvanizing
the old moribund _Examiner_ into new life, making it the most widely
read newspaper on the Pacific Coast.
It was under Mr. Hearst that the “sob sister” came into vogue. This is
her story, as Will Irwin told it in _Collier’s_, February 18, 1911:
Chamberlain (managing editor of the _Examiner_) conceived the idea
that the city hospital was badly managed. He picked a little slip of a
girl from among his cub reporters and assigned her to the
investigation. She invented her own method; she “fainted” on the
street, and was carried to the hospital for treatment. She turned out
a story “with a sob for the unfortunate in every line.” That was the
professional beginning of “Annie Laurie” or Winifred Black, and of a
departure in newspaper writing. For she came to have many imitators,
but none other could ever so well stir up the primitive emotions of
sympathy and pity; she was a “sob squad” all by herself. Indeed, in
the discovery of this sympathetic “woman writing,” Hearst broke
through the crust into the thing he was after.
With the experience that he had gained on the _Examiner_ in San
Francisco and with a large fortune that he had inherited from his
father, Hearst invaded New York in 1896. It was not until he reached New
York and started out to make the _New York Journal_ the most widely read
paper in the United States that yellow journalism reached the limit.
Pulitzer’s principal contribution to yellow journalism was muckraking,
Hearst’s was mainly “jazz.” The newspaper had been conducted up to this
time upon the theory that its business was to instruct. Hearst rejected
that conception. His appeal was frankly not to the intellect but to the
heart. The newspaper was for him first and last a form of entertainment.
It was about the time the yellow press was engaged in extending the
newspaper habit to the masses of people, including women and
immigrants—who up to this time did not read newspapers—that the
department store was beginning to attract attention.
The department store is, in a sense, a creation of the Sunday newspaper.
At any rate, without the advertising that the Sunday newspaper was able
to give it, the department store would hardly have gained the vogue it
has today. It is important in this connection that women read the Sunday
paper before they did the dailies. The women are buyers.
It was in the Sunday newspaper that the methods of yellow journalism
were first completely worked out. The men who are chiefly responsible
for them are Morrill Goddard and Arthur Brisbane. It was Goddard’s
ambition to make a paper that a man would buy even if he could not read
it. He went in for pictures, first in black and white and then in
colors. It was in the _Sunday World_ that the first seven-column cut was
printed. Then followed the comic section and all the other devices with
which we are familiar for compelling a dull-minded and reluctant public
to read.
After these methods had been worked out in the Sunday paper, they were
introduced into the daily. The final triumph of the yellow journal was
Brisbane’s “Heart-to-Heart Editorials”—a column of predigested
platitudes and moralizing, with half-page diagrams and illustrations to
re-enforce the text. Nowhere has Herbert Spencer’s maxim that the art of
writing is economy of attention been so completely realized.
Walter Lippmann, in his recent study of public opinion, calls attention
to the fact that no sociologist has ever written a book on news
gathering. It strikes him as very strange that an institution like the
press, from which we expect so much and get so little of what we expect,
should not have been the subject of a more disinterested study.
It is true that we have not studied the newspaper as the biologists have
studied, for example, the potato bug. But the same may be said of every
political institution, and the newspaper is a political institution
quite as much as Tammany Hall or the board of aldermen are political
institutions. We have grumbled about our political _institutions_,
sometimes we have sought by certain magical legislative devices to
exercise and expel the evil spirits that possessed them. On the whole we
have been inclined to regard them as sacred and to treat any fundamental
criticism of them as a sort of blasphemy. If things went wrong, it was
not the institutions, but the persons we elected to conduct them, and an
incorrigible human nature, who were at fault.
What then is the remedy for the existing condition of the newspapers?
There is no remedy. Humanly speaking, the present newspapers are about
as good as they can be. If the newspapers are to be improved, it will
come through the education of the people and the organization of
political information and intelligence. As Mr. Lippmann well says, “the
number of social phenomena which are now recorded is small, the
instruments of analysis are very crude, and the concepts often vague and
uncriticized.” We must improve our records and that is a serious task.
But first of all we must learn to look at political and social life
objectively and cease to think of it wholly in moral terms! In that case
we shall have less news, but better newspapers.
The real reason that the ordinary newspaper accounts of the incidents of
ordinary life are so sensational is because we know so little of human
life that we are not able to interpret the events of life when we read
them. It is safe to say that when anything shocks us, we do not
understand it.
ROBERT E. PARK
CHAPTER V
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
I. THE “NATURAL DEPRAVITY” OF MANKIND
In view of the fact that man is so manifestly—as Aristotle described
him—a political animal, predestined to live in association with, and
dependence upon, his fellows, it is strange and interesting to discover,
as we are compelled to do, now and again, how utterly unfitted by nature
man is for life in society.
It is true, no doubt, that man is the most gregarious of animals, but it
is nevertheless true that the thing of which he still knows the least is
the business of carrying on an associated existence. Here, as elsewhere,
it is those who have given the subject the closest study—the educator,
the criminologist, and the social worker—who are most aware of the
incalculable elements in every social situation and feel most keenly
their inability to control human behavior.
In his recent study, _The Unadjusted Girl_, Dr. W. I. Thomas, referring
to this matter, calls attention to the fact that “The whole criminal
procedure is based on punishment, and yet we do not even know that
punishment deters from crime. Or, rather, we know that it sometimes
deters, and sometimes stimulates to further crime, but we do not know
the conditions under which it acts in one way or another.”[58]
So ill-adapted is the natural, undomesticated man to the social order
into which he is born, so out of harmony are all the native impulses of
the ordinary healthy human with the demands which society imposes, that
it is hardly an exaggeration to say that if his childhood is spent
mainly in learning what he must not do, his youth will be devoted mainly
to rebellion. As to the remainder of his life—his recreations will very
likely turn out to be some sort of vacation and escape from this same
social order to which he has finally learned to accommodate, but not
wholly reconcile, himself.
So far is this description true that our ancestors, living under a
sterner discipline and in a moral order less flexible and accommodating
than our own, were so impressed with the innate cantankerousness of
ordinary mankind that they were driven to the assumption that there was
something fundamentally diabolical in human nature, a view which found
expression in the well-known doctrine of the “natural depravity of man.”
One reason why human beings, in contrast with the lower animals, seem to
be so ill-adapted to the world in which they are born is that the
environment in which human beings live is so largely made up of the
experience and memories and the acquired habits of the people who have
preceded them.
This experience and these memories—crystallized and embodied in
tradition, in custom, and in folkways—constitute the social, as
distinguished from the biological, environment; for man is not merely an
individual with certain native and inherited biological traits, but he
is at the same time a person with manners, sentiments, attitudes, and
ambitions.
It is the social environment to which the person, as distinguished from
the individual, responds; and it is these responses of the person to his
environment that eventually define his personality and give to the
individual a character which can be described in moral terms.
II. SOCIETY AND THE SOCIAL MILIEU
This social environment in which mankind has acquired nearly if not all
the traits that we regard as characteristically human is what we call
society, society in the large; what Comte called “humanity.”
When, however, we attempt to consider a little more in detail this
society which ideally includes all mankind, we discover that it is
composed of a number of smaller groups, little societies, each of which
represents some single aspect or division of this all-enveloping social
milieu in which we live and of which we are at the same time a part.
The first and most intimate portion of man’s social environment, strange
as the statement may at first seem, is his own body. After that, his
clothing, tools, and property, which are in some sense a part of his
personality, may, under certain circumstances, be regarded as a part of
his environment. They become part of his social environment as soon as
he becomes conscious of them; as soon as he becomes self-conscious.
Most of us have known, at some time in our lives, that “sickening sense
of inferiority” that comes over one when in competition with his
fellows, he realizes for the first time, perhaps, the inadequacy of his
personal resources—physical, mental, and moral—to achieve his personal
ambitions. But we who are presumably normal have very little
understanding of the struggles of the physically or mentally handicapped
to accommodate themselves to a world to which they are constitutionally
not adapted.
So important to the development of personality is this interest which,
with the advent of self-consciousness, the individual discovers in
himself, that it has been made the basis of one of the numerous schools
of psychiatry in Europe. Dr. Alfred Adler’s theory of “psychic
compensation” is based on the observation that an individual who is
conscious of his inferiority inevitably seeks to compensate himself for
this lowered self-esteem by greater concentration and effort. Eventually
he may, in this way, succeed in overcoming his constitutional handicap;
or he may find compensation for failure in one field by success in
another and different one. Adler points out that there are numerous
instances in which individuals have made striking successes in fields in
which they were least fitted, constitutionally, to succeed. The classic
illustration is that of Demosthenes, who, according to the anecdote that
has come down to us, was a stutterer, but, by putting pebbles in his
mouth and talking to the waves on the seashore, overcame his handicap
and became the greatest of Athenian orators.
When this sense of inferiority is acute because of some physical
deformity, or in consequence of any other constitutional inferiority, so
that the person is peculiarly sensitive about himself, the result is
frequently what Adler describes as “psychic overcompensation,” which
manifests itself in certain definite neurotic and socially pathological
tendencies, usually described as “egocentrism.”
In such cases, according to Adler, “the neurotic shows a series of
sharply emphasized traits of character which exceed the normal standard.
The marked sensitiveness, the irritable debility, the suggestibility,
the egotism, the penchant for the fantastic, the estrangement from
reality, but also more special traits such as tyranny, malevolence, a
self-sacrificing virtue, coquetry, anxiety, and absentmindedness are met
with in the majority of case histories.”
As soon as we become conscious of ourselves, self-control—which is not
fundamentally different from the control we exercise over external
volume—tends to become one of our most difficult and absorbing problems.
Man has many advantages over the lower animals. On the other hand, the
lower animals are not subject to what Frazer describes as “the perils of
the soul”; they do not have the problem of managing themselves. This was
evidently what Walt Whitman meant when he wrote:
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contained, ...
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
No one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning
things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years
ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.
III. THE FAMILY AS A CORPORATE PERSON
After the individual’s own person, the most intimate environment to
which the person responds is the family. The family is, or was, under
earlier and simpler conditions of life, a sort of larger corporate
person. Among the Polish peasants, for example, where the family
completely dominates the individual, “husband and wife,” we are told,
“are not individuals more or less closely connected according to their
personal sentiments, but group members, controlled by both the united
families.”[59] It is on this basis that we can understand completely the
letters written by immigrant boys to their parents asking them to send
them wives:
DEAREST PARENTS:
Please do not be angry with me for what I shall write. I write you
that it is hard to live alone, so please find some girl for me, but an
orderly [honest] one, for in America there is not even one single
orderly [Polish] girl.... [December 21, 1902.] I thank you kindly for
your letter, for it was happy. As to the girl, although I don’t know
her, my companion, who knows her, says that she is stately and pretty,
and I believe him, as well as you, my parents.... Please inform me
which one (of the sisters) is to come, the older or the younger one,
whether Aledsandra or Stanislawa.[60]
Of such a family it may almost be said that the unrebellious and
completely accommodated individuals who compose it have ceased to exist
as persons. They have no independent social status and no personal
responsibilities except as members of the family group.
The family, as it exists under modern conditions, has fallen from the
high estimation in which it was held by an earlier generation. I once
heard a distinguished psychologist say that he had been forced to the
conclusion, after much patient study, that the family was probably the
worst possible place in which to bring up a child. In general, I should
say the psychiatrists seem to have a very poor opinion of the modern
family as an environment for children. This opinion, if it is not
justified, is at least supported by studies of juvenile delinquency made
some years ago, in which it appeared that 50 per cent of the
delinquencies studied were from broken homes.
The “one-child family” is now generally recognized as one of the
characteristic social situations in which egocentric behavior is likely
to manifest itself. It is certain that parents, just because of their
solicitude for the welfare of their offspring, are not always safe
companions for them. However that may be today, it is certain that in
the past it was within the limits of the family group that most of the
traits which we may describe as human were originally developed.
Outside the circle of the family and the neighborhood, within which
intimate and the so-called “primary relations” are maintained, there is
the larger circle of influences we call the community; the local
community, and then the larger, organized community, represented by the
city and the nation. And out beyond the limits of these there are
beginning to emerge the vast and vague outlines of that larger
world-community which Graham Wallas has described under the title, _The
Great Society_.
The community, then, is the name that we give to this larger and most
inclusive social milieu, outside of ourselves, our family, and our
immediate neighborhood, in which the individual maintains not merely his
existence as an individual, but his life as a person.
The community, including the family, with its wider interests, its
larger purposes, and its more deliberate aims, surrounds us, incloses
us, and compels us to conform; not by mere pressure from without, not by
the fear of censure merely, but by the sense of our interest in, and
responsibility to, certain interests not our own.
The sources of our actions are, no doubt, in the organic impulses of the
individual man; but actual conduct is determined more or less by public
opinion, by custom, and by a code which exists outside of us in the
family, in the neighborhood, and in the community. This community,
however, with its less immediate purposes and its more deliberate aims,
is always more or less outside of, and alien to, us; much more so than
the family, for example, or any other congenial group. This is to such
an extent true that certain sociological writers have conceived society
as having an existence quite independent of the individuals who compose
it at any given time. Under these circumstances the natural condition of
the individual in society is one of conflict; conflict with other
individuals, to be sure, but particularly conflict with the conventions
and regulations of the social group of which he is a member. Personal
freedom—self-expression, as we have learned to call it in recent
years—is, therefore, if not a fruitless, still a never ending, quest.
Only gradually, as he succeeds in accommodating himself to the life of
the larger group, incorporating into the specific purposes and ambitions
of his own life the larger and calmer purposes of the society in which
he lives, does the individual man find himself quite at home in the
community of which he is a part.
If this is true of mankind as a whole, it is still more true of the
younger person. The natural impulses of the child are inevitably so far
from conforming to the social situation in which he finds himself that
his relations to the community seem to be almost completely defined in a
series of “don’ts.” Under these circumstances juvenile delinquency is,
within certain age-limits at least, not merely something to be expected;
it may almost be said to be normal.
It is in the community, rather than in the family, that our moral codes
first get explicit and formal definition and assume the external and
coercive character of municipal law.
IV. SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION
In the family and in the neighborhood such organization as exists is
based upon custom and tradition, and is fixed in what Sumner calls the
folkways and the mores. At this stage, society is a purely natural
product; a product of the spontaneous and unreflective responses of
individuals living together in intimate, personal, and face-to-face
relations. Under such circumstances conscious efforts to discipline the
individual and enforce the social code are directed merely by intuition
and common sense.
In the larger social unit, the community, where social relations are
more formal and less intimate, the situation is different. It is in the
community, rather than in the family or the neighborhood, that formal
organizations like the church, the school, and the courts come into
existence and get their separate functions defined. With the advent of
these institutions, and through their mediation, the community is able
to supplement, and to some extent supplant, the family and the
neighborhood as a means for the discipline and control of the
individual. However, neither the orphan asylum nor any other agency has
thus far succeeded in providing a wholly satisfactory substitute for the
home. The evidence of this is that they have no alumni association. They
create no memories and traditions that those who graduate from them are
disposed to cherish and keep alive.
It is in this community with its various organizations and its rational,
rather than traditional, schemes of control, and not elsewhere, that we
have delinquency. Delinquency is, in fact, in some sense the measure of
the failure of our community organizations to function.
Historically, the background of American life has been the village
community. Until a few years ago the typical American was, and perhaps
still is, an inhabitant of a middle western village; such a village,
perhaps, as Sinclair Lewis describes in _Main Street_. And still, today,
the most characteristic trait of Homo Americanus is an inveterate
individualism which may, to be sure, have been temperamental, but in
that case temperament has certainly been considerably reinforced by the
conditions of life on the frontier.
But with the growth of great cities, with the vast division of labor
which has come in with machine industry, and with movement and change
that have come about with the multiplication of the means of
transportation and communication, the old forms of social control
represented by the family, the neighborhood, and the local community
have been undermined and their influence greatly diminished.
This process by which the authority and influence of an earlier culture
and system of social control is undermined and eventually destroyed is
described by Thomas—looking at it from the side of the individual—as a
process of “individualization.” But looking at it from the point of view
of society and the community it is social disorganization.
We are living in such a period of individualization and social
disorganization. Everything is in a state of agitation—everything seems
to be undergoing a change. Society is, apparently, not much more than a
congeries and constellation of social atoms. Habits can be formed only
in a relatively stable environment, even if that stability consists
merely—as, in fact, it invariably does, since there is nothing in the
universe that is absolutely static—in a relatively constant form of
change. Any form of change that brings any measurable alteration in the
routine of social life tends to break up habits; and in breaking up the
habits upon which the existing social organization rests, destroys that
organization itself. Every new device that affects social life and the
social routine is to that extent a disorganizing influence. Every new
discovery, every new invention, every new idea, is disturbing. Even news
has become at times so dangerous that governments have felt it wise to
suppress its publication.
It is probable that the most deadly and the most demoralizing single
instrumentality of present-day civilization is the automobile. The
automobile bandit, operating in our great cities, is much more
successful and more dangerous than the romantic stage robber of fifty
years ago. The connection of the automobile with vice is notorious. “The
automobile is connected with more seductions than happen otherwise in
cities altogether.”[61]
The newspaper and the motion picture show, while not so deadly, are
almost as demoralizing. If I were to attempt to enumerate all the social
forces that have contributed to the disorganization of modern society I
should probably be compelled to make a catalogue of everything that has
introduced any new and striking change into the otherwise dull routine
of our daily life. Apparently anything that makes life interesting is
dangerous to the existing order.
The mere movement of the population from one part of the country to
another—the present migration of the Negroes northward, for example—is a
disturbing influence. Such a movement may assume, from the point of view
of the migrants themselves, the character of an emancipation, opening to
them new economic and cultural opportunities, but it is none the less
disorganizing to the communities they have left behind and to the
communities into which they are now moving. It is at the same time
demoralizing to the migrating people themselves, and particularly, I
might add, to the younger generation.
The enormous amount of delinquency, juvenile and adult, that exists
today in the Negro communities in northern cities is due in part, though
not entirely, to the fact that migrants are not able to accommodate
themselves at once to a new and relatively strange environment. The same
thing may be said of the immigrants from Europe, or of the younger
generation of women who are just now entering in such large numbers into
the newer occupations and the freer life which the great cities offer
them.
“Progress,” as I once heard William James remark, “is a terrible thing.”
It is a terrible thing in so far as it breaks up the routine upon which
an existing social order rests, and thus destroys the cultural and the
economic values, i.e., the habits of thrift, of skill, of industry, as
well as the personal hopes, ambitions, and life-programs which are the
content of that social order.
Our great cities, as those who have studied them have learned, are full
of junk, much of it human, i.e., men and women who, for some reason or
other, have fallen out of line in the march of industrial progress and
have been scrapped by the industrial organization of which they were
once a part.
A recent study by Nels Anderson of what he calls “Hobohemia,” an area in
Chicago just outside the “Loop,” that is to say, the downtown business
area, which is almost wholly inhabited by homeless men, is a study of
such a human junk heap. In fact, the slum areas that invariably grow up
just on the edge of the business areas of great cities, areas of
deteriorated houses, of poverty, vice, and crime, are areas of social
junk.
I might add, because of its immediate connection with the problems and
interests of this association, that recent studies made in Chicago of
boys’ gangs seem to show that there are no playgrounds in the city in
which a boy can find so much adventure, no place where he can find so
much that may be called “real sport,” as in these areas of general
deterioration which we call the slums.
In order to meet and deal with the problems that have been created by
the rapid changes of modern life, new organizations and agencies have
sprung into existence. The older social agencies, the church, the
school, and the courts, have not always been able to meet the problems
which new conditions of life have created. The school, the church, and
the courts have come down to us with their aims and methods defined
under the influence of an older tradition. New agencies have been
necessary to meet the new conditions. Among these new agencies are the
juvenile courts, juvenile protective associations, parent-teachers’
associations, Boy Scouts, Young Men’s Christian Associations
settlements, boys’ clubs of various sorts, and I presume, playgrounds
and playground associations. These agencies have taken over to some
extent the work which neither the home, the neighborhood, nor the other
older communal institutions were able to carry on adequately.
These new institutions, perhaps because they are not to the same extent
hampered by our earlier traditions, are frankly experimental and are
trying to work out a rational technique for dealing with social
problems, based not on sentiment and tradition, but on science.
Largely on the basis of the experiments which these new agencies are
making, a new social science is coming into existence. Under the impetus
which the social agencies have given to social investigation and social
research, sociology is ceasing to be a mere philosophy and is assuming
more and more the character of an empirical, if not an exact, science.
As to the present condition of our science and of the devices that we
have invented for controlling conduct and social life, I can only repeat
what I said at the very outset of our paper: “The thing of which we
still know least is the business of carrying on an associated
existence.”
V. THE GANG AND THE LOCAL COMMUNITY
I have sought, in what has been said, to indicate what seems to me to be
the relation of the work of the playground association and other social
agencies to the more general problem of community organization and
juvenile delinquency. But I have a feeling that this paper lacks a
moral, and I know that every paper on a social topic should have a
moral. If I were asked to state in a few words what seems to me to be
suggested by our discussion so far I should say:
1. That the problem of juvenile delinquency seems to have its sources in
conditions over which, with our present knowledge, we have very little
control; that the whole matter needs, therefore, a more searching
investigation than we have yet been able to give it.
2. That the encouraging factor in the situation is: (1) that our social
agencies are definitely experimenting with the problem; (2) that there
is growing up in the universities and elsewhere a body of knowledge
about human nature and society which will presently enable us to
interpret these experiments, redefine the problem, and eventually gain a
deeper insight into the social conditions and the social processes under
which not merely juvenile delinquency but other forms of personal and
social disorganization occur.
3. That what we already know about the intimate relations between the
individual and the community makes it clear that delinquency is not
primarily a problem of the individual, but of the group. Any effort to
re-educate and reform the delinquent individual will consist very
largely in finding for him an environment, a group in which he can live,
and live not merely in the physical or biological sense of the word, but
live in the social and in the sociological sense. That means finding a
place where he can have not only free expression of his energies and
native impulses, but a place where he can find a vocation and be free to
formulate a plan of life which will enable him to realize in some
adequate way all the fundamental wishes that, in some form or other,
every individual seeks to realize, and must realize, in order to have a
wholesome and reasonably happy existence.
4. This suggests to me that the playground should be something more than
a place for working off steam and keeping children out of mischief. It
should be a place where children form permanent associations. The play
group is certainly one of the most important factors in the defining of
the wishes and the forming of the character of the average individual.
Under conditions of urban life, where the home tends to become little
more than a sleeping-place, a dormitory, the play group is assuming an
increasing importance. Mr. Frederic M. Thrasher has recently been
studying the boys’ gangs in Chicago. He has located one thousand gangs,
and it is interesting to notice where these gangs are located. They are
for the most part in the slums. The gangs he has located and studied are
by no means all the gangs in Chicago. They are, rather, the gangs that
have attracted attention because they have been troublesome, because
they are connected directly or indirectly with juvenile delinquency and
adolescent crime.
If I ventured to state my opinion in regard to the matter, I should say
that these gangs have exercised a considerably greater influence in
forming the character of the boys who compose them than has the church,
the school, or any other communal agency outside of the families and the
homes in which the members of the gangs are reared. And it is quite
possible that the influence of these homes have not been always and
altogether wholesome.
5. Finally, playgrounds should, as far as possible, be associated with
character-forming agencies like the school, the church, and other local
institutions. For however much the older generation may have been
detached by migration and movement from their local associations, the
younger generation, who live closer to the ground than we do, are
irresistibly attached to the localities in which they live. Their
associates are the persons who live next to them. In a great city,
children are the real neighbors; their habitat is the local community;
and when they are allowed to prowl and explore they learn to know the
neighborhood as no older person who was not himself born and reared in
the neighborhood is ever likely to know it.
This is one thing that makes the gang, a little later on, when perhaps
it has become an athletic club, important politically. Our political
system is based upon the theory that the people who live in the same
locality know one another and have the same political and social
interests. The gang is not infrequently a vocational school for ward
politicians.
ROBERT E. PARK
CHAPTER VI
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION AND THE ROMANTIC TEMPER
I. THE PROBLEM STATED
Recent local studies in Chicago seem to show that the number of
competent persons in the community is frequently no real measure of the
competency—if one may use that expression in this connection—of the
community itself. A high communal intelligence quotient does not always,
it seems, insure communal efficiency.
The explanation that at once suggests itself is that competent persons
presumably are specialists deeply concerned in the little area of human
experience in which they have chosen to operate, but profoundly
indifferent to the interests of the particular geographical area in
which they may happen to reside.
It is the incompetent persons, apparently, who still maintain an
interest that could in any sense be called lively in the local
communities of our great cities. Women, particularly women without
professional training, and immigrants who are locally segregated and
immured within the invisible walls of an alien language are bound to
have some sort of interest in their neighbors. Children in great cities,
who necessarily live close to the ground, however, are the real
neighbors. Boys’ gangs are neighborhood institutions. Politicians are
professional neighbors. When the boys’ gangs are graduated, as they
frequently are, into local politics, the local political boss assumes
toward them the rôle of patron, and they assume toward him the rôle of
clients.
The competent people—that is to say, the professional people—are, on the
other hand, either physically or in imagination, abroad most of the
time. They live in the city—in their offices and in their clubs. They go
home to sleep. Most of our residential suburbs tend to assume, as far as
the professional classes are concerned, the character of dormitories. It
is seldom that anyone who is sufficiently eminent or sufficiently
competent to find a place in _Who’s Who_ has time for anything more than
a benevolent interest in his local community.
On the other hand, the competent people are keenly alive to the
interests of their professions, and if we could organize our politics,
as the Russians have sought to organize theirs, on the basis of
occupations, that is, in soviets, it might be possible to awaken in our
intelligenzia a more than dilettante and sporting interest in local
politics and the problems of the local community. But the actual
situation is different.
Our political system is founded on the presumption that the local
community is the local political unit. If the local community is
organized, knows its own local interests, and has a mind of its own,
democracy prospers. It is said that 50 per cent of the qualified voters
in this country do not exercise the franchise. So far as this is an
index of their indifference to local community interests, it is at the
same time a measure of the efficiency or inefficiency of the local
community.
The National Community Center Association represents one of many efforts
in recent years to alter the situation of which non-voting is perhaps
one evidence. Community organizations aim, for one thing, to discover,
to organize, and to make available for the local community the local
community’s resources, particularly its human resources. The extent to
which it succeeds is the measure of its efficiency. How to assess these
resources, how to use them: these are problems.
II. THE COMMUNITY DEFINED
But what is a community and what is community organization? Before
assessing the communal efficiency one should at least be able to
describe a community. The simplest possible description of a community
is this: a collection of people occupying a more or less clearly defined
area. But a community is more than that. A community is not only a
collection of people, but it is a collection of institutions. Not
people, but institutions, are final and decisive in distinguishing the
community from other social constellations.
Among the institutions of the community there will always be homes and
something more: churches, schools, playgrounds, a communal hall, a local
theater, perhaps, and, of course, business and industrial enterprises of
some sort. Communities might well be classified by the number and
variety of the institutions—cultural, political, and occupational—which
they possess. This would indicate the extent to which they were
autonomous or, conversely, the extent to which their communal functions
were mediatized, so to speak, and incorporated into the larger
community.
There is always a larger community. Every single community is always a
part of some larger and more inclusive one. There are no longer any
communities wholly detached and isolated; all are interdependent
economically and politically upon one another. The ultimate community is
the wide world.
_a_) _The ecological organization._—Within the limits of any community
the communal institutions—economic, political, and cultural—will tend to
assume a more or less clearly defined and characteristic distribution.
For example, the community will always have a center and a
circumference, defining the position of each single community to every
other. Within the area so defined the local populations and the local
institutions will tend to group themselves in some characteristic
pattern, dependent upon geography, lines of communication, and land
values. This distribution of population and institutions we may call the
ecological organization of the community.
Town-planning is an attempt to direct and control the ecological
organization. Town-planning is probably not so simple as it seems.
Cities, even those like the city of Washington, D.C., that have been
most elaborately planned, are always getting out of hand. The actual
plan of a city is never a mere artifact, it is always quite as much a
product of nature as of design. But a plan is one factor in communal
efficiency.
_b_) _The economic organization._—Within the limits of the ecological
organization, so far as a free exchange of goods and services exists,
there inevitably grows up another type of community organization based
on the division of labor. This is what we may call the occupational
organization of the community.
The occupational organization, like the ecological, is a product of
competition. Eventually every individual member of the community is
driven, as a result of competition with every other, to do the thing he
_can do_ rather than the thing he _would like to do_. Our secret
ambitions are seldom realized in our actual occupations. The struggle to
live determines finally not only where we shall live within the limits
of the community, but what we shall do.
The number and variety of professions and occupations carried on within
the limits of a community would seem to be one measure of its
competency, since in the wider division of labor and the greater
specialization—in the diversities of interests and tasks—and in the vast
unconscious co-operation of city life, the individual man has not only
the opportunity, but the necessity, to choose his vocation and develop
his individual talents.
Nevertheless, in the struggle to find his place in a changing world
there are enormous wastes. Vocational training is one attempt to meet
the situation; the proposed national organization of employment is
another. But until a more rational organization of industry has somehow
been achieved, little progress may be expected or hoped for.
_c_) _The cultural and political organization._—Competition is never
unlimited in human society. Always there is custom and law which sets
some bounds and imposes some restraints upon the wild and wilful
impulses of the individual man. The cultural and political organization
of the community rests upon the occupational organization, just as the
latter, in turn, grows up in, and rests upon, the ecological
organization.
It is this final division or segment of the communal organization with
which community-center associations are mainly concerned. Politics,
religion, and community welfare, like golf, bridge, and other forms of
recreation, are leisure-time activities, and it is the leisure time of
the community that we are seeking to organize.
Aristotle, who described man as a political animal, lived a long time
ago, and his description was more true of man then than it is today.
Aristotle lived in a world in which art, religion, and politics were the
main concerns of life, and public life was the natural vocation of every
citizen.
Under modern conditions of life, where the division of labor has gone so
far that—to cite a notorious instance—it takes 150 separate operations
to make a suit of clothes, the situation is totally different. Most of
us now, during the major portion of our waking hours, are so busy on
some minute detail of the common task that we frequently lose sight
altogether of the community in which we live.
On the other hand, our leisure is now mainly a restless search for
excitement. It is the romantic impulse, the desire to escape the dull
routine of life at home and in the local community, that drives us
abroad in search of adventure. This romantic quest, which finds its most
outrageous expression in the dance halls and jazz parlors, is
characteristic of almost every other expression of modern life.
Political revolution and social reform are themselves often merely
expressions of this same romantic impulse. Millennialism in religion,
the missionary enterprises, particularly those that are limited to
“regions beyond,” are manifestations of this same wish to escape
reality.
We are everywhere hunting the bluebird of romance, and we are hunting it
with automobiles and flying machines. The new devices of locomotion have
permitted millions of people to realize, in actual life, flights of
which they had only dreamed previously. But this physical mobility is
but the reflection of a corresponding mental instability.
This restlessness and thirst for adventure is, for the most part, barren
and illusory, because it is uncreative. We are seeking to escape from a
dull world instead of turning back upon it to transform it.
Art, religion, and politics are still the means through which we
participate in the common life, but they have ceased to be our chief
concern. As leisure-time activities they must now compete for attention
with livelier forms of recreation. It is in the improvident use of our
leisure, I suspect, that the greatest wastes in American life occur.
III. THE MEASUREMENT OF COMMUNAL EFFICIENCY
This, then, is our community. How are we to measure its efficiency?
Here, I am bound to confess, we have still much to learn.
The simplest and most elementary way of estimating the competency and
efficiency of a community, as something different from the competency
and efficiency of the individual men and women who compose it, is by a
comparative study of that community’s social statistics. Poverty,
disease, and delinquency have frequently been called social diseases.
They may be said to measure the extent to which the community has been
able to provide an environment in which the individuals which compose it
are able to live, or, to state it from the opposite point of view, they
measure the extent to which the individuals who compose the community
have been able to adapt themselves to the environment which the
community provided.
The immigrant community manifestly exists to enable the immigrant to
live. By life, however, we mean something more than mere physical
existence. Man is a creature such that when he lives at all he lives in
society, lives in his hopes, in his dreams, and in the minds of other
men. In some way or another, man is bound to realize all his fundamental
wishes, and these wishes, according to Dr. W. I. Thomas, are four:
He must have (1) security, that is, a home; some place to go out from
and return to.
He must have (2) new experience, recreation, adventure, new
sensations.
He must have (3) recognition, i.e., he must belong to some society in
which he has status, some group in which he is somebody; somewhere or
other, in short, he must be a person, rather than a mere cog in the
economic or social machine.
Finally (4) he must have affection, intimate association with someone
or something, even though it be merely a cat or a dog, for which he
feels affection and knows that affection is returned. All special
human wishes reduce finally to these four categories, and no human
creature is likely to be wholesome and happy unless, in some form or
manner, all four of these wishes are more or less adequately
realized.[62]
While I was on the Pacific Coast a few months ago, studying what we have
called “race relations,” I was impressed by the marked differences, as
between immigrant groups, with respect to their ability to accommodate
themselves to the American environment and, within the limitations
imposed upon them by our customs and our laws, to provide for all the
interests of life.
Immigrant communities are likely to include within the circle of their
interests and their organizations all the interests of life. Every
immigrant community will have a religious organization—a synagogue, a
temple, or a church—with its related, often dependent, mutual aid and
welfare organizations. It will have also its own business enterprises,
its clubs, lodges, coffee houses, restaurants and gathering places, and
a press. Every immigrant community is likely to have its press in
America even if it did not have one in the home country. The immigrant
colony is frequently nothing more than a transplanted village, for
America actually has been colonized not by races or by nationalities,
but by villages.
As to the competence of these immigrant communities to provide an
environment in which immigrants can live, Raymond Pearl’s paper, “The
Racial Origin of Almshouse Paupers in the United States,” published in
_Science_ (October 31, 1924), throws some light.
One paragraph in that paper states the situation as between the nation
and the foreign-born. It says:
While on January 1, 1923, there were in almshouses 59.8 native-born
white persons per 100,000 of the same class in the population, the
corresponding figure for the foreign-born was 173.6. This is by some
regarded as a fact of dread significance. Perhaps it is. To me it
seems possibly only an interesting expression of the difficulties
which the human organism finds in adapting itself to a new
environment.
If these figures may be regarded, as Dr. Pearl suggests that they
should, as an index of the difficulties which the human organism finds
in adapting itself to a new environment, the more detailed study of the
various racial groups exhibits some surprising results.
They show, in the first place, wide divergencies in the capacity of
different immigrant groups to adapt themselves to American life; they
show, in the second place, that the races and nationalities that have
lived here longest are the least able to meet the demands of the new
environment. Dr. Pearl states it in this way:
With a few trifling exceptions, all the countries from which the
present law _encourages_ immigration contributed to almshouse
pauperism in 1923 in _excess_ of their representation in the
population in 1920. On the other hand, again with a few trifling
exceptions, those countries from which the present immigration law was
especially framed to _discourage_ immigration appear in the lower part
of the diagram, because they contribute a _smaller_ proportion to
almshouse pauperism in 1923 than their representation in the general
population in 1920.
Two things strike me as significant in this connection: (1) It is the
recent immigrants who contribute least to the almshouse population; (2)
among these recent immigrants it is, apparently, those who for one
reason or another are least willing or able to participate in American
life who contribute the least to our almshouse population.
Why is this true? My own inference is that the decisive factors are not
biological, but sociological. The explanation of the almshouse
statistics, in other words, is less a matter of racial temperament than
of social tradition. It is the immigrants who have maintained in this
country their simple village religions and mutual aid organizations who
have been most able to withstand the shock of the new environment.
The whole subject needs to be investigated further. What would a
comparative study of different racial and language groups with reference
to disease, delinquency, and family disorganization show? What would a
comparison of the Japanese, Chinese, and Mexicans show with reference to
crime? I mention these three groups because they are living and working
side by side on the Pacific Coast.
The census of 1910 showed the Mexicans to have the highest crime rate of
any immigrant group in the United States. My conviction is that when we
obtain the facts we shall find that the Japanese have the lowest crime
rate, at least the lowest of any immigrant group on the Coast.
The explanation is that the Japanese—and the same is true of the
Chinese—have organized what we may call “control organizations” to deal
at once with disputes arising among themselves and with the larger
community outside.
The Japanese Association, like the Chinese Six Companies, is organized
to keep their nationals out of the courts. But the Japanese Association
is more than a court of arbitration and conciliation. Its function is
not merely to settle disputes, but to maintain the morale of the local
Japanese community and to promote in every practical way, mainly by
education, the efforts of the Japanese people to make their way in the
communities in which they live. With the possible exception of the Jews,
the Japanese are better informed than any other group about the
condition of their own people in America.
One thing that has sensibly raised the morale of the Japanese, as it
has, indeed of the Jews, is its struggle to maintain its racial status
in the United States. Nothing, as Sumner observed, so easily establishes
solidarity within the group as an attack from without. Nothing so
contributes to the discipline of a racial or national minority as the
opposition of the racial or national majority.
The peoples who are making, or have made in recent years, the most
progress in America today are, I suspect, the Jews, the Negroes, and the
Japanese. There is, of course, no comparison to be made between the Jew,
the Japanese, and the Negro as to their racial competence. Of all the
immigrant peoples in the United States, the Jews are the most able and
the most progressive; the Negro, on the other hand, is just emerging,
and is still a little afraid of the consequences of his newly acquired
race-consciousness.
What is alike in the case of the Jew, the Negro, and the Japanese is
that their conflict with America has been grave enough to create in each
a new sense of racial identity, and to give the sort of solidarity that
grows out of a common cause. It is the existence in a people of the
sense of a cause which finally determines their group efficiency.
In some sense these communities in which our immigrants live their
smaller lives may be regarded as models for our own. We are seeking to
do, through the medium of our local community organizations, such things
as will get attention and interest for the little world of the locality.
We are encouraging a new parochialism, seeking to initiate a movement
that will run counter to the current romanticism with its eye always on
the horizon, one which will recognize limits and work within them.
Our problem is to encourage men to seek God in their own village and to
see the social problem in their own neighborhood. These immigrant
communities deserve further study.
ROBERT E. PARK
CHAPTER VII
MAGIC, MENTALITY, AND CITY LIFE
I. MAGIC AND PRIMITIVE MENTALITY
Few words of African origin have survived and found a permanent place in
the popular speech of the English West Indies. One of these is “obeah.”
Of this word, J. Graham Cruickshank, in a little pamphlet entitled
_Black Talk_ says:
_Obeah_—which is Negro witchcraft, and whose worst aspect was the
poisonous _idea_ put into the mind of the subject—has gone under to a
great extent. Extraordinary cases of it crop up now and again in the
newspapers. It is the most difficult of all anthropological data on
which to “draw” the old Negro. Burton gives an Old Calabar proverb:
“Ubio nkpo ono onya” (They plant Obeah for him) and adds this note:
“‘Ubio’ means any medicine or charm put in the ground to cause
sickness or death. It is manifestly the origin of the West Indian
‘obeah.’ We shall be the less surprised to hear that the word has
traveled so far when told by Clarkson, in his _History of the Slave
Trade_, that when the traffic was a legitimate branch of commerce as
many slaves were annually exported from Bonny and the Old Calabar
River as from all the rest of the West African Coast.”[63]
Obeah is Negro magic. The paper which follows was suggested by
observation on Negro magic during a recent visit to the English Islands
in the Caribbean.
During the past year two very important books have been published, in
English, dealing with the subject of magic. The first is a translation
of Lévy-Bruhl’s _La Mentalité Primitive_, and the other is Lynn
Thorndyke’s _A History of Magic and Experimental Science during the
First Thirteen Centuries of the Christian Era_.
In venturing to include two volumes so different in content and point of
view in the same general category, I have justified myself by adopting
Thorndyke’s broad definition, which includes under “magic” “all occult
arts and sciences, superstition and folklore.”
Lévy-Bruhl’s book is an attempt, from a wide survey of anthropological
literature, to define a mode of thought characteristic of primitive
peoples.
Thorndyke, on the other hand, is interested mainly, as the title of his
volume indicates, in the beginnings of empirical science. The points of
view are different, but the subject matter is the same, namely, magical
beliefs and practices, particularly in so far as they reflect and embody
a specific type of thought.
Lévy-Bruhl has collected, mainly from the writings of missionaries and
travelers, an imposing number of widely scattered observations. These
have been classified and interpreted in a way that is intended to
demonstrate that the mental life and habits of thought of primitive
peoples differ fundamentally from those of civilized man.
Thorndyke, on the other hand, has described the circumstances under
which, during the first thirteen centuries of our era, the forerunners
of modern science were gradually discarding magical practices in favor
of scientific experiment.
There is, of course, no historical connection between the culture of
Europe in the thirteenth century and that of present-day savages,
although the magical beliefs and practices of both are surprisingly
similar and in many cases identical, a fact which is intelligible enough
when we reflect that magic is a very ancient, widespread,
characteristically human phenomenon, and that science is a very recent,
exceptional, and possibly fortuitous manifestation of social life.
Lévy-Bruhl described the intelligence and habits of thought
characteristic of savage peoples as a type of mentality. The civilized
man has another and a different mentality. “Mentality,” used in this
way, is an expression the precise significance of which is not at once
clear. We use the expression “psychology” in a similar but somewhat
different way when we say, for example, that the rural and urban
populations “have a different ‘psychology,’” or that such and such a one
has the “psychology” of his class—meaning that a given individual or the
group will interpret an event or respond to a situation in a
characteristic manner. But “mentality,” as ordinarily used, seems to
refer to the form, rather than to the content, of thought. We frequently
speak of the type or grade of mentality of an individual, or of a group.
We would not, however, qualify the word “psychology” in any such way. We
would not, for example, speak of the grade or degree of the bourgeoisie,
or the proletarian “psychology.” The things are incommensurable and
“psychology,” in this sense, is a character but not a quantity.
The term “mentality,” however, as Lévy-Bruhl uses it, seems to include
both meanings. On the whole, however, “primitive mentality” is used here
to indicate the form in which primitive peoples are predisposed to frame
their thoughts. The ground pattern of primitive thought is, as
Lévy-Bruhl expresses it, “pre-logical.”
As distinguished from Europeans and from some other peoples somewhat
less sophisticated than ourselves, the primitive mind “manifests,” he
says, “a decided distaste for reasoning and for what logicians call the
discursive operations of thought. This distaste for rational thought
does not arise out of any radical incapacity or any inherent defect in
their understanding,” but is simply a method—one might almost say a
tradition—prevalent among savage and simple-minded people of
interpreting as wilful acts the incidents, accidents, and unsuspected
changes of the world about them.
What is this pre-logical form of thought which characterizes the
mentality of primitive people? Lévy-Bruhl describes it as
“participation.” The primitive mind does not know things as we do, in a
detached objective way. The uncivilized man enters, so to speak, into
the world about him and interprets plants, animals, the changing
seasons, and the weather in terms of his own impulses and conscious
purposes. It is not that he is lacking in observation, but he has no
mental patterns in which to think and describe the shifts and changes of
the external world, except those offered by the mutations of his own
inner life. His blunders of interpretation are due to what has been
described as the “pathetic fallacy,” the mistake of attributing to other
persons, in this case, to physical nature and to things alive and dead,
the sentiments and the motives which they inspire in him. As his
response to anything sudden and strange is more likely to be one of fear
than of any other emotion, he interprets the strange and unfamiliar as
menacing and malicious. To the civilized observer it seems as if the
savage lived in a world peopled with devils.
One difference between the savage and the civilized man is that the
savage is mainly concerned with incidents and accidents, the historical,
rather than scientific, aspects of life. He is so actively engaged in
warding off present evil and meeting his immediate needs that he has
neither time nor inclination to observe routine. It is the discovery and
explanation of this routine that enables natural science to predict
future consequences of present action and so enable us to prepare today
for the needs of tomorrow. It is the discovery and explanation, in terms
of cause and effect, of this routine that constitutes, in the sense in
which Lévy-Bruhl uses the term, rational thought.
What the author of primitive mentality means by “participation” is
familiar enough, though the expression itself is unusual as description
of a form of thought. Human beings may be said to know one another
immediately and intuitively by “participation.” Knowledge of this kind
is dependent, however, upon the ability of human beings to enter
imaginatively into one another’s minds and to interpret overt acts in
terms of intentions and purposes. What Lévy-Bruhl’s statement amounts
to, then, is that savage people think, as poets have always done, in
terms of wills rather than forces. The universe is a society of wilful
personalities, not an irrefragable chain of cause and effect. For the
savage, there are events, but neither hypotheses nor facts, since facts,
in the strict sense of the word, are results of criticism and reflection
and presuppose an amount of detachment that primitive man does not seem
to possess. Because he thinks of his world as will rather than force,
primitive man seeks to deal with it in terms of magic rather than of
mechanism.
II. MAGIC AS A FORM OF THOUGHT
Thorndyke’s _History of Magic_ is an account of the manner and
circumstances under which, within the period it covers, not all at once,
but gradually, first in one field of knowledge and practice, and then in
another—haltingly, painfully, and step by step—the transition from magic
to science was made.
Anthropologists have not always agreed as to the precise relation
between magic and science. Is magic to be regarded as an earlier and
more primitive form of science, or is it not? It is at least true that
science, as means of control of the external world, has always found
some form of magic in existence, and has always displaced it. But magic
is probably never _merely_ a tool or a technique which men use to
control and fashion the world after their desire. It is primarily a form
of emotional expression, a gesture, or dramatic performance. It has
something, also, of the character of a prayer or solemn formulation of a
wish, but always with the hope that in some—not quite intelligible—way
the formulation of the wish will bring its own fulfilment. Magic ceases
to interest us where the relation of the means to ends assumes the
definiteness and certainty of a scientific demonstration.
Farmers in some parts of the country still pray for rain—at least they
did so up to a few years ago. They will quit doing so, however, as soon
as someone invents a sure-fire device for making it.[64]
We still believe in magic in medicine and in politics—partly, I suspect,
because in those fields science has not been able to give us the
positive knowledge it has in other regions of our experience, and partly
because in the field of medicine and of politics our solemn formulations
of our wishes so frequently bring the results desired. In many cases the
method of social reformers in dealing with social evils is not unlike
the technique of Christian Science in dealing with bodily and spiritual
ailments; it consists mainly in solemnly and ceremonially asserting that
a given evil no longer exists. Society formulates its wish, consecrates
it—through the solemn referendum of a popular election, perhaps—and
writes it on the statute books. As far as the public is concerned, the
thing is then finished. Fortunately, this form of magic often works—but
unfortunately, it does not work so often as it used to.[65]
What has been said indicates that magic may be regarded as a form of
thought characteristic of, but not confined to, primitive—or what
Professor Ellsworth Faris has called preliterate—man. It suggests, also,
that primitive thought and primitive mentality are ordinarily associated
with a definite organization of life and experience, perhaps even a
definite economic organization of society. We all are disposed to think
in magical terms in those regions of our experience that have not been
rationalized, and where our control is uncertain and incomplete. The
stock exchange and the golf course, where success is uncertain and
fortuitous, all tend to breed their own superstition.
“Magic,” as Thorndyke says, “implies a mental state, and so may be
viewed from the standpoint of the history of thought.” But magic, if it
is a form of thought, is not science; neither is it art. The arts may be
said to begin with the lower animals. But in the art with which the
beaver constructs a dam and the bird builds a nest there is neither
magic nor science.
We can best understand magic and its relation to science if we recall
that thought is itself an interrupted act, “a delayed response” to use
the language of the behaviorists. There is the impulse to act, which is
interrupted by reflection, but eventually the impulse completes itself
in action. Magic has the character of thought in so far as it is an
impulse that is interrupted and so becomes conscious. But it is not
rational thought because it does not foresee and seek to define the
relation between the end it seeks and the means necessary to achieve
that end. Between ends and means there is always a hiatus in which there
is feeling but not clear intuition of how that end is to be achieved.
All human activities tend to assume the character of magic in so far as
they become purely traditional and conventional, defined in some sacred
formula piously transmitted. It is peculiarly characteristic of modern
life, however, that all our inherited forms of behavior tend to become
rationalized. It is characteristic of modern life that nothing is
accepted merely on authority, every tradition is subject to criticism.
It is only in very recent years that we have achieved scientific
agriculture and scientific cooking. On the other hand we have already
scientific advertising and scientific “cheering.” “Yelling” at ball
games, once so spontaneous, has now become an art, if not a duty.[66]
III. MENTALITY AND CITY LIFE
The reason the modern man is a more rational animal than his more
primitive ancestor is possibly because he lives in a city, where most of
the interests and values of life have been rationalized, reduced to
measurable units, and even made objects of barter and sale. In the
city—and particularly in great cities—the external conditions of
existence are so evidently contrived to meet man’s clearly recognized
needs that the least intellectual of peoples are inevitably led to think
in deterministic and mechanistic terms.
The embodiment of rational thought is the tool, the machine, in which
all the parts are manifestly designed to achieve a perfectly
intelligible end. The primitive man lives in a vastly different world,
where all the forces about him are mysterious and uncontrollable, and
where nature seems as wild, as romantic, and as unpredictable as his own
changing moods. The primitive man has almost no machinery, and
relatively few tools.
The mentality of the modern man, on the other hand, is based upon the
machine and upon the application of science to all the interests of
life—to education, to advertising, and, presently, perhaps, to politics.
The culture of the modern man is characteristically urban, as
distinguished from the folk culture, which rests on personal relations
and direct participation in the common life of the family, the tribe,
and the village community.
In fact, if we define them strictly, as Lévy-Bruhl seems to do, we may
say that reason and reflective thinking were born in the city. They
came, if not into existence, at least into vogue, in Athens, in the time
of Socrates and the Sophists. The Sophists were, in fact, a distinctly
urban phenomenon, and we owe to Socrates—who was one of them—the first
clear recognition of conceptional, as distinguished from perceptional,
knowledge. We owe to Plato, Socrates’ disciple, the definition of the
most fundamental tool of modern scientific thought, namely, the concept,
i.e., the Platonic idea.
Magic may be regarded, therefore, as an index, in a rough way, not
merely of the mentality, but of the general cultural level of races,
peoples, and classes. It is even possible that a more thoroughgoing
analysis of the mental processes involved in magic and rational thought
will permit us to measure the mentalities of social groups with as much
precision, at least, as we now measure and grade—with the aid of the
Binet-Simon tests—the intelligence of individuals. At least we should
know in this case what we were measuring, namely, the extent and degree
to which a given group or class had acquired the ability and the habit
of thinking in rational rather than magical terms.
With a more precise conception of the nature of magic and of the
mechanisms of pre-logical thinking, we shall, no doubt, be able not
merely to compare and perhaps measure with a certain degree of accuracy
and objectivity the mentality and cultural levels of different cultural
groups, but we shall be able also to describe the process by which races
and peoples make the transition from one cultural level to another. This
transition, which Thorndyke has described in his history of magic, is
everywhere in progress. These changes in a contemporary and living
society are open and accessible to investigation, now that history has
enabled us to see them, as they can never see them later, when they have
become history.
In a recent paper in the _American Journal of Sociology_, Professor U.
G. Weatherly has called attention to the advantages of the West Indies
as a sociological laboratory.
Islands are peculiarly interesting sociologically, provided, of course,
that they are inhabited. For one thing, they are physically defined. The
island community is, for this reason, invariably isolated,
geographically and socially, and because the means of communication are
known, the extent of isolation can be reduced to relatively measurable
terms.
This isolation tends to give to each separate island community an
individuality that one rarely finds elsewhere. Because islands are
geographically limited and isolated, the influence of climate and
physiographic characteristics, as well as of economic organization, in
defining cultural traits, can be estimated and assessed with greater
accuracy than elsewhere. Until one has visited some of the Lesser
Antilles, he is not likely to understand or appreciate Frederick A.
Ober’s rather drastic summary of their history—“Discovered by the
Spaniards, appropriated by the Dutch, Danish, or English, and finally
abandoned to the semi-barbarous blacks from Africa, this has been the
usual succession in the islands.”[67]
The rather bitter note of this statement probably reflects the tone of
the white planters, whose position in the islands has gradually declined
since the emancipation of the slaves.
It directs attention, however, to what is, from the point of view of the
student of human nature and of society, the most interesting and unique
feature of the islands, namely, the racial situation. As Professor
Weatherly has said, “Perhaps nowhere else is there a better opportunity
for securing definite evidence bearing on the opposing theories of race
and contact as factors in cultural growth.” Every island, in fact, is a
separate racial melting-pot in which the mingled cultures and races of
Europe, Africa, and Asia seem to be gradually, very gradually, simmering
down to a single cultural, and eventually, also, to a single racial,
blend.
IV. OBEAH: THE MAGIC OF THE BLACK MAN
Outside the Spanish Islands, Negroes are the dominant race in the West
Indies. In regions where they have not been replaced by Hindus, as they
have been in Trinidad and Demerara, British Guiana, they constitute 90
per cent of the population. They are, in fact, the only people who
regard themselves as natives. The Asiatics and the Europeans are, for
the most part, mere sojourners.
So far as the islands now have a native culture it is the culture of the
Negro folk. It is, at the same time, the most characteristic
manifestation of the mentality of the West Indian black man, so far as
he has preserved what Lévy-Bruhl describes as the mentality of primitive
man.
What is more interesting about obeah is that while as a practice and a
belief it is universal among the uneducated classes of the black
population in the islands, it is everywhere different, and everywhere in
process of change. Practices that were originally imported from Africa
tend to assimilate and fuse with related practices and traits of the
European and Hindu cultures wherever the Africans have come into contact
with them.
This is evident, in the first place, from the fact that the obeah man is
not always a Negro; he may be, and not infrequently is, a Hindu. In the
second place, the ritual of obeah may include anything from patent
medicine to Guinea pepper. Among the instruments of obeah in the
possession of the police of Trinidad recently were a stone image,
evidently of Hindu origin, and a book of magic ritual published in
Chicago, which pretended to be, and no doubt had been, translated
originally from the writings of Albertus Magnus, the great medieval
writer on magic. A book called _Le Petit Albert_ is said to be extremely
popular among obeah men in the French Islands.
The favorite decoctions in use among witch doctors consist of bones,
ashes, “grave dirt,” human nail parings—mixed, perhaps, with asafetida
or any other substance having a pungent odor. But in addition to these,
obeah men in the West Indies use the candles, the little shrines, or
“chapels,” as they call them, and various other portions of the ritual
of the Catholic church.
In January, 1917, a woman known as Valentine Sims, a native of St.
Lucia, was convicted, in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, of obtaining money by
the assumption of supernatural powers. The testimony in the case showed
that, among other things, she attended the Roman Catholic church, and,
on pretense of receiving holy communion, took the altar bread
distributed to the worshipers during the communion, and used it in
practicing obeah.
All this suggests that obeah, as one finds it in the West Indies, is not
so much a tradition and a cultural inheritance as it is an innate
predisposition, like a sense of humor, or “the will to believe,” as
James describes it. Behind these practices, and supporting them, are all
sorts of fears and a general sense of insecurity in regard to the
physical and spiritual environment that more cultivated persons either
do not feel, or they find escape from in quite different practices.
This is clearly indicated in the letters found among the papers of obeah
adepts which have been confiscated from time to time by the police. From
these letters one gains an insight into the nature and extent of the
terrors, anxieties, and perils of the soul which trouble the dreams and
imaginations of the black man, whom we ordinarily think of as roaming,
cheerful, care-free, and unconcerned in a worried and troubled world.
The black man in the West Indies is greatly troubled about a great many
things. He has more than the usual number of obscure pains and aches,
which he worries about a great deal, and for which he, like most of us,
is in search of some sovereign remedy. He is disturbed about his
relations with his employer. Not that, like the workingman we know, he
talks or thinks about his rights and the rights of labor. He is not
class-conscious. Quite the contrary, he is constantly worried because he
is not in favor with his employer. If he is scolded or scowled at, he is
troubled. His first assumption, in such circumstances, is that some
fellow-employee in some dark way is influencing his employer against
him, and he seeks the obeah charm which will discover and circumvent his
enemy and win back his employer’s good will.
If he gets into a quarrel with the family next door, if his sweetheart
looks coldly upon him, if his wife deserts him, he inevitably assumes
that there are personal and magical influences at work, seeking to
undermine otherwise sweet and happy relations. Frequently he is right.
At any rate the obeah man exploits these suspicions, and that is the
reason strenuous efforts are being made in the British Islands to stamp
the superstition out.
Visiting the police courts in the English islands, one is profoundly
impressed by the patient efforts of most of the judges to discover and
apply the rules of law to the petty personal and neighborhood
difficulties that the natives are so fond of airing in the courts. One
gets the impression that the most difficult thing for the primitive mind
to conceive and administer for himself is justice. On the other hand,
the Negro, at least, knows and appreciates justice when he meets it.
That is probably one reason why he likes to take his troubles to court.
V. FASHIONS IN OBEAH
One gets the impression that there are fashions in obeah. Dominica, for
example, is noted for its use of love-philters; in Montserrat, obeah is
mainly a protection against evil spirits and a means of communication
with the dead; in Antigua, obeah is most generally a form of medicine.
Amulets, “guards,” as they are popularly called, intended to ward off
evil spirits or protect one against the ill-will of an evil-minded
neighbor are also popular. Nevis has a reputation for “black magic.”
The older generation of obeah men were supposed to have a knowledge of
vegetable poisons the effects of which cannot be detected on postmortem.
In Nevis the older tradition has apparently lingered longer than
elsewhere. At any rate, magical practices seem to have assumed a more
malignant form in Nevis than in some of the other islands.
In 1916 an old woman, Rose Eudelle, deaf and bedridden, was convicted of
practicing obeah. She seems to have been one of the few witch doctors
who believed sincerely in the efficacy of their own practices. She had a
great reputation, and boasted that she had killed one man and sent
another to the asylum. Curiously enough, she practiced obeah mainly
through correspondence, and when she was finally arrested, some fifty
letters from clients in various islands, one of them in New York City,
were discovered. There was great excitement in Nevis when she was
arrested. As she had solemnly threatened the colored police sergeant who
arrested her, the whole black population was confidently expecting that
some dramatic misfortune would overtake him. Here there seemed to be
something more nearly approaching primitive and African magic than in
any of the other thirty-eight cases of which I obtained some sort of
record.
Not only is the fashion in obeah different in the different islands, but
interest in magic, which is said to be declining everywhere, is less
modified in some islands than in others. In Barbados, though the
practices still persist, prosecutions for obeah have almost entirely
ceased. In the police station at Castries, St. Lucia, on the other hand,
there are still preserved the heart and hand of a Negro boy who was
killed some years ago to furnish an obeah man with the instruments of
magic to enable him to open the vaults of the local bank and rob it of
the treasure which was supposed to be amassed there.
The fact is, then, that the mentality of the black population of the
West Indies, as that of Africa, is changing under the influence of
contact with the white man’s culture, and particularly under the
influence of the very energetic prosecutions which not only have made
the profession less profitable, but by undermining faith in his
supernatural powers, have robbed the obeah man of the terror which he at
one time inspired.
Aside from the superficial changes in the original superstition and the
gradual decline of interest and belief in magic, it seems as if certain
more fundamental changes, reflected in these practices, were taking
place. First, the obeah man tends to become, on the one hand, a sort of
unlicensed physician, as in the case of Percival Duval, an obeah man who
maintained regular office hours, wrote prescriptions, and prescribed
medicines. Actually, Duval seems to have used a little less medicine and
a little more hocus pocus than the average medical practitioner in our
own country did a few years ago. But he was convicted, and upon appeal
to the higher court his conviction was confirmed. Another obeah man in
St. John’s, Antigua, was found to be dealing, along with the other
instruments of obeah, very largely in patent medicines and homely
household remedies. Among the instruments of obeah taken from his office
when it was raided were the following: (1) Exhibit labeled “ground bones
and ashes.” The sample consisted of a mixture of a calcium compound and
probably lime, wood-ashes, and incense. The incense content was 26.3 per
cent. (2) Exhibit labeled “ground glass and smith coal.” This sample
consisted of a coarse commercial oxygen mixture. (3) Yellow powder. This
consisted of a cheap, scented starch powder. (4) Supposed dog’s tongue.
This consisted entirely of vegetable matter composed principally of
starch cells. (5) Exhibit labeled “ashes and incense.” The sample
consisted of incense, wood-ashes, and charcoal, earth, and small
pebbles, with a small proportion of oxygen mixture. It contained 17.3
per cent of incense in lump and powdered form. (6) Exhibit “vial with
yellow liquid.” The sample consisted of ordinary commercial oil of
anise. (7) Vial with brownish liquid. The sample consisted of a solution
of iodine in potassium iodine of approximately 15 per cent strength.
The fact is, the obeah man in the West Indies is in a way to become a
quack doctor. This represents one direction in which change is taking
place.
On the other hand, there is a disposition of the obeah man to become a
sort of confessor and privy counselor in all the intimate and personal
affairs of the common people. The black people—and not only black, but
occasionally Portuguese, who are the traders in the smaller islands—go
to him with affairs of business and of the heart. They write him long
personal letters, and he sends them a magical prayer or incantation to
cure them of bodily ailments, to protect them from dangers of travel,
and to insure general good fortune. In an affair of the heart, the witch
doctor frequently prescribed a magic powder, sweetly scented, to
accompany and lend a delicate and stimulating fragrance to a love
letter. In principle, this aspect of the obeah man’s practice is like
Mr. Coué’s—“Every day, in every way, I am better and better”—only that
the uses of obeah are more specific. In any case, there is here a very
evident tendency of the practice to assume a form in which the ritual of
obeah is merely a device, like the prayers of primitive folk, for
magically re-enforcing the expression of a wish. So closely are the
magical practices of the obeah man connected—in the mind of the ordinary
black man—with religion that in one case, at any rate, he pretended to
cure a boy of insanity by making believe that he was operating as the
agent or proxy of the priest.
This, then, represents a second tendency to change in the practices of
magic by the black man. If obeah in some instances seems to be taking
the form of popular medicine, in others it tends to assume the form of a
pagan religious ceremony, adapting itself to the forms and the ritual of
the local church.
VI. THE PROBLEM STATED
In a recent volume, _Studies in Human Nature_, Mr. J. B. Baillie has
suggested that the disposition and the ability to think abstractly,
disinterestedly, and scientifically is not only a relatively recent
acquisition of the human race, but at the same time is a local
phenomenon.
This geographical limitation of science is indeed a remarkable fact,
the importance of which our familiarity with the scientific mood and
our insularity of mind constantly tend to obscure.... We should not
forget that millions of human beings have no interest in the
scientific mood at all, and seem by constitution to have no capacity
for it.... Some individuals among these nonscientific peoples may, and
do, assimilate the science of the West. But experience seems to show
that such acquisition is at best a mere accomplishment, and leaves the
racial structure and composition of their minds unaffected.... The
nonscientific peoples take up science as they put on Western clothes.
One may change one’s clothes, but there is no changing the skin. The
fact is that the scientific mood arises from a peculiar attitude of
the mind to the world found amongst certain peoples of the globe; and
without this attitude science will always appear a curiosity or an
irrelevance.[68]
The author assumes that the disposition to think rationally and to
cultivate abstract and scientific thought is a racial attribute. Perhaps
a more accurate statement of the matter would take account of the fact
that even within the comparatively limited area where science is in
vogue, there are large numbers of people who still—even while using the
language of science—think in the more elementary forms of folk-thought.
This seems to be true wherever large masses of the population are still
illiterate, or where, for any reason, even when able to read, they
habitually think in terms of the spoken language, rather than in the
language of the printed page. Literacy itself is very largely a product
of modern city life. Books and reading which used to be, and to a
certain extent are yet, a luxury in the country, become a necessity in
the city.
The Negroes migrating in such large numbers from the West Indies to the
United States are bringing with them habits of thought which have
largely disappeared among the Negro population native to this country.
The obeah men of the West Indies have many clients in the United States,
and a recent issue of the _New York Age_ announced that the Negro
quarter around 135th Street, New York, was overrun with fortune tellers
and witch doctors, many or most of them from the West Indies.
Within a few years, however, most of these superstitions will have
disappeared, or at any rate will have assumed those more conventional
forms with which we are familiar and have learned to tolerate. This is
certainly true of the city population.
Great changes are taking place, with the introduction of modern methods
of education, in our own insular possessions. Mr. Axel Holst, of the
National Bank of the Danish West Indies, who has been a close and
assiduous student of Negro folklore in the Virgin Islands, says that the
effect of the American system of education will within a few years
totally change the mental habits of the natives of St. Thomas. Since the
younger generation have begun to read books, they are not so interested
as they were in the Nansi stories, which correspond to the Bre’r Rabbit
stories of the States. Since the introduction of American rule,
newspapers have come into vogue, and the young men have taken to
political discussion.
The changes in the “mentality” of the Negro population are, Mr. Holst
says, going on visibly, and at a surprising rate. These changes, if they
are actually taking place, should be made the subject of further
investigation. Such study should enable us to determine, among other
things, more precisely than we have been able to determine hitherto, the
rôle which cultural contacts, social heritages, and racial temperament
play in the whole cultural process.
It is evident that we are not to assume, as otherwise we might, that
there is no area of the experience in which primitive or preliterate
people think realistically and rationally. On the other hand, in
contrasting primitive mentality with that of civilized man, we need not
assume—except for the sake of the contrast—that the thinking of
civilized man is always and everywhere either rational or scientific. As
a matter of fact, there are still wide areas of our experience that have
not as yet been fully rationalized, notably the fields of medicine and
religion. In medicine, at least—if we are to believe a recent medical
critic of what, in imitation of Lévy-Bruhl, we might call “medical
mentality”—the majority of practitioners still think of diseases as
morbid entities instead of convenient labels for groups of symptoms.
The following paragraph from a recent writer states the matter from the
point of view of a critic of “medical mentality.”
It is not to be thought that any educated medical man indeed believes
“a disease” to be a material thing, although the phraseology in
current use lends colour to such supposition. Nevertheless, in
hospital jargon, “diseases” are “morbid entities,” and medical
students fondly believe that these “entities” somehow exist in _rebus
Naturae_ and were discovered by their teachers, much as was America by
Columbus.... In fact, for these gentlemen “diseases” are Platonic
realities; universals _ante rem_. This unavowed belief, which might be
condoned were it frankly admitted, is an inheritance from Galen, and
carries with it the corollary that our notions concerning this, that,
or the other “diseases” are either absolutely right or absolutely
wrong, and are not merely matters of mental convenience.
But if the practitioners think of diseases in pre-logical terms what can
we expect of the layman, whose medical education has been largely
confined to the reading of patent medical advertisements? What has been
said suggests a problem which may be perhaps stated in this way: How far
is the existence of magic and magical mode of thought a measure of the
mentality of a racial or cultural group in which it is found to persist?
How far is what Ballie calls “the scientific mood” an effect of the
urban environment?
ROBERT E. PARK
CHAPTER VIII
CAN NEIGHBORHOOD WORK HAVE A SCIENTIFIC BASIS?
Neighborhood work at present and as now practiced cannot, for two
reasons, be said to be based upon science. First, the social
sciences—and I refer to sociology in particular—have at present little
to offer as a scientific basis for social work; secondly, what knowledge
the social sciences have accumulated has been used little, or not at
all, by neighborhood workers.
_The trend of neighborhood work to a scientific basis._—But if
neighborhood work has not had a scientific basis, it has had, from its
inception, as one of its conscious or unconscious motives, the search
after knowledge as the basis of human relations. Settlement work,
especially, represents not only the most devoted and the most
idealistic, but also the most intelligent, phase of social work of the
past generation. The settlement in its origin was an extension of the
university. It carried over into a new environment the love of truth
and, it may be added, the spirit of science. The residents of the
settlement were brought at once into touch with social reality; that is,
with the concrete facts of human life.
This early venture into intimate contact with social reality may
accordingly be called the first stage in the trend of neighborhood work
toward a scientific basis. But settlement workers soon found that
sympathetic understanding and intimate contacts failed to solve many of
the actual problems of neighborhood work. The recalcitrancy of the boys’
gang, the opposition and manipulations of the ward boss, the competition
of commercialized recreation, the unsolvable cultural conflict between
immigrant parents and Americanized children are only a few of the many
perplexing conditions of neighborhood life in immigrant areas which
resisted the spirit of good will of settlement workers. They therefore
began to study their communities in the attempt to state the factors at
work by an analysis of the elements in the situation. _Hull House Maps
and Papers_, _The City Wilderness_, and _Americans in Process_ are
illustrations of the careful study and keen observation of these very
early efforts to determine and to take account of the many and different
conditions affecting neighborhood work. This interest in the discovery
of factors in the social situation may therefore be called the second
stage in the trend of neighborhood work toward a scientific basis.
Science, however, is concerned not with factors, but with forces. The
distinction is not always clearly drawn between a factor and a force.
“Factors are the elements that co-operate to make a given situation.
Forces are type-factors operative in typical situations.”[69] A factor
is thought of as a concrete cause for an individual event; a force is
conceived to be an abstract cause for events in general so far as they
are similar. A particular gang of boys, the Torpedo gang, of which Tony
is the leader—and which is made up of eight street Arabs—is a factor in
the situation which a certain settlement in an Italian colony in Chicago
faces. But as soon as the attention shifts from this one gang and this
particular settlement to settlements in general and to gangs in general
the transition is made from a factor to a force. A gang is a factor to a
given settlement; the gang is a force from the standpoint of all
settlements.
_The study of social forces in the community._—If neighborhood work can
have a scientific basis, it is because there are social forces in
community life—forces like geographical conditions, human wishes,
community consciousness—that can be studied, described, analyzed, and
ultimately measured. In a series of research projects now in progress in
the Department of Sociology in the University of Chicago, studies are
being made of the social forces of community life. While the city of
Chicago is used as the laboratory for this investigation, it is assumed
that the processes of urban life in one community are in certain ways
typical of city life throughout the United States.
The term “community” is widely used by sociologists, neighborhood
workers, and others, but often with widely divergent meanings. In
research in any field it is necessary to define our concepts and to make
relevant distinctions. In the literature of the subject there is a
growing disposition to emphasize as one of the fundamental aspects of
the community its geographical setting. Whatever else the community may
be, it signifies individuals, families, groups, or institutions located
upon an area and some or all of the relationships which grow out of this
common location. “‘Community’ is the term which is applied to societies
and social groups where they are considered from the point of view of
the geographical distribution of the individuals and institutions of
which they are composed.”[70]
Upon reflection it is evident that markedly different social
relationships may have their roots in the conditions of a common
territorial location. Indeed, it is just these outstanding differences
in communal activities, viewed in relation to their geographic
background, which have caused much of the confusion in the use of the
term “community.” For community life, as conditioned by the distribution
of individuals and institutions over an area, has at least three quite
different aspects.
First of all, there is the community viewed almost exclusively in terms
of location and movement. How far has the area itself, by its very
topography and by all its other external and physical characteristics,
as railroads, parks, types of housing, conditioned community formation
and exerted a determining influence upon the distribution of its
inhabitants and upon their movements and life? To what extent has it had
a selective effect in sifting and sorting families over the area by
occupation, nationality, and economic or social class? To what extent is
the work of neighborhood or community institutions promoted or impeded
by favorable or unfavorable location? How far do geographical distances
within or without the community symbolize social distances? This
apparently “natural” organization of the human community, so similar in
the formation of plant and animal communities, may be called the
“ecological community.”
No comprehensive study of the human community from this standpoint has
yet been made. A prospectus for such a study is outlined in an earlier
chapter by Professor R. D. McKenzie, in this volume, under the title,
“The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Community.”[71] Yet
there are several systematic treatises and a rapidly growing literature
of scientific research in the two analogous fields of plant ecology and
animal ecology. The processes of competition, invasion, succession, and
segregation described in elaborate detail for plant and animal
communities seem to be strikingly similar to the operation of these same
processes in the human community. The assertion might even be defended
that the student of community life or the community organization worker
might secure at present a more adequate understanding of the basic
factors in the natural organization of the community from Warming’s
_Oecology of Plants_ or from Adams’s _Guide to the Study of Animal
Ecology_ than from any other source.
In the second place, the community may be conceived in terms of the
effects of communal life in a given area upon the formation or the
maintenance of a local culture. Local culture includes those sentiments,
forms of conduct, attachments, and ceremonies which are characteristic
of a locality, which have either originated in the area or have become
identified with it. This aspect of local life may be called “the
cultural community.” This relationship of cultural patterns to
territorial areas has not yet been adequately studied unless in the
phenomena of language. What, for example, are studies in dialect but one
illustration of how local areas with their entailed isolation
differentially affect customs of speech? Concrete materials for a wider
study of culture in relation to location are increasing, notably upon
preliterate peoples and upon retarded groups geographically isolated, as
the southern mountaineers or the remote inhabitants of Pitcairn Island.
The immigrant colony in an American city possesses a culture
unmistakably not indigenous but transplanted from the Old World. The
telling fact, however, is not that the immigrant colony maintains its
old-world cultural organization, but that in its new environment it
mediates a cultural adjustment to its new situation. How basically
culture is dependent upon place is suggested by the following
expressions, “New England conscience,” “southern hospitality,” “Scottish
thrift,” “Kansas is not a geographical location so much as a state of
mind.” Neighborhood institutions like the church, the school, and the
settlement are essentially cultural institutions, and recognition of
this fact has far-reaching implications for the policies and programs of
these local centers.
There remains a third standpoint from which the relation of a local area
to group life may be stated. In what ways and to what extent does the
fact of common residence in a locality compel or invite its inhabitants
to act together? Is there, or may there be developed upon a geographical
basis, a community consciousness? Does contiguity by residence insure or
predispose to co-operation in at least those conditions of life inherent
in geographic location, as transportation, water supply, playgrounds,
etc.? Finally, what degree of social and political action can be secured
on the basis of local areas? This is the community of the community
organization worker and of the politician, and may be described as “the
political community.” It is upon this concept of the community as a
local area that American political organization has been founded.
These three definitions of the community are not perhaps altogether
mutually exclusive. They do, however, represent three distinctly
different aspects of community life that will have to be recognized in
any basic study of the community and of community organization. A given
local area, like Hyde Park in Chicago, may at the same time constitute
an ecological, cultural, and political community, while another area
like the lower North Side in the same city, which forms a distinct
ecological unit, falls apart into several cultural communities and
cannot, at any rate from the standpoint of a common and effective public
opinion, be said to constitute a going political community. The Black
Belt in Chicago comprises one cultural community but overflows several
ecological areas and has no means of common political action except
through ward lines arbitrarily drawn.
It follows that the boundaries of local areas determined ecologically,
culturally, and politically seldom, if ever, exactly coincide. In fact,
for American cities it is generally true that political boundaries are
drawn most arbitrarily, without regard either to ecological or cultural
lines, as is notoriously the case in the familiar instance of the
gerrymander. Therefore it is fair to raise the question: How far are the
deficiencies in political action through our governmental bodies and
welfare action through our social agencies the result of the failure to
base administrative districts upon ecological or cultural
communities?[72]
This analysis of the community into its threefold aspects suggests that
the study of social forces in a local area should assume that the
neighborhood or the community is the resultant of three main types of
determining influences: first, ecological forces; second, cultural
forces; and third, political forces.
_Ecological forces._—The ecological forces are those which have to do
with the process of competition and the consequent distribution and
segregation by residence and occupation. Through competition and the
factors which affect it, as trade centers, etc., every neighborhood in
the city becomes a component and integral part of the larger community,
with a destiny bound up by its relation to it. In the study of the
growth of the city it is found that the life of any neighborhood is
determined, in the long run, not altogether by the forces within itself,
but even more by the total course of city life. To think of the
neighborhood or the community in isolation from the city is to disregard
the biggest fact about the neighborhood.
Studies of urban growth reveal that the city grows outward from its
central business district (1) in a series of expanding zones.[73] There
is a “zone of transition” (2) encircling the downtown area. This is the
area of deterioration, the so-called “slum”, created in large part by
the invasion of business and light manufacture. A third area (3) is
inhabited by workers in industry who have escaped from the area of
deterioration (2) and who desire to live within easy access of their
work. Beyond this zone is the “residential area” (4) of high-class
apartment buildings or of exclusive “restricted” districts of single
family dwellings. Still farther, out beyond the city limits, is the
“commuters’ zone” (5) of suburban areas or satellite cities within a
sixty-minute ride of the central business district.
Within these zones of urban growth are to be found local districts or
communities, and these in turn subdivide into smaller areas called
neighborhoods. In the long run, geographical factors and the process of
competition fix the boundaries and the centers of these areas. It is
important that neighborhood work be in accordance with, rather than in
opposition to, these silent but continuous influences. A map of local
communities was prepared to show the way in which rivers, railroads,
large industrial establishments, parks, and boulevards divide the city
into its constituent local communities—residential and industrial.
The centers of local communities are to be found at the point of highest
land value in the intersection of two business streets. These local
community centers are also characterized by the concentration of retail
business, of banks, of restaurants, and of the large and magnificent
palaces of amusement, like motion picture houses and public dance halls.
If high land values indicate the center of the community, the lowest
land values generally define its periphera.
[Illustration:
CHART I
SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF THE DIVISION OF A COMMUNITY INTO
NEIGHBORHOODS BY THE INTERSECTION OF TWO BUSINESS STREETS.
]
But if the intersection of two business streets determines the trade
center, these same streets divide it into neighborhoods. In Chart I on
this page is offered a schematic representation of a Chicago local
community, Woodlawn, with its economic center at the intersection of the
two main business streets of Sixty-Third Street and Cottage Grove
Avenue. At this intersection land values are five thousand dollars a
front foot. Woodlawn falls into four neighborhoods, A, B, C, and D,
divided from each other by these same intersecting business streets. It
is interesting that each of these neighborhoods has its own public
school. Even more significant is the fact that an attempt to unite two
struggling churches of the same denomination in two of these
neighborhoods into one strong church failed because neither would
surrender its location.
It seems almost axiomatic to state that community and neighborhood work
must take into account the operation of these silent but continuous
ecological forces and work with them rather than against them. Yet how
often are social centers located on the edge, rather than at the center,
of a neighborhood. In the location of a neighborhood center the
consequences which flow from the play of ecological forces must be
heeded, because they condition the development of its work and the
radius of its influence.
_Cultural forces._—Ecological or economic forces are naturally basic to
the play of cultural forces. Culture, as the social heritage of the
group, implies both a locality to which it is indigenous and a constant,
rather than a changing, social situation. Chicago, like other large
cities, has its cultural communities, each of which has, if not a local
area, at least a local center. Hobohemia, Bohemia, Philistia, the
Ghetto, and the Gold Coast are cultural communities.
Movement in the person, as from one social location to another, or any
sudden change as caused by an invention, carries with it the possibility
or the probability of cultural decadence. The cultural controls over
conduct disintegrate; impulses and wishes take random and wild
expression. The result is immorality and delinquency; in short, personal
and social disorganization. An illustration of cultural decadence as a
result of movement is the excessively high rate of juvenile delinquency
among the children of immigrant parents. To what extent have
neighborhood workers gauged the effect of the daily newspaper, the
motion picture, the automobile, and the radio, in releasing the child,
the youth, and the adult from the confines of the neighborhood and of
bringing them into contact with the city-wide, nation-wide, and
world-wide life of our time?
These changes taking place in community life may be observed in a
dramatic form in commercialized recreation. The day of the neighborhood
public dance hall and the neighborhood motion picture show has passed,
or at least is passing. Young people are deserting the neighborhood
recreation centers and are thronging to centers outside the local
community, to the high-class, magnificent dance gardens and palaces, and
to the so-called “wonder” theaters of the “bright light” areas.
A realignment of the leisure-time movements of urban young people is
taking place, which every agency engaged in neighborhood work must take
into account. Is the neighborhood as a factor in the lives of youth soon
to become a situation of the past? Can settlements and social centers
expect to hold back the tide of the forces of city life?
A map of the residences of dance hall patrons which shows both the
disappearance of the small public dance hall from the neighborhood and
the concentration of large dance halls in “bright light” areas is all
the more significant because it portrays the phenomenon of promiscuity.
By promiscuity is meant primary and intimate behavior upon the basis of
secondary contacts. In the village type of neighborhood, where everyone
knows everyone else, the social relationships of the young people were
safeguarded by the primary controls of group opinion. But in the public
dance hall, where young people are drawn from all parts of the city,
this old primary control breaks down. Is not this the basic reason why
social workers find the dance hall so recurring a factor in personal
disorganization and delinquency? As yet, however, we have no
satisfactory study of the dance hall as a social world of youth. Two new
social types—the “sheik” and the “flapper”—have been created by the
dance hall and the motion picture, but they are regarded as subjects for
jest rather than for serious study.
[Illustration:
FORM 1.—The Neighborhood Triangle.
]
A study by Miss Evelyn Buchan of girl delinquency shows the effect of
the increasing mobility and promiscuity of city life upon the behavior
of youth, and suggests an interesting method of study. To bring into
clearer relief the rôle of mobility and promiscuity as factors in
behavior, a device called “the delinquency triangle” was employed. The
three points of the triangle were located by spotting the home of the
girl, the home of her male companion, and the place of delinquency.
Three typical forms of the triangle soon appeared.
Form 1 represents the traditional form of sex delinquency, where all
three points of the triangle are within the community. This may be
called the “neighborhood triangle.” In this case the intimacy of the boy
and girl might be little more than the continuance in this country of
old-world folkways, but without the protection for the girl in
subsequent marriage which the European peasant mores afford.
[Illustration:
FORM 2.—The Mobility Triangle.
]
Form 2, which is “the mobility triangle,” stands for delinquency of the
type related to increased freedom of movement, where two points of the
triangle or its base, formed by the homes of the girl and the boy, lie
within the same community, but where its apex, or the place of
delinquency, is situated outside. In this case the bright-light area
becomes a place of freedom from the narrower, distant controls of the
home and the neighborhood.
[Illustration:
FORM 3.—The Promiscuity Triangle.
]
In form 3, delinquency is of the type of promiscuity, because here all
the points of the triangle lie in different communities. The intimacy
developing from the casual acquaintance of the metal worker from the
steel mills with the girl from the West Side whom he “picked up” at an
amusement park may be so transient that neither knows the family name or
the address of the other.
The total effect of forces of city life, like mobility and promiscuity,
upon the neighborhood and upon our traditional culture seems to be
subversive and disorganizing. Particularly is this true of deteriorating
areas, where neighborhood work originated, and where it is still, in any
completely developed state, for the most part confined. A series of maps
has been prepared which shows graphically what, of course, is known to
social students—that the zone of deterioration and the areas of the
greatest mobility in the city have the greatest concentration of
poverty, vice, crime, juvenile delinquency, divorce, desertion,
abandoned infants, murder, and suicide.
_Political forces._—The political forces have to do with the more formal
control of public opinion and law. Neighborhood work is concerned with
political forces whenever social action is desired. Our whole scheme of
social work may be regarded, from this standpoint at least, as social
politics. But has the social worker, who is the social politician, the
same intimate knowledge of his neighborhood that the professional
politician possesses? A minimum of information which he needs is a card
catalogue of, plus some direct contact with, all the local dynamic
personalities, including gang leaders, pool hall proprietors, leaders of
all the neighborhood organizations, and of all professional persons,
like representatives of social agencies, physicians, lawyers, clergymen,
at work in his locality. More than that, he needs to know the basic
interests, the driving wishes, and the vital problems of the men and
women, the youth and the children, living in the community.
The knowledge of these forces in neighborhood life will suggest feasible
projects and programs. Too often, however, attempts at social control
rise from ignorant good will rather than from the facts of the
situation. This is particularly true of the many futile efforts to
impose neighborly relationships upon areas which are no longer
neighborhoods.
What, then, is our answer to the question, Can neighborhood work have a
scientific basis? It can have a scientific foundation if it will base
its activities upon a study of social forces. But the social forces of
city life seem, from our studies, to be destroying the city
neighborhood. Is the neighborhood center to engage in a losing fight
against the underlying tendencies of modern urban society? This question
should be squarely faced: Is neighborhood work prepared to base its
justification for existence upon facts rather than upon sentiment?
There are those who are convinced that the function of the neighborhood
center is passing with the decay of the neighborhood in the city. For
myself, I am not so certain. Surely the work of the neighborhood center
must now be conceived and planned in terms of its relationship to the
entire life of the city. The work of neighborhood centers, like that of
all other social agencies, must increasingly be placed upon the basis of
the scientific study of the social forces with which they have to deal.
Especially are studies desired of the actual effect and rôle of intimate
contacts in personal development and social control.
A feasible way for neighborhood centers to place their work upon a
scientific basis would be to stress the impulse to research that has
always been associated with the settlement movement. Thirty years ago
Mr. Robert A. Woods read a paper on “University Settlements as
Laboratories in Social Science.” The argument for research in its
relations to neighborhood work is contained in that article. He
conceived the advantage of research both to social science and to the
settlement. The growing fluidity and complexity of urban life has but
increased the force of his argument.
Neighborhood work, by the logic of the situation, if it is to evolve a
successful technique, will be compelled more and more to depend upon
research into the social forces of modern life.
ERNEST W. BURGESS
CHAPTER IX
THE MIND OF THE HOBO: REFLECTIONS UPON THE RELATION BETWEEN MENTALITY
AND LOCOMOTION
In the evolutionary hierarchy, as Herbert Spencer has sketched it for
us, the animal series occupied a higher position than that of the
plants. But in spite of all the progress represented in the long march
from the amoeba to man, it is still true that the human creature is a
good deal of a vegetable. This is evident in the invincible attachment
of mankind to localities and places; in man’s, and particularly woman’s,
inveterate and irrational ambition to have a home—some cave or hut or
tenement—in which to live and vegetate; some secure hole or corner from
which to come forth in the morning and return to at night.
As long as man is thus attached to the earth and to places on the earth,
as long as nostalgia and plain homesickness hold him and draw him
inevitably back to the haunts and places he knows best, he will never
fully realize that other characteristic ambition of mankind, namely, to
move freely and untrammeled over the surface of mundane things, and to
live, like pure spirit, in his mind and in his imagination alone.
I mention these things merely to emphasize a single point, namely, mind
is an incident of locomotion. The first and most convincing indication
of mind is not motion merely, but, as I have said, locomotion. The
plants don’t locomote, don’t move through space; they respond more or
less to stimulation, even though they have no nerves, but they do not
move through space, certainly not of their own motion. And when they do
move, they have no goal, no destination, and that is because they have
no imagination.
Now it is characteristic of animals that they can and do change their
spots. The ability to do this implies that they are able not merely to
wag a tail or move a limb, but that they are able to co-ordinate and
mobilize the whole organism in the execution of a single act. Mind, as
we ordinarily understand it, is an organ of control. It does not so much
initiate new movements as co-ordinate impulses, and so mobilize the
organism for action; for mind, in its substantive aspect, is just our
disposition to act; our instincts and attitudes, in other words.
Mental activity begins on the periphery, with stimuli which are
antecedent to, but ultimately discharged in, actions. But mind in the
transitive, verbal aspect is a process by which, as we say, we “make up
our minds” or change them; that is to say, it is a process by which we
define the direction in which we are going to move, and locate in
imagination the goal that we intend to seek.
Plants carry on, apparently, all the processes of metabolism which are
characteristic of animals—these are, in fact, what we mean by the
vegetative processes—but they do not go anywhere. If the plants have
minds, as some people assume they do, they must be of that brooding,
vegetative sort characteristic of those mystics who, quite forgetful of
the active world, are absorbed in the contemplation of their own inner
processes. But the characteristic of the animal, and of the higher types
of animal—everything above the oyster, in fact—is that they are made for
locomotion and for action. Furthermore, it is in the processes of
locomotion—involving, as they do, change of scene and change of
location—that mankind is enabled to develop just those mental aptitudes
most characteristic of man, namely, the aptitude and habit of abstract
thought.
It is in locomotion, also, that the peculiar type of organization that
we call “social” develops. The characteristic of a social organism—if we
may call it an organism—is the fact that it is made up of individuals
capable of independent locomotion. If society were, as some individuals
have sought to conceive it, an organism in the biological sense—if it
were made up of little cells all neatly and safely inclosed in an outer
integument, or skin, in which all cells were so controlled and protected
that no single cell could by any chance have any adventures or new
experience of its own—there would be no need for men in society to have
minds, for it is not because men are alike that they are social, but
because they are different. They are moved to act by individual
purposes, but in doing so they realize a common end. Their impulses are
private, but actions are public.
In view of all this we may well ask ourselves what, if anything, is the
matter with the hobo’s mind. Why is it that with all the variety of his
experiences he still has so many dull days? Why, with so much leisure,
has he so little philosophy? Why, with so wide an acquaintance with
regions, with men, and with cities, with life in the open road and in
the slums, has he been able to contribute so little to our actual
knowledge of life?
We need not even pause for a reply. The trouble with the hobo mind is
not lack of experience, but lack of a vocation. The hobo is, to be sure,
always on the move, but he has no destination, and naturally he never
arrives. Wanderlust, which is the most elementary expression of the
romantic temperament and the romantic interest in life, has assumed for
him, as for so many others, the character of a vice. He has gained his
freedom, but he has lost his direction. Locomotion and change of scene
have had for him no ulterior significance. It is locomotion for its own
sake. Restlessness and the impulse to escape from the routine of
ordinary life, which in the case of others frequently marks the
beginning of some new enterprise, spends itself for him in movements
that are expressive merely. The hobo seeks change solely for the sake of
change; it is a habit, and, like the drug habit, moves in a vicious
circle. The more he wanders, the more he must. It is merely putting the
matter in an another way to say that the trouble with the hobo, as Nels
Anderson has pointed out in his recent volume, _The Hobo_, is that he is
an individualist. He has sacrificed the human need of association and
organization to a romantic passion for individual freedom. Society is,
to be sure, made up of independent, locomoting individuals. It is this
fact of locomotion, as I have said, that defines the very nature of
society. But in order that there may be permanence and progress in
society the individuals who compose it must be located; they must be
located, for one thing, in order to maintain communication, for it is
only through communication that the moving equilibrium which we call
society can be maintained.
All forms of association among human beings rest finally upon locality
and local association. The extraordinary means of communication that
characterize modern society—the newspaper, the radio, and the
telephone—are merely devices for preserving this permanence of location
and of function in the social group, in connection with the greatest
possible mobility and freedom of its members.
The hobo, who begins his career by breaking the local ties that bound
him to his family and his neighborhood, has ended by breaking all other
associations. He is not only a “homeless man,” but a man without a cause
and without a country; and this emphasizes the significance, however,
futile of the efforts of men like James Eads How to establish hobo
colleges in different parts of the country, places where hobos can meet
to exchange experiences, to discuss their problems, and all of the
problems of society; places, also, where they can maintain some sort of
corporate existence and meet and exchange views with the rest of the
world on a basis of something like equality and with some hope of
understanding.
The same thing may be said of the Industrial Workers of the World, the
only labor organization that has persistently sought and to some extent
succeeded in organizing the unorganizable element among laboring men,
namely, the seasonal and casual laborers. The tendency of their efforts
to organize the hobo in his own interest has been, so far as they have
been successful, to give him what he needed most, namely, a
group-consciousness, a cause, and a recognized position in society.
If they have failed, it is due in part to the fact that so large a part
of modern industry is organized in a way which tends inevitably to the
casualization of labor. It is due, in part, to the fact that the hobo,
in so far as he is a congenital type, finds in casual and seasonal labor
a kind of occupation congenial to his temperament, for the hobo is the
bohemian in the ranks of common labor. He has the artistic temperament.
Aside from the indispensable labor of his hands, the only important
contribution which he has made to the permanent common fund of our
experience which we call our culture has been his poetry. It is an
interesting fact, however, that some of the best of this poetry has been
produced in jail. During these periods of enforced quietude, when he
could no longer move, the hobo has vented his habitual restlessness in
songs, songs of protest, the hymns of the rebellious I.W.W., tragic
little ballads describing some of the hardships and tragedies of life on
the long, gray road.
There have been many hobo poets. The most eminent of them, Walt Whitman,
reflected the restlessness and rebelliousness and individualism of the
hobo mind not only in the content but in the very formlessness of his
verse.
What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own
no superior?
Nothing could better express the spirit of the old frontier which, more
than any other feature in American life, has served to characterize
American institutions and American mores. The hobo is, in fact, merely a
belated frontiersman, a frontiersman at a time and in a place when the
frontier is passing or no longer exists.
ROBERT E. PARK
CHAPTER X
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE URBAN COMMUNITY
The task of compiling a bibliography on the city which is to be of use
to the sociologist involves many difficulties. The materials are
scattered over many fields of investigation ranging all the way from the
various branches of the natural and social sciences to the practical
arts and crafts. Much of the material is highly technical and abstract,
while the rest is popular and full of human interest. If one attempts to
survey the whole field he is likely to be led into tempting bypaths
which lead far afield and in the end arrive nowhere. Moreover, the
bibliographer has neither chart nor compass to guide him in his search,
for the sociologist himself is not yet certain of the meaning of the
concept “city” and of the relationship of his science to the phenomenon.
Specialization has gone so far that no one can hope to become an expert
in more than one field in a lifetime. The sanitary engineer, interested
in urban sanitation, is mainly concerned with drainage systems, pumps,
sewer pipes, and incinerators; but the accountant, the political
scientist, and the sociologist are not primarily interested in these
matters. At first glance the sociologist might be tempted to pass over
such material as lying outside his province, while he would be less
likely to pass over materials relating to parks, playgrounds, schools,
infant mortality, city-planning, and non-voting, because these
institutions and processes have traditionally held the sociologist’s
interest. And yet it is within the realm of possibility that such a
question as that of the type of sewer pipe that is to be employed in a
city drainage system may become one with which the sociologist is as
legitimately concerned as the question of city-planning or juvenile
delinquency.
The problem of deciding what is pertinent and what is extraneous is,
then, obviously an important one. While the sociologist may be intensely
interested in a subject matter pertaining to another science or craft,
he has his own distinctive point of view, methodology, and objective,
and since he cannot be an expert engineer, city manager, and sociologist
all at the same time, he must accept the data of these other specialists
when they happen to form the subject matter of his investigation. The
sociologist is no more a housing specialist or a zoning specialist or a
social case worker in a metropolitan social agency than he is an urban
engineer or health officer, but he may have an important contribution to
make to all of these activities, and may in turn acquire from these
technicians a body of materials which shed light on his own problems and
yield to sociological analysis. What is to be included or excluded from
a sociological bibliography of the city depends upon the sociological
definition of the city.
Although the literature on the city extends as far back as the city
itself, the subject is now being studied with renewed interest and with
a new point of view. If we were compiling a complete bibliography we
would most likely begin with the classical discussion of Socrates in the
second book of Plato’s _Republic_ and follow the increasingly complex
and scattered writings up to the present day, when we can scarcely find
a science that does not have something to contribute to the subject. But
this is not the aim of this bibliography. The attempt is here made to
note just that part of the literature which has something to offer to
the sociologist in the way of source material, point of view, method,
and interpretation. A great deal, no doubt, has been included which is
of little value. At the same time much has been necessarily omitted
which is important. Some effort was made to avoid excessive duplication,
but this attempt has not been wholly successful. The list of books and
articles includes many works which were inaccessible at the time the
bibliography was compiled, and whose contents could therefore not be
examined. They are included because either the titles were suggestive or
else the reputation of the authors merited attention.
The contribution which a bibliography is able to make to the study of
any subject lies probably as much in the viewpoint it incorporates and
the method of presentation it uses as in the references it presents. The
scheme of classification here employed may lay claim to offering a
rather new approach to the study of the city. It will probably have to
be modified as new material is discovered and as the sociologists
themselves continue to make their own distinctive contributions. It
ought to offer an index to the aspects of the city that promise most in
the way of results from research. At the same time it may be of
assistance in organizing and funding the rapidly increasing body of
knowledge concerning the sociology of the city.
A TENTATIVE SCHEME FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE LITERATURE OF THE
SOCIOLOGY OF THE CITY[74]
I. The City Defined
1. Geographically: by site, situation, topography, density
2. Historically: by political status, title, law
3. Statistically: by census
4. As an economic unit
5. Sociologically
II. The Natural History of the City
1. Ancient cities: Asia, Egypt, Greece, Rome
2. The medieval city
3. The modern city
III. Types of Cities
1. Historical types
2. Location types: sea coast, inland, river, lake
3. Site types: plain, valley, mountain, hill, harbor, island
4. Functional types: capital, railroad, port, commercial,
industrial, resort, cultural
5. The town, the city, and the metropolis
6. Structural types: the natural city and the planned city
IV. The City and Its Hinterland
1. The trade area
2. The commuting area: the metropolitan area
3. The administrative city
4. The city and its satellites
5. The city and its cultural periphery
6. The city and world economy
V. The Ecological Organization of the City
1. Natural areas
2. The neighborhood
3. The local community
4. Zones and zoning
5. The city plan
VI. The City as a Physical Mechanism
1. Public utilities: water, gas, electricity
2. Means of communication: telephone, mails, telegraph, street-car,
busses, automobile
3. Streets and sewers
4. Public safety and welfare: fire, police, health departments,
social agencies
5. Schools, theaters, museums, parks, churches, settlements
6. Recreation
7. City government: the city manager, the boss
8. Food supply, stores (department and chain stores)
9. Steel construction: the skyscraper
10. Housing and land values
VII. The Growth of the City
1. Expansion
2. Allocation and distribution of population: “city-building”
3. Population statistics: natural growth and migration
4. Mobility and metabolism in city life
5. Social organization and disorganization and city growth
VIII. Eugenics of the City
1. Birth, death, and marriage rates: the span of life
2. Sex and age groups
3. Fecundity
IX. Human Nature and City Life
1. The division of labor: professions and specialization of
occupations
2. The mentality of city life
3. Communication: contacts, public opinion, morale, _ésprit de
corps_
4. City types
X. The City and the Country
1. Conflicts of interest
2. Comparison of social organization and social processes
3. Differences in personality types
XI. The Study of the City
1. Systematic studies of cities
2. The technique of the community survey
3. Periodicals on the city
I. THE CITY DEFINED
Differences in standpoint and method in the various sciences show
graphically in the definitions that each formulates of the same object.
This is strikingly illustrated by a comparison of the definitions held
by various scientific groups of the phenomenon of the city.
1. The city has been regarded by geographers as an integral part of the
landscape. From this standpoint the city is an elevation, rising from
the ground like a mountain. Such observations as changes in wind
velocity and atmospheric conditions produced by the city regarded as an
obstruction of the landscape have been noted. Human geography has lately
come to regard the city as the most significant human transformation of
the natural environment, and as part of the general product arising out
of man’s relation with the natural environment. Urban geography has
recently been gaining ground as a phase of regional geography. The
location, physical structure, size, density, and economic function of
cities are the chief factors emphasized. A substantial literature has
grown up which has a direct bearing on the Sociological study of the
city.
Aurousseau, M. “Recent Contributions to Urban Geography,” _Geog.
Rev._, XIV (July, 1924), 444–55.
A concise statement of the geographical approach to the city, with a
bibliography of the most authoritative and recent literature. Points
out the recency of the study of urban geography and the difficulties
involved in the methods. (II, 3; III.)
Barrows, Harlan H. “Geography as Human Ecology,” _Annals of the
Association of American Geographers_, Vol. XIII (March, 1923), No.
1.
While not specifically concerned with the city, defines the
viewpoint and method of the geographer.
Blanchard, Raoul. “Une méthode de géographie urbaine,” _La Vie
Urbaine_, IV (1922) 301–19.
An exposition of the principles and methods of urban geography by
one of the leading authorities. (III, 2, 3, 4, 6.)
Chisholm, G. G. “Generalizations in Geography, Especially in Human
Geography,” _Scott. Geog. Mag._, XXXII (1916), 507–19. (III, 2, 3,
4.)
Hassert, Kurt. _Die Städte geographisch betrachtet_ (Leipzig, 1907).
One of the early outlines of urban geography. (III, 2, 3, 4, 6.)
——. “Über Aufgaben der Städtekunde,” _Petermann’s Mitteilungen_, LVI
(Part II, 1910), 289–94. (III.)
Jefferson, M. “Anthropography of Some Great Cities: A Study in
Distribution of Population.” _Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc._, XLI (1909),
537–66.
Argues the need for a geographical definition of the city and
suggests one based on density of population. (I, 3, 4; III; VII, 2.)
Schrader, F. “The Growth of the Industrial City,” _Scott. Geog. Mag._,
XXXIII (1917), 348–52.
An extensive review of an article by Professor Schrader printed in
_Annales de Géographie_, January, 1917. A statement of the forces
responsible for the emergence of the geographical entity “the city,”
especially of the industrial city. (I, 4; III, 2, 3, 4; IV, 1, 6; V,
5; VII, 1.)
Smith, J. Russell. “The Elements of Geography and the Geographic
Unit,” _School and Society_, Vol. XVII, No. 441. (III, 2, 3, 4.)
2. The rise of the city introduced an entirely novel element into the
historical process. As a result we find the historians among the first
to study this phenomenon of human aggregation which culminated in the
city. The historian is mainly interested in tracing the development of
this new form of social life from the standpoint of structure and formal
organization. The origin of the city has been traced, the ancient cities
have been described, the Greek city-state, Rome, the rise of the
medieval city, and its transformation into the modern city have found an
important place in historical literature. The earlier studies are mainly
political in nature. Only recently have historians devoted themselves to
describing the new modes of life to which the city gave rise, and the
interrelations between city and country. The city has been regarded
chiefly as a political unit. The name “city” was given to a settlement
because it had achieved a certain degree of political autonomy from the
central government, or as an honorary title conferred for service
rendered to a superior political entity, or, finally, as a result of
incorporation or legal enactment.
Bücher, Karl. “Die Grossstädte in Gegenwart und Vergangenheit,” in the
volume, _Die Grossstadt_, edited by Th. Petermann, Dresden, 1903.
(I, 4; II; III; IV.)
Cunningham, William. _Western Civilization_ (Cambridge, 1898–1900).
Has many references to the changing historical conceptions of the
city. (I, 4; II. 2, 3.)
_The Encyclopedia Americana_, 1918 edition, Vol. VI, article, “City.”
(II; IV, 3.)
_The Encyclopedia Brittanica_, 1911 edition, article, “City.” (II; IV,
3.)
Schäfer, D. “Die politische und militärische Bedeutung der
Grossstädte,” in the volume _Die Grossstadt_, edited by Th.
Petermann, Dresden, 1903.
A summary of the city as a political unit, together with its
function from the military standpoint. (II; III, 1, 2, 3, 4; IV, 5.)
3. The statisticians have at various times been forced to define a city
because census-taking and interpreting presupposes the existence of
definite statistical units. The principal statistical methods of
defining the city are: (1) by extent of the area of settlement, and (2)
by number of inhabitants. In the history of the United States Census the
city has been variously defined as an incorporated community of 8,000
inhabitants or more, then of 4,000, and at the present time of 2,500
inhabitants.
Blankenburg, R. “What Is a City?” _Independent_, XXCV (January 17,
1916), 84–85.
Meuriot, P. M. G. “Du criterium adopté pour la définition de la
population urbaine,” _Soc. de Statist. de Paris_, LV (October,
1914), 418–30.
Reuter, E. B. _Population Problems_ (Philadelphia and London, 1924).
Shows the changing statistical definitions of the city adopted at
various times by the United States Census. Contains a great deal of
other material relating to urban population. (VII, 2, 3; VIII, 1,
2.)
4. The economists have been interested in tracing the development of the
city as an economic unit. The city, from this standpoint, may be
regarded as typical of a certain stage in economic development. The rise
of the city is intimately associated with the transition from handicraft
to machine industry, the division of labor, the market, and exchange.
Besides the great number of economic histories which trace the general
movement toward urban economy there are many monographs of special
cities whose economic history has been studied, and some instances of
present-day developments in metropolitan economy.
Below, George von. “Die Entstehung des modernen Kapitalismus und die
Hauptstädte,” _Schmollers Jahrbuch_, XLIII (1919), 811–28. (III,
4; IV, 1, 4, 6.)
Cheney, Edward Potts. _Industrial and Social History of England_ (New
York, 1910). (II, 2, 3; IV, 6.)
Day, Clive. _History of Commerce_ (New York, 1920). (II; III, 4; IV,
6.)
Dillen, Johannes Gerard van. _Het Economisch karakter der
Middeleeuwsche Stad._ I. _De Theorie der gesloten
Stad-Huishanding_ (Amsterdam, 1914). (II, 2; III, 4, 5; IV, 6.)
Gras, Norman S. B. _An Introduction to Economic History_ (New York,
1922).
Considerable material on the rise of the city as an economic unit.
(II, 2, 3; III, 4, 5; IV, 1, 2, 6; X, 1.)
Sombart, Werner. _The Quintessence of Capitalism: A Study of the
History and Psychology of the Modern Business Man._ Translated by
M. Epstein (New York, 1915). (II, 3; IV, 6; IX; X; 3.)
Waentig, H. “Die wirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Grossstädte,” in the
volume, _Die Grossstadt_, edited by Th. Petermann, Dresden, 1903.
A thorough study of the increasing significance of the city as an
economic unit. (III, 4; IV, 6.)
5. A sociological definition of the city must recognize that such a
complex phenomenon cannot be adequately characterized in terms of any
one single distinguishing mark or any set of formal and arbitrary
characteristics. The city is, to be sure, a human group occupying a
definite area, with a set of technical devices, institutions,
administrative machinery, and organization which distinguish it from
other groupings. But in this conglomeration of buildings, streets, and
people the sociologist discovers a psychophysical mechanism. For him the
city is a set of practices, of common habits, sentiments and traditions
which have grown up through several generations of life and are
characteristic of a typical cultural unit. Within this larger entity
which is called the city he sees many other groupings of people and
areas which are the result of growth and of a continuous process of
sifting and allocation, each one of which areas has a character of its
own and produces its special type of inhabitant. He sees a number of
occupational and cultural groups whose interests and characteristics
mark them off one from the other, but who, nevertheless, are conscious
of their membership in some common larger group known as the city, and
who participate in its life.
From another point of view the city is an institution which has arisen
and maintains itself to some extent independently of the population
because it satisfies certain fundamental wants, not only of the local
inhabitants, but also of a larger area which has become dependent upon
what the city has to give.
The city, finally, may be regarded as the product of three fundamental
processes: the ecological, the economic, and the cultural, which operate
in the urban area to produce groupings and behavior which distinguish
that area from its rural periphery.
Izoulet, Jean. _La Cité moderne et la métaphysique de la sociologie_
(_Paris_, 1894).
Maunier, René. “The Definition of the City.” Translated by L. L.
Bernard, _Amer. Jour. Sociol._, XV, 536–48.
A critical examination of the existing definitions of the city in
the light of sociological theory. (I, 1, 2, 3, 4.)
Almost every textbook in the field of sociology has some sort of a
working definition of the city. In addition there are available the
various conceptions of the city underlying the social surveys.
II. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CITY
The history of the city is almost synonymous with the history of
civilization. The sociologist is interested in the natural history of
the city as a phase of social evolution. Unlike the historian, he is not
aiming to get the concrete facts of the rise and the decay of any
particular city, but rather seeks to find in the study of the history of
various cities the genesis of the typical city as a basis for the
classification of types of cities and of social processes, irrespective
of time and place.
1. Most of our ideas as to the origin of the city we owe to the findings
of the archeologists. Exactly when cities began to appear in the story
of mankind is still a doubtful question. We hear of cave cities in the
paleolithic age. When we come down to historic times we find numerous
cities whose main purpose was defense. The ancient cities of Memphis,
Thebes, Babylon, and several others were already imposing aggregations
of human beings and were centers of administration and of culture. Such
a vast literature exists on the Greek city-state and on Rome, that is
available in almost any library, that only a few references need be
cited here.
Clerget, Pierre. “Urbanism: A Historic, Geographic, and Economic
Study,” _Smithsonian Institution Annual Report, 1912_ (Washington,
D.C., 1913), pp. 653–67. (II, 2, 3; III; V, 1, 2, 3; VI; VII;
VIII.)
Coulanges, Fustel de. _The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion,
Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome_ (Boston, 1894).
Translated by Willard Small.
Davis, W. S. _A Day in Old Athens: A Picture of Athenian Life_ (New
York, 1914).
Fowler, W. W. _The City-State of the Greeks and Romans_ (London and
New York, 1895). (I, 2.)
Friedländer, L. _Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire._
Authorized translation by L. A. Magnus from the 7th rev. ed. of
the _Sittengeschichte Roms_ (London, 1908–13), 4 vols. (III, 4.)
Rostovtzeff, Michael. “Cities in the Ancient World,” in volume _Urban
Land Economics_, edited by R. T. Ely, Institute for Research in
Land Economics, Ann Arbor, 1922.
Zimmern, Alfred E. _The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in
Fifth-Century Athens_ (2d rev. edition; Oxford, 1915).
2. Historians are still doubtful whether the medieval city was the
product of a continuous growth starting with Rome or whether, around the
year 1000, the city was born anew after some centuries of reversion to a
simpler form of social life. There is little doubt, however, that the
medieval city not only had a different structure but also played a
decidedly different rôle than the Greek or the Roman city. The typical
medieval city was fortified and had achieved a certain degree of
political autonomy from the central government. It played its leading
rôle, however, as the center of trade and commerce and the home of the
guilds. With the sixteenth century there came an important change over
the urban life of Europe. New inventions, such as that of gunpowder,
made the city wall obsolete. The beginnings of industry spelled the doom
of the narrow guild system. In the light of this new order of things the
medieval city of a former day—which was really a town—either had to
adapt itself to the new forces that had become operative and join the
ranks of growing cities or else become sterile and sink into decay.
Bax, E. B. _German Culture, Past and Present_ (London, 1915).
Traces the development of the medieval German city. (II, 3).
Benson, E. _Life in a Medieval City, Illustrated by York in the
Fifteenth Century_ (London, 1920).
Consentius, Ernst. _Alt-Berlin, Anno 1740_ (2d ed.; Berlin, 1911).
One of a great number of special studies in the early history of
German towns and cities. (III, 6.)
Coulton, George Gordon. _Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to
the Reformation_ (Cambridge, 1918).
Green, Alice S. A. (Mrs. J. R.) _Town Life in the Fifteenth Century_
(2 vols., New York, 1894). (III, 5.)
Pirenne, Henry. _Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of
Trade._ (Princeton, N.J., 1925).
Traces the growth of cities and their institutions in relation to
the revival of trade. (I, 4; III, 4; IV, 4; VII, 1.)
Preuss, Hugo. _Die Entwicklung des Deutschen Städtewesens_ (Leipzig,
1906).
A standard history of the development of the German city. (I, 2; II,
3; IV, 3; VI, 7; VII, 1.)
Stow, John. _The Survey of London_ (1598) (London and New York, 1908).
3. The modern city marks the advent of a new epoch in civilization. Its
rise has been accompanied by, and, in turn, is the result of a profound
revolution in economic, political, intellectual, and social life. The
modern man is to so great an extent a product of the modern city that in
order to grasp the full significance of the transformation the city has
wrought we must get a view of its origins and development. The city, as
we find it today, is by no means a finished product. Its growth is so
rapid and its energy so great that it changes its complexion almost
daily, and with it the character of mankind itself.
Baily, W. L. “Twentieth Century City,” _Amer. City_, XXXI (August,
1924), 142–43.
Beard, C. A. “Awakening of Japanese Cities,” _Review of Reviews_, LXIX
(May, 1924), 523–27.
Bücher, Karl. _Industrial Evolution._ Translated by S. M. Wickett
(London and New York, 1901).
The modern city from the standpoint of industrial society. (II, 1,
2; III, 4, 5; IV, 6; VII, 1; IX, 1.)
_Die Stadt Danzig: ihre geschichtliche Entwickelung und ihre
öffentlichen Einrichtungen_ (Danzig, 1904).
Shows the development of a modern city and its characteristic
institutions. (III, 1, 2, 3; VI.)
Ebeling, Martin. “Grossstadtsozialismus.” Vol. XLIV of
_Grossstadtdokumente_, edited by Hans Ostwald (Berlin, 1905).
A cross-section of the modern city from the standpoint of the
workingman. (IV, 3, 6; V, 2, 3; VI; VII, 2, 5; VIII, 1.)
Ende, A. von. _New York_ (Berlin, 1909).
Typical of a great number of descriptions of cities by travelers and
writers of tourists’ guidebooks. The best known are those of
Baedeker, of Leipzig, covering every important European city.
George, M. Dorothy. _London life in the XVIIIth Century_ (New York,
1925).
Contains an excellent selected bibliography on the city of London. A
cross-section of London life on the threshold of the modern era.
(III; VII, 1, 2.)
Hare, Augustus J. C. _Paris_ (London, 1900).
One of a series of books of various European cities, being intended
as a guide for tourists.
Hessel, J. F. _The Destiny of the American City._ Champaign, Illinois,
1922.
The trend of American city growth and its problems.
Howe, Frederic C. _The Modern City and Its Problems_ (New York, 1915).
A short outline of the development of the modern city, a statement
of the implications of city civilization, a discussion of the city
as a physical mechanism, and suggestions for an extension of the
principle of municipal ownership and management, city-planning, and
co-operation. (III, 5; IV, 2, 3; V, 4, 5; VI; VII, 1, 2; IX, 3.)
Irwin, Will. _The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco_ (New
York, 1906).
Johnson, Clarence Richard (editor). _Constantinople Today, or, the
Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental Social
Life_ (New York and London, 1923). (III, 2; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX,
1, 3.)
Kirk, William (editor). _A Modern City: Providence, Rhode Island, and
Its Activities_ (Chicago, 1909). (III, 4; VI; VII.)
“London: A Geographical Synthesis,” _Geog. Rev._, XIV (1924), 310–12.
A summary of the co-ordinated geographical study of a modern city.
(III; IV; V; VI, 3.)
Pollock, H. M., and Morgan, W. S. _Modern Cities_ (New York, 1913).
A general study of American cities and their problems. (III, 6; V,
5; VI.)
Strong, Josiah. _The Twentieth Century City_ (New York, 1898).
Zueblin, Charles. _American Municipal Progress_ (new and revised
edition; New York, 1916).
Attempts to formulate a science of “municipal sociology.” (VI; VII;
VIII, 1.)
Almost every modern city has several histories of its recent
development, and the current magazines contain a great deal of general
information about particular cities. The list of typical works on the
modern city might be extended indefinitely, but the numerous
bibliographies already available make this task unnecessary. There are
published bibliographies of some of the more important European and
American cities. Books on London, for instance, are so numerous that
there exists in the city of London a library devoted exclusively to
works on that city. A similar volume of literature is available about
Paris, Rome, and other centers of culture around which there has grown
up an historical tradition which gives to the locality a world-wide
human interest. There are a number of books on such cities as Moscow,
the city of churches, which emphasize the fact that this metropolis has
occupied a position of dominance in Russian life because of its
spiritual leadership, which expresses itself institutionally in its
magnificent cathedrals. There are other Meccas of this sort, the
literature on which would occupy many pages.
The inclusion of such books as Augustus Hare’s _Paris_ and von Ende’s
_New York_ in this list might well raise the question as to why these
two rather unimportant works were included and others of a similar
nature excluded. Their pertinence in this connection was thought to lie
in the fact that they are typical of books on many cities which are
intended as guides to tourists or represent accounts of travelers, which
are not included in this bibliography, but which might prove of interest
to the student dealing with the individualities and eccentricities of
individual cities.
There has grown up in recent years a renewed interest in the variety and
diversity of American cities. Many such books have appeared, often in
series including several cities, which give more than a traveler’s
account, and actually succeed in entering into the spirit of the city.
Grace King’s volume on New Orleans is perhaps the best, if not the most
representative, of these American volumes.
III. TYPES OF CITIES
Each city, like every other object in nature, is, in a sense, unique. A
scientific study of the city presupposes, however, that a study of a
number of cities will reveal certain classes or types, the members of
which have certain common characteristics which mark them off from other
types. There are, obviously, many criteria, on the basis of any one of
which cities might be classified and distinguished from each other.
Certain fundamental types appear in the literature of the subject of
which the sociologist may profitably take note.
1. One of the very first characteristics that we observe about a city is
its age. The difference between European and American cities in this
respect is so obvious as to be inescapable. The cities of Western
Europe, when compared with some of those of the Orient, again show their
relative youth. A detailed study of the city reveals this important
conservative influence of the early experiences of a city. Streets,
walls, names, and the tradition that has grown up through centuries of
existence leave their indelible impress upon the city as we find it
today. Experienced observers are able to distinguish cities belonging to
one historical period from those of another by their appearance, just as
they are able to differentiate between the cities of adjoining
countries. These differences show themselves not only in a dominant type
of architecture, but also in general atmosphere, the mode of life of the
inhabitants, and the activities that find expression in the life of the
people.
Fleure, Herbert John. “Some Types of Cities in Temperate Europe,”
_Geog. Rev._, X, No. 6 (1920), 357–74.
Traces the historical influences on the character of cities. (II;
III, 2, 3, 5, 6.)
——. _Human Geography in Western Europe: A Study in Appreciation_
(London, 1919). (III.)
Fraser, E. “Our Foreign Cities,” _Sat. Eve. Post_, CXCVI (August 25,
1923), 14–15.
The background of its inhabitants gives the city its dominant
atmosphere. (V, 3; VII, 2, 3.)
Gamble, Sidney D. _Peking: A Social Study_ (New York, 1921).
A survey of an oriental city. Incidentally reveals a strange variety
of the modern city. (II; III, 4, 6; IV, 3; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX, 3.)
Hanslik, Erwin. _Biala: eine deutsche Stadt in Galizien_ (Wien:
Teschen und Leipzig, 1909).
The persistence of a historical type in a changing environment.
(III, 6.)
Homburg, F. “Names of Cities,” _Jour. Geog._, XV (September, 1916),
17–23.
Rhodes, Harrison. _American Towns and People_ (New York, 1920).
Uhde-Bernays, Herman. _Rothenburg of der Tauber_ (Leipzig, 1922).
One of a series of volumes on “cities of culture.” The persistence
of the historical influences on the atmosphere of cities. (III, 6.)
2. The means of communication that are in use at any given period in
history determine the location of human settlements. For this reason the
dominant location of the ancient and medieval city was on the seacoast
or near a navigable body of water. The founding and the development of
cities still depends on their location with reference to the means of
communication in use and the consequent accessibility of the region. The
coming of the railroads made large inland cities possible. Settlements
located favorably along the seacoast or along an important river or lake
enjoy a natural advantage which has an important bearing on their
growth. Location is an important competitive element which produces
fundamental types.
Faris, J. T. “The Heart of the Middle West,” _Travel_, XLII (December,
1923), 30–34.
Geddes, Patrick. “Cities, and the Soils They Grow From.” _Survey
Graphic_ (April, 1925), pp. 40–44.
A rather philosophical conception of the city as related to the
natural environment. Suggestions concerning geotechnics,
afforestation, and regional development. (III, 2, 3; V, 5.)
Jefferson, Mark. “Some Considerations on the Geographical Provinces of
the United States,” _Ann. of the Ass. of Amer. Geographers_, VII
(1917), 3–15.
Develops the theory that the country as a whole can be divided into
provinces according to location on seacoast, inland lake, river,
etc., and that the cities of each province are characterized by
factors arising out of their location. (III, 3, 4; IV, 1, 6.)
Mercier, Marcel. _La Civilisation Urbaine au Mzab: Étude de Sociologie
Africaine_ (Alger, 1922).
The study of an African city in a desert region, whose immediate
site is determined by water supply and transportation routes. The
directions and the limitation of the social activities of the
community are dictated by the environment. (III, 1, 6; IV, 1, 6; V,
1; VI; VII, 2; IX, 1.)
Ratzel, Friedrich. “Die geographische Lage der grossen Städte,” in
volume “_Die Grossstadt_,” edited by Th. Petermann, Dresden, 1903.
A thoroughgoing consideration of the location types of cities by one
of the earliest and most competent students of the subject. Offers
the theory, also held by Cooley (C. H. Cooley, _The Theory of
Transportation_) that cities arise at the end of a route of
transportation, or at a juncture of several such routes, or at the
point where one route of transportation joins another; where, for
instance, a land transportation route ends and a waterway begins.
Ratzel also gives one of the earliest and soundest geographical
definitions of the city: “A permanent condensation (or dense
settlement) of human beings and human habitations covering a
considerable area and situated in the midst (or at the juncture) of
several routes of transportation.” (I; II; III, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6; IV,
1; V, 5; VII, 2.)
Ridgley, Douglas C. “Geographic Principles in the Study of Cities,”
_Jour. of Geog._, XXIV (February, 1925), 66–78.
A reiteration of Cooley’s theory: “Population and wealth tend to
collect wherever there is a break in transportation.” (I, 1; VII, 1,
2.)
Wright, Henry C. _The American City: An Outline of Its Development and
Functions_ (Chicago, 1916).
Chapter i outlines the location of cities and classifies them
according to their purpose. The rest of the book is taken up with
government, finance, administrative problems, such as health,
police, education, housing, zoning, and the effect of the city on
the citizens. (III, 3, 4; V, 4, 5; VI; VII, 2; IX.)
3. A classification in use especially among the geographers is that
arising from differences in site. It is important to distinguish between
the general situation of a city, i.e., its location with reference to
the surrounding territory and the means of communication with other
centers of population and resources, and its immediate local setting
which influences its structure and growth and brings with it certain
other more deep-seated consequences.
Biermann, Charles. “Situation et Site de Lausanne,” _Bull. Soc.
Neuchateloise de Geog._, XXV (1916), 122–49. Reviewed in _Geog.
Rev._, VI (1918), 285.
Distinguishes between general location and immediate site as factors
determining the character of the city. Emphasizes the limitations
imposed on the modern city by its medieval defensive system. (III,
1, 2; VI, 3.)
Brunhes, Jean. _Human Geography: An Attempt at a Positive
Classification, Principles and Examples._ Translated by T. C.
LeCompte (Chicago and New York, 1920).
The most comprehensive and basic work in human geography at the
present time available. Discusses the city as a form of occupation
of the soil. Describes the principles and gives many illustrations
of the effect of location on the growth and the character of cities.
(I, 1; II, 2, 3; III; IV; VII, 1, 2.)
King, C. F. “Striking Characteristics of Certain Cities,” _Jour.
School Geog._, IV (1900), 201–7, 301–8, 370–91. (III, 1, 2, 4, 6.)
Semple, Ellen C. “Some Geographical Causes Determining the Location of
Cities,” _Jour. School Geog._, I (1897), 225–31.
Smith, Joseph Russell. _Human Geography: Teachers’ Manual_
(Philadelphia and Chicago, 1922).
4. Cities may be classified according to the functions they
characteristically perform in national or world economy. The competitive
process tends to operate between cities as well as within cities, so as
to give each city a rôle defining its status in the world-community. The
capital city has certain features which distinguish it from a commercial
and industrial city. The railroad city is fundamentally different from a
resort city, from the religious Mecca, the university seat, and the
international port. Even within these classes we find further
specialization. Thus, we have a steel city, a film city, an automobile
city, a rubber city, and a tool city. The ecological process on a
national and world-wide scale is not sufficiently well known at the
present time to permit of any definite system of classification, but
that there is a strong tendency toward functional specialization between
cities as entities is no longer open to doubt.
Cornish, Vaughan. _The Great Capitals: An Historical Geography_
(London, 1922).
A study of the variations within the type of city serving as a
political center. A work which has given a great deal of impetus to
the study of functional types of cities. (III, 1.)
“F.O.B. Detroit,” _Outlook_, III (1915), 980–86.
A sample of the industrial type of city which is built around the
production of a single product—the automobile. (IV, 6; IX, 1.)
Homburg, F. “Capital Cities,” _Jour. Geog._, XIX (January, 1920),
8–15.
Kellogg, Paul U. (editor). _The Pittsburgh District_ (New York, 1914).
Introductory volume of the Pittsburgh Survey, one of the most
comprehensive studies of an industrial, urban area. Contains
material bearing on many phases of city structure and city life. (V;
VI; VII; VIII; IX, 1, 3.).
Kenngott, George F. _The Record of a City: A Social Survey of Lowell,
Massachusetts_ (New York, 1912).
A cross-section of a typical manufacturing city. (V; VI; VII; VIII;
IX, 1, 3.)
McLean, Francis H., Todd, Robert E., and Sanborn, Frank B. _The Report
of the Lawrence Survey_ (Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1917). (V; VI;
VII; VIII; IX, 1, 3.)
“The Right of the Community to Exist,” _Living Age_, CIII (October 4,
1919), 46–48.
Roberts, Peter. _Anthracite Coal Communities_ (New York, 1904).
A study of mining communities in the United States. (V; VI; VII;
VIII; IX, 1, 3.)
Steele, Rufus. “In the Sun-Spot,” _Sunset_, XXXIV (1915), 690–99.
A study of Los Angeles, the city of moving pictures. (IV, 6; IX, 1.)
Semple, Ellen. “Some Geographical Causes Determining the Location of
Cities,” _Jour. School Geog._, I (1897), 225–31.
——. _Influences of Geographic Environment, on the Basis of Ratzel’s
System of Anthropogeography_ (New York, 1911).
A comprehensive work dealing with the factors in the natural
environment in relation to the settlement and the activity of man.
(III, 2, 3.)
Tower, W. S. “Geography of American Cities,” _Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc._,
XXXVII (1905), 577–88.
Distinguishes between industrial, commercial, political, and social
centers and suggests that cities might combine several of these
functions. Gives examples of each type, pointing out their
distinctive characteristics. (III, 2, 3.)
Wood, Arthur Evans. _Some Unsolved Problems of a University Town_
(Philadelphia, 1920.)
A study of housing, public health, and dependency in Princeton, New
Jersey. (VI, 10; VII, 5.)
In the current periodical literature one can find numerous articles
dealing with the various functional types of cities of the present day.
The _National Geographic Magazine_ has many numbers which are devoted to
individual cities from this standpoint.
5. The town, the city, and the metropolis are genetically related
concepts which represent three successive stages of an ever widening
zone of interrelationships and influences. The town represents a local
aggregation which is intimately bound up with a rather narrow
surrounding rural periphery. It is the product of limited means of
communication and constitutes a more or less self-sustaining economic
unit. The city is a more highly specialized unit and, as a result, is a
part of a wider interrelated area, while the metropolis tends to become
a cosmopolitan unit based upon a relatively high degree of development
of the means of communication. The differences between these three urban
types is not only expressed in terms of number of inhabitants and area
of occupation, but also in social organization and in attitudes. There
is a tendency to divide the United States up into provinces according to
the zone of influence of the greater metropolitan units dominating the
surrounding territory and dependent upon it.
Cottrell, E. A. “Limited Town-Meetings in Massachusetts,” _Nat. Mun.
Rev._, II (July, 1918), 433–34.
While dealing primarily with an administrative problem, points out
one of the essential differences between town and city. (V, 3; VI,
7; IX, 3.)
Febvre, Lucien. _A Geographical Introduction to History._ Translated
by E. G. Mountsford and T. H. Paxton (New York, 1925).
Contains a clear statement of the problems of human geography. Part
III, chap. iii, on towns is suggestive. (I, 1; II; III.)
Gide, Charles. “L’habitation hors la ville,” _Revue Economique
Internationale_ (January, 1925), 141–57.
Gilbert, Bernard. _Old England: A God’s-Eye-View of a Village_
(Boston, 1922).
A cross-section of village life and economy.
Gras, Norman S. B. “The Development of Metropolitan Economy in Europe
and America,” _Amer. Hist. Rev._, XXVII (1921–22), 695–708.
Differentiates clearly between manorial, village, town, city, and
metropolitan economy. (I, 4; II; III, 1; IV, 1, 2, 6; X, 1, 2.)
Lasker, B. “Unwalled Towns,” _Survey_, XLIII (March 6, 1920), 675–80.
Lohman, K. B. “Small Town Problems,” _Amer. City_, XXIII (July, 1920),
81.
Maine, Sir H. S. _Village Communities in the East and West_ (7th ed.;
London, 1913).
The most authoritative English study of the village. (II, 1, 2; III,
1; IV, 3; VI, 7; X, 2.)
McVey, Frank L. _The Making of a Town_ (Chicago, 1913). (IV, 1, 2, 3;
V, 4, 5; VI; VII, 1.)
Shine, Mary L. “Urban Land in the Middle Ages,” in volume, _Urban Land
Economics_, Institute for Research in Land Economics (Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 1922).
Shows the transition from town to city life. Contains valuable
collection of material on the medieval city. (I, 2, 4; II, 2, 3;
III; V, 4, 5; VI; VII, 2, 5; IX, 1; X, 1, 2.)
Sims, Newell Leroy. _The Rural Community, Ancient and Modern_ (New
York, 1920). (II, 1, 2; III, 1, 6; IV, 1; V, 3.)
Slosson, P. “Small-Townism,” _Independent_, CVI (July 9, 1921), 106–7.
(X, 2, 3.)
Wilson, Warren H. _Quaker Hill: A Sociological Study_ (New York,
1907).
A picture of a community held together by religious and social
bonds. Shows the transition from a primary to a secondary type of
contact. (V, 3; VII, 2; IX, 3.)
6. The city may be the unplanned product of the interaction of
successive generations with the environment, or it may be the result of
intentional activity with a specific end in view. We hear of ancient
cities springing up at the will of an emperor bent on glorifying his
name. There are cities in America that are the premeditated product of
individuals or corporations bent on creating an adjunct to a factory.
There are capital cities in America owing their existence to the
decisions of a legislature. The planned city differs from the “natural”
city not only in its structural form but in its functional aspects and
its capacity for growth. Probably no planned city can grow into a
metropolis if it does not somehow find for itself an important function
in world-economy and earn its place in the competitive process.
Aurousseau, M. “Urban Geography: A Study of German Towns,” _Geog.
Rev._, XI (October, 1921), 614–16.
A review of a German work (Geisler, Walter, “Beiträge zur
Stadtgeographie.” _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde_, Nos.
8–10 [Berlin, 1920], 274–96). Shows the influence of the old town
plan on the development of the modern city. (II, 2, 3; III.)
Bodine, H. E. “Study of Local History Teaches Value of City-Planning,”
_American City_, XXV (September, 1921), 241–45.
Cushing, C. P. “Rambler on the Standardized City,” _Travel_, XXIX
(July, 1917), 40.
Ely, Richard T. “Pullman: A Social Study,” _Harper’s New Monthly
Magazine_, LXX (December, 1884), 453–65.
While more of a general survey than a special study of the influence
of the city plan upon the actual growth of the city, it does show
some disharmonies arising out of the attempt to control a planned
urban project in the face of growth and unexpected complications.
(IV, 4; VII, 3; IX, 1.)
Ormiston, E. “Public Control of the Location of Towns,” _Econ. Jour._,
XXVIII (December, 1918), 374–85.
Shows some of the abortive attempts to establish towns in
unfavorably situated environments. Suggests public control as a
possible preventive measure, if based on thorough study of all
factors involved in the possibilities for growth and development.
(III, 2, 3, 4; IV, 6.)
Whitbeck, R. H. “Selected Cities of the United States,” _Jour. Geog._,
XXI (September, 1922), 205–42.
Contains several maps showing city structure.
The city-planning literature contains many instances of comparisons
between planned cities and natural cities as well as examples of the
effects of the city plan on the actual development of the city, and the
opposite phenomenon—the effect of the natural development of the city on
the city plan.
IV. THE CITY AND ITS HINTERLAND
Far from being an arbitrary clustering of people and buildings, the city
is the nucleus of a wider zone of activity from which it draws its
resources and over which it exerts its influence. The city and its
hinterland represent two phases of the same mechanism which may be
analyzed from various points of view.
1. Just as Galpin, in his _Social Anatomy of a Rural Community_, was
able to determine the limits of the community by means of the area over
which its trade routes extend, so the city may be delimited by the
extent of its trading area. From the simpler area around it the city
gathers the raw materials, part of which are essential to sustain the
life of its inhabitants, and another part of which are transformed by
the technique of the city population into finished products which flow
out again to the surrounding territory, sometimes over a relatively
larger expanse than the region of their origin. From another point of
view the city sends out its tentacles to the remotest corners of the
world to gather those sources of supply which are not available in the
immediate vicinity, only to retail them to its own population and the
rural region about it. Again, the city might be regarded as the
distributor of wealth, an important economic rôle which has become
institutionalized in a complex financial system.
Chisholm, George G. “The Geographical Relation of the Market to the
Seats of Industry,” _Scott. Geog. Mag., April, 1910_.
Galpin, C. J. “The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community,”
Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin,
_Research Bulletin 34_ (Madison, Wisconsin, 1915).
Deals primarily with trade routes of an agricultural area, but
throws considerable light on the urban trade area. (V, 2; X, 2.)
Levainville, Jacques. “Caen: Notes sur l’évolution de la fonction
urbaine,” _La Vie Urbaine_, V (1923), 223–78.
Through its emphasis on the economic functions of the city this
study makes clear the significance of the trade areas.
Newspapers, business houses, and mail-order houses in particular have
published numerous discussions and graphic statements of their
circulation or their trade relations with the surrounding territory.
Such documents are to be found in numerous specialized trade and
commercial journals. In addition there are government reports and
publications of chambers of commerce bearing on this question.
2. One of the outstanding prerequisites of any city is a local
transportation system which makes possible ready access of the
population living in diverse sections to their places of work, the
centers of trade, of culture, and of other social activities. The city
consists of not merely a continuous densely populated and built up area,
but of suburbs and outlying regions which by means of rapid transit are
within easy reach of urban activities. This area has been termed the
commuting area. Although the inhabitants of this larger area of
settlement may not be under the same taxing, policing, and governing
authorities as the inhabitants of the city proper, they think of
themselves as part of the same metropolis and actively participate in
its life.
Edel, Edmund. _Neu Berlin_, volume L in “Grossstadt Dokumente Series,”
edited by Hans Ostwald, Berlin, 1905.
Discusses the changes brought about by recent growth in the city of
Berlin, with emphasis on the recently built-up suburbs. (VII, 1, 2,
4.)
Lueken, E. “Vorstadtprobleme,” _Schmollers Jahrb._, XXXIX (1915),
1911–20.
Discussion of the governmental and technical problems brought about
by the rise of the suburbs. (IV, 3; V, 1; VI.)
Wright, Henry C. “Rapid Transit in Relation to the Housing Problem,”
in _Proceedings of the Second National Conference on City
Planning_ (Rochester, 1910), pp. 125–35.
Considers the possibility of distributing the urban population in
the suburbs by building up a rapid transit system. (VI, 2, 3, 10.)
3. That part of the inhabitants of a given metropolitan area who
actually are under the same administrative machinery may constitute only
a relatively small part of the inhabitants of the metropolitan district
as a whole. The size of the administrative unit tends to lag behind the
size of the metropolis proper. Suburbs are incorporated gradually, and
changes in charters and legal organization often do not keep pace with
the rapid expansion of the district. The city of London proper is only a
relatively small part of metropolitan London. As a result of such
anomalous situations many difficulties occur in interpreting statistical
data compiled by governmental agencies.
Gross, Charles. _Bibliography of British Municipal History_ (New York,
1897). (I, 2; VI, 7.)
Howe, Frederic C. _European Cities at Work_ (New York, 1913).
A general survey of the structure and the government of the European
city. (II, 3; VI; VII, 1.)
——. _The British City: The Beginnings of Democracy_ (New York, 1907).
(II, 2, 3; VI.)
Kales, Albert M. _Unpopular Government in the United States_ (Chicago,
1914).
A discussion of the administrative problems of the city, emphasizing
the anomalous situations brought about by legal restrictions in the
face of urban development. (VI, 7; X, 1, 2.)
Maxey, C. C. “Political Integration of Metropolitan Communities,”
_National Munic. Rev._, XI (August, 1922), 229–53. (IV, 2; VI, 7.)
Wilcox, Delos F. _The American City: A Problem in Democracy_ (New
York, 1906).
A work dealing mainly with the administration of the city. Chapter
i, “Democracy and City Life in America,” chapter ii on “The Street,”
and v on “The Control of Leisure” are suggestive. (VI; VII, 5.)
4. One of the latest phases of city growth is the development of
satellite cities. These are generally industrial units growing up
outside the boundaries of the administrative city, which, however, are
dependent upon the city proper for their existence. Often they become
incorporated into the city proper after the city has inundated them, and
thus lose their identity. The location of such satellites may exert a
determining influence upon the direction of the city’s growth. These
satellites become culturally a part of the city long before they are
actually incorporated into it.
Taylor, Graham Romeyn. _Satellite Cities: A Study of Industrial
Suburbs_ (New York and London, 1915).
The most comprehensive study of its kind. (III, 4; VII, 2; IX, 1.)
Wright, R. “Satellite Cities,” _Bellman_, XXV (November 16, 1918),
551–52.
5. The city has come to be recognized as the center of culture.
Innovations in social life and in ideas gravitate from the city to the
country. Through its newspapers, theaters, schools, and museums, through
its traveling salesmen and mail-order houses, through its large
representation in the legislatures, and through many other points of
contact with the inhabitants of the rural periphery about it, the city
diffuses its culture over a large area. The city is in this respect an
important civilizing agent.
Desmond, S. “America’s City Civilization: The Natural Divisions of the
United States,” _Century_, CVIII (August, 1924), 548–55.
Holds that America is creating a new type of city civilization of a
decentralized type. Several outstanding American cities are
described as cultural entities and as exerting a dominating
influence over a large rural area, thus suggesting the emergence of
cultural provinces. (III, 1, 2, 3; IX, 2.)
Petermann, Theodor. “Die geistige Bedeutung der Grossstädte,” in the
volume, _Die Grossstadt_ (Dresden, 1903).
One of the best concise statements on the cultural significance of
the city from the standpoint of the rural periphery. (IV, 6; IX, 1,
2; X, 1, 2, 3.)
Wells, Joseph. _Oxford and Oxford Life_ (London, 1899).
An example of a cultural type of city from the functional
standpoint, and its influence. (II, 2, 3; III, 4.)
There are a number of studies of cities as cultural centers. The city of
Moscow has often been described as the city of churches, for instance,
and as such has exercised an influence over the life of Russia all out
of proportion to its function in other respects. Similar studies are
available of Rome, Venice, Dresden, and a number of others.
6. With the advent of modern methods of communication the whole world
has been transformed into a single mechanism of which a country or a
city is merely an integral part. The specialization of function, which
has been a concomitant of city growth, has created a state of
interdependence of world-wide proportions. Fluctuations in the price of
wheat on the Chicago Grain Exchange reverberate to the remotest part of
the globe, and a new invention anywhere will soon have to be reckoned
with at points far from its origin. The city has become a highly
sensitive unit in this complex mechanism, and in turn acts as a
transmitter of such stimulation as it receives to a local area. This is
as true of economic and political as it is of social and intellectual
life.
Baer, M. _Der internationale Mädchenhandel_, Vol. XXXVII in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Shows that the large city is the center of the world white-slave
traffic. (III, 4; VII, 5; IX, 4.)
Bernhard, Georg. _Berliner Banken_, Vol. VIII in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
While primarily a study of Berlin banks, shows the large city as the
center of the economic life of the world. (III, 4; V, 1; IX, 1, 4.)
Jefferson, Mark. “Distribution of British Cities and the Empire,”
_Geog. Rev._, IV (November, 1917), 387–94.
“English cities are unique in that they have taken the whole world
for their countryside.... The conception of the British empire as
the direct result of English trade in English manufactures, which in
turn are largely a response to English treasures in coal and iron,
is strongly reenforced by the distribution of her great cities.”
(III, 4; VI, 8.)
Olden, Balder. _Der Hamburger Hafen_, Vol. XLVI in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The influence of world-commerce on the city. (III, 3, 4; IV, 4; V,
1; IX, 1, 4.)
Penck, Albrecht. _Der Hafen von New York_, Vol. IV of the collection,
“Meereskunde” (Berlin, 1910).
An excellent view of the traffic in the harbor of New York. (III, 2,
3, 4.)
Zimmern, Helen. _Hansa Towns_ (New York, 1895).
An historical example of a typical function of cities in
world-economy. (I, 2; II, 2.)
V. THE ECOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY
Just as the city as a whole is influenced in its position, function, and
growth by competitive factors which are not the result of the design of
anyone, so the city has an internal organization which may be termed an
ecological organization, by which we mean the spatial distribution of
population and institutions and the temporal sequence of structure and
function following from the operation of selective, distributive, and
competitive forces tending to produce typical results wherever they are
at work. Every city tends to take on a structural and functional pattern
determined by the ecological factors that are operative. The internal
ecological organization of a city permits of more intensive study and
accurate analysis than the ecology of the city from the external
standpoint. For the latter phase of the subject we will have to rely on
further investigations of the economists, the geographers, and the
statisticians. The facts of the local groupings of the population that
arise as a result of ecological factors are, however, readily accessible
to the sociologist.
I. Plant ecologists have been accustomed to use the expression “natural
area” to refer to well-defined spatial units having their own peculiar
characteristics. In human ecology the term “natural area” is just as
applicable to groupings according to selective and cultural
characteristics. Land values are an important index to the boundaries of
these local areas. Streets, rivers, railroad properties, street-car
lines, and other distinctive marks or barriers tend to serve as dividing
lines between the natural areas within the city.
Addams, Jane. _A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil_ (New York, 1912).
A discussion of vice and the vice district in Chicago. (V, 4; VI,
6.)
Anderson, Nels. _The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man_
(Chicago, 1923).
The study of a typical deteriorated area in the city where the
homeless men congregate. (VII, 5; IX, 4.)
Bab, Julius. _Die Berliner Bohème_, Vol. II in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
An intimate study of a natural area which has developed an exotic
atmosphere as a result of the social isolation of its members and
their peculiar personalities. At the same time furnishes an
excellent history of a local community and is a unique contribution
to the mentality of city life. (V, 3; VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
Booth, Charles. _Life and Labor of the People of London_ (London,
1892).
The most comprehensive study of London in existence. Especially
interesting in this connection for its description of the natural
areas of that city. Volume V, on East London, offers a wealth of
insight into city life. These volumes cover almost every phase of
city life and should be cross-referenced with most of the categories
suggested in this outline.
Brown, Junius Henri. _The Great Metropolis: A mirror of New York_
(Hartford, 1869).
Gives a view of New York at about the middle of the nineteenth
century. Is of interest for a comparative study of the city then,
and now from the point of view of its natural divisions. (VII, 2;
IX, 1.)
Denison, John Hopkins. _Beside the Bowery_ (New York, 1914). (VII, 2.)
Dietrich, Richard. _Lebeweltnächte der Friedrichstadt_, Vol. XXX in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A view of Berlin’s bright-light area. (VI, 6; VII, 2, 5; IX.)
Goldmark, Pauline. _West-Side Studies_ (New York, 1914).
Historical and social investigations of local urban areas,
especially from the point of view of social welfare and pathology.
(V, 2, 3; VI; VII, 2, 5; VIII; IX, 1.)
Harper, Charles George. _Queer Things about London; Strange Nooks and
Corners of the Greatest City in the World_ (Philadelphia, 1924).
(II, 3; V, 2, 3; VI, 3, 5, 8, 10.)
Kirwan, Daniel Joseph. _Palace and Hovel, or Phases of London Life;
Being Personal Observations of an American in London_ (Hartford,
1870). (II, 3; VI; VII, 2; IX, 1, 4.)
Ostwald, Hans O. A. _Dunkle Winkel in Berlin_, Vol. I in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A description of the more obscure areas in Berlin, particularly
those of the underworld. (II, 3; VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
Scharrelmann, Heinrich. _Die Grossstadt; Spaziergänge in die
Grossstadt Hamburg_, 1921.
Sketches of city areas encountered in a walk about the city.
Seligman, Edwin R. A. (editor). _The Social Evil, with Special
Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York_ (New
York and London, 1912).
The vice area of a large city. Typical of a number of surveys of
moral areas in the larger cities of the United States. Compare, for
instance, with the report of the Illinois investigation, _The Social
Evil in Chicago_. (VII, 2, 5; IX, 1.)
Smith, F. Berkley. _The Real Latin Quarter_ (New York, 1901). (V, 3;
VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
Strunsky, Simeon. _Belzhazzar Court, or, Village Life in New York
City_ (New York, 1914). (V, 2, 3; VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
Timbs, John. _Curiosities of London_ (London, 1868). (IX, 1, 4.)
Werthauer, Johannes. _Moabitrium_, Vol. XXXI of the “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A report of a personal investigation of the rooming-house area of
Berlin. (VII, 2, 4; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
Woods, Robert A. _The City Wilderness: A Settlement Study of South
End, Boston_ (Boston and New York, 1898).
One of a number of similar studies viewing the city and its slums
from the standpoint of the settlement worker. (V, 2, 3; VI; VII, 5.)
Young, Erle Fiske. “The Social Base Map,” _Jour. App. Sociol._, IX
(January-February, 1925) 202–6.
A graphic device for the study of natural areas. (VII, 2.)
2. The neighborhood is typically the product of the village and the
small town. Its distinguishing characteristics are close proximity,
co-operation, intimate social contact, and strong feeling of social
consciousness. While in the modern city we still find people living in
close physical proximity to each other, there is neither close
co-operation nor intimate contact, acquaintanceship, and group
consciousness accompanying this spatial nearness. The neighborhood has
come to mean a small, homogeneous geographic section of the city, rather
than a self-sufficing, co-operative, and self-conscious group of the
population.
Daniels, John. _America via the Neighborhood_ (New York, 1920). (V, 3;
IX, 3.)
Felton, Ralph E. _Serving the Neighborhood_ (New York, 1920). (V, 3;
VI, 4.)
Jones, Thomas Jesse. _The Sociology of a New York City Block_,
“Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public
Law,” Vol. XXI (New York, 1904).
A minute cross-section of a congested urban block. (VI; VII, 2, 4,
5; VIII; IX, i, 3.)
McKenzie, R. D. _The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in Columbus,
Ohio_ (Chicago, 1923).
An excellent study of local groupings. (V, 1, 3; VII, 1, 2, 4, 5.)
Perry, Clarence A. “The Relation of Neighborhood Forces to the Larger
Community: Planning a City Neighborhood from the Social Point of
View,” _Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work_
(Chicago, 1924), pp. 415–21. (V, 2, 3; VII, 5.)
White, Bouck. _The Free City: A Book of Neighborhood_ (New York,
1919).
A fantastic, sentimental picture of what city life might become if
the author’s views of social organization were a reality. (V, 3, 5;
IX, 1, 2, 3.)
Williams, James M. _Our Rural Heritage; the Social Psychology of Rural
Development_ (New York, 1925).
A book which has as its subject matter the analysis of rural life in
New York State up to about the middle of the last century. Chapter
iii deals with the distinction between neighborhood and community.
(V, 3; X, 1, 2, 3.)
3. The local community and the neighborhood in a simple form of society
are synonymous terms. In the city, however, where specialization has
gone very far, the grouping of the population is more nearly by
occupation and income than by kinship or common tradition. Nevertheless,
in the large American city, in particular, we find many local
communities made up of immigrant groups which retain a more or less
strong sense of unity, expressing itself in close proximity and, what is
more important, in separate and common social institutions and highly
effective communal control. These communities may live in relative
isolation from each other or from the native communities. The location
of these communities is determined by competition, which can finally be
expressed in terms of land values and rentals. But these immigrant
communities, too, are in a constant process of change, as the economic
condition of the inhabitants changes or as the areas in which they are
located change.
Besant, Walter. _East London_ (London, 1912).
A remarkable account of an isolated community in a metropolis. (V,
1; VII, 2; IX, 1, 2, 3, 4.)
Buchner, Eberhard. _Sekten und Sektierer in Berlin_, Vol. VI in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1904).
An intimate account of the habitat of the many obscure religious
sects that congregate in local communities in the large city. (VII,
2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
Burke, Thomas. _Twinkletoes: A Tale of Chinatown_ (London, 1917).
A romantic account of London’s Chinatown. (VII, 2.)
Daniels, John. _In Freedom’s Birthplace_ (Boston and New York, 1914).
The Negro community in Boston. (VII, 2.)
Dreiser, Theodore. _The Color of a Great City_ (New York, 1923).
The various aspects of city life by an observer with keen insight
and rare literary genius. (IX, 2, 4)
Dunn, Arthur W. _The Community and the Citizen_ (Boston, 1909).
An elementary textbook in civics. Gives a simple presentation of the
concept community. (V, 3, 2; I, 4; II, 3; IV, 3; VI.)
Eldridge, Seba. _Problems of Community Life: An Outline of Applied
Sociology_ (New York, 1915).
A sociological textbook dealing with the various phases of community
organization and disorganization. (V, 2, 4, 5; VI; VII, 5; VIII; IX,
3.)
Hebble, Charles Ray, and Goodwin, Frank P. _The Citizens Book_
(Cincinnati, 1916).
Discusses the foundations of community life, its cultural
activities, business interests, governmental activities, and gives
suggestions on the future city. (VI, 7; IX, 3.)
Jenks, A. E. “Ethnic Census in Minneapolis,” _Amer. Jour. Sociol._,
XVII (1912), 776–82.
The ethnic groupings in a large city.
_Jewish Community of New York City: The Jewish Communal Register of
New York City_ (New York, 1917–18).
A collection of studies on the organization, size, distribution,
history, and activities of the New York Jewish Community. (VII, 2,
3, 4, 5; IX, 3, 4.)
Katcher, Leopold (pseudonym, “Spektator”). _Berliner Klubs_, Vol. XXV
in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
An inside view of club life in Berlin. (VI, 6; IX, 1, 2, 3, 4.)
Lucas, Edw. V. _The Friendly Town: A Little Book for the Urbane_ (New
York, 1906). (V, 1; IX, 2, 3.)
Maciver, R. M. _Community; a Sociological Study, Being an Attempt to
Set Out the Nature and Fundamental Laws of Social Life_ (London,
1917).
Distinguishes between natural areas and communities, showing how
occupational and cultural groupings enter into the political
process. (IV, 3; V, 1, 2, 4; VI, 7.)
Maurice, Arthur Bartlett. _The New York of the Novelists_ (New York,
1916).
The New York as seen through the eyes of literary men.
Park, Robert E., and Miller, H. A. _Old-World Traits Transplanted_
(New York, 1921).
A study of immigrant communities. (VII, 2, 5; IX, 3, 4.)
Sears, C. H. “The Clash of Contending Forces in Great Cities,”
_Biblical World_, XLVIII (October, 1916), 224–31. (VII, 5; IX, 1,
3.)
Symposium, “The Greatest Negro Community in the World,” _Survey
Graphic_, LIII (March 1, 1925), No. 11.
A collection of articles on the Negro community in Harlem, New York.
(VII, 2, 3; IX, 1, 3, 4; X, 1.)
Williams, Fred V. _The Hop-Heads: Personal Experiences among the Users
of “Dope” in the San Francisco Underworld_ (San Francisco, 1920).
(VII, 2; IX, 3, 4.)
4. The city may be graphically depicted in terms of a series of
concentric circles, representing the different zones or typical areas of
settlement. At the center we find the business district, where land
values are high. Surrounding this there is an area of deterioration,
where the slums tend to locate themselves. Then follows an area of
workmen’s homes, followed in turn by the middle-class apartment section,
and finally by the upper-class residential area. Land values, general
appearance, and function divide these areas off from each other. These
differences in structure and use get themselves incorporated in law in
the form of zoning ordinances. This is an attempt, in the face of the
growth of the city, to control the ecological forces that are at work.
Cheney, C. H. “Removing Social Barriers by Zoning,” _Survey_, XLIV
(May, 1922), 275–78. (V, 1, 5; VII, 2.)
Eberstadt, Rudolph. _Handbuch des Wohnungswesens und der
Wohnungsfrage_ (4th ed.; Jena, 1910).
An encyclopedic work on housing, city-zoning, and planning. (VI, 1,
2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; VII.)
Kern, Robert R. _The Supercity: A Planned Physical Equipment for City
Life_ (Washington, D.C., 1924).
A planned model city with co-operative services of many sorts, with
zoning as an important feature. (V, 5; VI.)
Wuttke, R. _Die deutschen Städte_ (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1904).
A collection of articles on various technical phases of city life.
Article 4, “Die Baupolizei,” by Oberbaukommissar Gruner, is a
discussion of the public regulation of buildings and the function of
zoning and building codes in the modern city. (VI; VII, 3; VII, 1,
2.)
In addition there are available reports of zoning commissions of the
various cities and numerous articles in magazines dealing with the
administrative aspects of city life, such as _The American City_, in
which digests, criticisms, and discussions of these zoning devices may
be found.
5. The needs of communal life impose upon the city a certain degree of
order which sometimes expresses itself in a city plan which is an
attempt to predict and to guide the physical structure of the city. The
older European cities appear more like haphazard, unplanned products of
individualistic enterprise than the American cities with their
checkerboard form. And yet, most European cities were built according to
some preconceived plan which attempted to take account of the needs of
the community and the limitations of the environment. There is a
tendency, however, for the city to run counter to the plan which was
laid out for it, as is seen, for instance, in the problems of
city-planning of the city of Washington. The fact is that the city is a
dynamic mechanism which cannot be controlled in advance unless the
conditions entering into its genesis and its growth are fully known.
City-planning, which has grown into a highly technical profession, is
coming to be more concerned with studying the problems of a changing
institution, with city growth, and the forces operating in city life
than with the creation of artistic schemes of city structure. On the one
hand the importance of devising a scheme of wholesome, orderly existence
in the city is being recognized, on the other hand, the limitations of
any attempt to make the city conform to an artificial plan impresses
itself upon the experience of the technicians engaged in this work.
Agache, Auburtin and Redont. _Comment reconstruire nos cités
destruites_, reviewed in _Scott. Geog. Mag._, XXXIII, 348–52, and
_Annales de Geog._, January, 1917, by F. Schrader.
A criticism of suggested plans for the reconstruction of cities in
the French devastated area. (III, 6.)
American Institute of Architects. _City-Planning Progress in the
United States_ (New York, 1917).
Bartlett, Dana W. _The Better City: A Sociological Study of a Modern
City_ (Los Angeles, 1907). (III, 6.)
_English Catalogue_, “International Cities and Town-Planning
Exhibition, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1923.”
A comprehensive summary of the town-planning movement. A work to be
consulted by all students of the subject. (II, 3; V, 4.)
Geddes, P. _Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town-Planning
Movement and the Study of Civics_ (London, 1915).
An introductory statement by the foremost authority in England. (II;
III; IV, 2; V, 4; VI, 3, 5, 6, 9; VII, 1, 2.)
Haverfield, F. J. _Ancient Town Planning_ (Oxford, 1913). (II, 1; III,
6.)
Hughes, W. R. _New Town: A Proposal in Agricultural, Industrial,
Educational, Civic, and Social Reconstruction_ (London, 1919).
Lewis, Nelson P. _The Planning of the Modern City: A Review of the
Principles Governing City-Planning_ (New York, 1916).
Mulvihill, F. J. “Distribution of Population Graphically Represented
as a Basis for City-Planning,” _American City_, XX (February,
1919), 159–61. (VII, 2.)
Purdom, C. B. _The Garden City_ (London, 1913). (IV, 6.)
Roberts, Kate L. _The City Beautiful: A Study of Town-Planning and
Municipal Art_ (New York, 1916). (VI, 3, 5, 6.)
Sennett, A. R. _Garden Cities in Theory and Practice_ (2 vols.;
London, 1905). (III, 6.)
Stote, A. “Ideal American City,” _McBride’s_, XCVII (April, 1916),
89–99.
Symposium. “Regional Planning,” _Survey Graphic_, May 1, 1925.
Contains a series of suggestive articles on various aspects of city
growth and city-planning. (V, 5; VII, 1, 2, 3; III, 6.)
Tout, T. F. _Medieval Town-Planning_ (London, 1907). (II, 2; III, 6.)
Triggs, H. Inigo. _Town Planning_ (London, 1909).
VI. THE CITY AS A PHYSICAL MECHANISM
The aggregation of large numbers of human beings within a restricted
area, as is represented by the modern city, makes possible, and at the
same time makes imperative, the communal effort to satisfy certain
essential needs of all the inhabitants. The manner in which these needs
are met has become institutionalized. The facilities which have been
created to meet these needs make up the physical structure of the city
as a social mechanism.
1. The need for uninterrupted water supply, fuel, and light have brought
it about that the means of satisfying these wants are either in the
hands of the city as a corporate body, or, if in private hands, are
controlled and regulated by the city government. These public utilities
are of interest to the sociologist only in so far as they have a bearing
on group life and call forth attitudes, sentiments, and behavior which
influences the group. These factors may have an important relation to
the ecological organization of the city, and may furnish indexes to the
selective and distributive processes which result in the grouping of the
population. The lighting of the city may have a direct bearing on the
crime of the city, the water supply, on the health, etc. The regulation
of public utilities may become issues at elections and call forth
factionalism, thus bringing into play the social groupings in the
community.
Fassett, Charles M. _Assets of the Ideal City_ (New York, 1922).
A brief statement of various structural aspects of the city, with a
bibliography. (V, 4, 5; VI.)
Grahn, E. “Die städtischen Wasserwerke,” in Wuttke, _Die Deutschen
Städte_ (Leipzig, 1904), pp. 301–44.
A statement of the water-supply problem in German cities.
Höffner, C. “Die Gaswerke,” in Wuttke, _Die Deutschen Städte_
(Leipzig, 1904), pp. 198–238.
A statement of the evolution and present status of the technique of
gas supply in the modern city.
Jephson, H. L. _The Sanitary Evolution of London_ (London, 1907).
(VI.)
Kübler, Wilhelm. “Über städtische Elektrizitätswerke,” in Wuttke, _Die
Deutschen Städte_, pp. 239–300.
An account of the municipal electricity works in German cities.
Most books on the modern city contain a chapter on public utilities, and
a great many technical journals and municipal reports are accessible
giving detailed accounts of various aspects of both the technical, the
administrative, and the functional sides of the public utility
situation.
2. One of the most characteristic features of city life is the high
degree of intercommunication. This is made possible by technical
devices, such as the telephone, street cars, and the automobile. While
the sociologist has no intrinsic interest in these technical devices,
they become an object of study as factors entering, for instance, into
the problem of mobility of the city population.
D’Avenel, G. le Vicomte. _Le Mécanisme de la Vie moderne_ (3 vols.;
Paris, 1922).
Among many other aspects of the city as a physical mechanism, has a
chapter on publicity, urban transportation, and communication. This
work has gone through many editions and is written in a popular
style. (VI; IX, 1.)
Harris, Emerson Pitt. _The Community Newspaper_ (New York, 1923). (IX,
3.)
Kingsbury, J. E. _The Telephone and Telephone Exchanges: Their
Invention and Development_ (London and New York, 1915).
Lewis, H. M., and Goodrich, E. P. _Highway Traffic in New York and Its
Environs_ (New York, 1924).
The results of a study embodied in a report for the Committee on a
Regional Plan for New York and its Environs. (IV, 2; V, 4, 5; VI, 2;
VII, 2, 4.)
Park, Robert E. _The Immigrant Press and Its Control_ (New York,
1922).
A study of the organization and the influence of the press in the
immigrant communities of the large city (IX, 3.)
The municipal transportation and communication question has developed a
large literature which is to be found in many separate works on the
telephone, telegraph, radio, street-car systems, busses, automobile,
mail service, newspaper, and railways as well as in municipal reports,
technical and administrative journals, and textbooks on the city.
3. The existence of streets, pavement, alleys, sewers, and other devices
of the same sort that characterize the city as a physical mechanism
influence the behavior of the person and the group, and as such are of
interest to the sociologist.
Hirschfeld, Magnus. _Die Gurgel Berlins_, Vol. XLI in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A study of the main street of Berlin from the standpoint of its
effect on the individual and as a revelation of city life. (VI, 2;
VII, 2, 4.)
Quaife, Milo Milton. _Chicago’s Highways, Old and New_ (Chicago,
1923).
The changes wrought in the character of the city as viewed from the
point of view of the streets. (VI, 2; VII, 1, 2.)
Whipple, G. C. “Economical and Sanitary Problems of American Cities,”
_American City_ (February, 1921), p. 112. (VI.)
4. The many devices in the realm of public safety and welfare which are
the characteristic product of the city, such as fire department, police,
health inspection, and the manifold activities of the social agencies
concern the sociologist as typical expressions of group life in the city
environment.
Addams, Jane. _Twenty Years at Hull House; With Autobiographical
Notes_ (New York, 1910).
City life as seen in a typical social agency—the social settlement.
(V, 2, 3; VII, 5.)
Assessor (pseudonym). _Die Berliner Polizei_, Vol. XXXIV in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A personal account of the police force of the modern city. (IX, 1.)
Anonymous. _Berliner Gerichte_, Vol. XXIV in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
Daily experiences in a typical city court.
Carbaugh, H. C. _Human Welfare Work in Chicago_ (Chicago, 1917).
A brief account of the various specialized social agencies operating
in the large city. (VII, 5; IX, 1.)
Fitzpatrick, Edward A. _Interrelationships of Hospital and Community_,
reprint from _Modern Hospital_, February, 1925. Pamphlet.
A sketch of the possible place and nature of a health agency in a
modern urban community.
Fosdick, Raymond, and Associates. _Criminal Justice in Cleveland_,
directed and edited by Roscoe Pound and Felix Frankfurter
(Cleveland, 1922). (VI, 7.)
Fosdick, Raymond B. _European Police Systems_ (New York, 1915).
——. _American Police Systems_ (New York, 1920).
Harrison, Shelby M. _Public Employment Offices; Their Purpose,
Structure, and Method_ (New York, 1924). (IX, 1.)
Richmond, Mary E. _The Good Neighbor in the Modern City_ (Philadelphia
and London, 1913).
Suggestions to the layman about the social agencies and their work
in the large modern city. (V, 2; VII, 5.)
Wilson, Warren H. _The Evolution of the Country Community: A Study in
Religious Sociology_ (Boston, New York, Chicago, 1912).
Gives types of organizations and institutions. (V, 3; X, 2.)
In almost every large city the number of social agencies and public
institutions is so large and their work so varied that directories of
these agencies have been made available. In addition, reports and
surveys of many cities are at hand, and the periodical literature is
tremendous.
5. The cultural needs of the community find expression in the city in
the form of schools, theaters, museums, parks, monuments, and other
public enterprises. They exert an influence extending beyond the
boundaries of the city itself, and may be regarded as agencies for the
definition of the person’s wishes. They are indicative of the level of
social life which the community has achieved.
Carroll, Charles E. _The Community Survey in Relation to Church
Efficiency_ (New York, 1915).
Typical of studies bearing on the place of religious and cultural
agencies in city life. (X, 2.)
For a basic statement of the problem of education in the modern
city, compare Dewey, John, _Democracy and Education_ (New York,
1916).
Moore, E. C. “Provision for the Education of the City Child,” _School
and Society_, III (February 19, 1916), 265–72.
Phelan, J. J. _Motion Pictures as a Phase of Commercialized Amusement
in Toledo, Ohio_ (Toledo, Ohio, 1919).
Tews, Johannes. _Berliner Lehrer_, Vol. XX in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
An intimate study of a professional group in the large city. (IX,
1.)
Trawick, Arcadius McSwain. _The City Church and Its Social Mission_
(New York, 1913).
Turszinsky, Walter. _Berliner Theater_, Vol. XXIX of “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905). (III, 4; V, 1; VI, 6.)
Ward, Edward J. _The Social Center_ (New York and London, 1915). (VI,
6; VII, 5.)
6. The leisure-time activities which the city produces are so intimately
connected with the life of the people that they furnish clues as to the
pathology or disorganization typical of city life. The dance hall, the
movie, the amusement park, the back-yard or vacant lot improvised
playground, and the many other forms of public, commercialized, or
improvised recreation facilities are phases of group life which cannot
escape the Sociologist.
Arndt, Arno. _Berliner Sport_, Vol. X in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
Describes various specialized, institutionalized, and commercialized
forms of sport life in Berlin. (IX, 2, 4.)
Bowman, LeRoy E., and Lambin, Maria Ward. “Evidences of Social
Relations as Seen in Types of New York City Dance Halls,” _Jour.
Social Forces_, III (January, 1925), 286–91. (IX, 2, 3, 4.)
Buchner, Eberhard. _Berliner Variétés und Tingeltangel_, Vol. XXII in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Analysis of various types of the variété, cabaret, and burlesque,
and the development of these institutions in the city. (IX, 1, 3,
4.)
Günther, Viktor. _Petersbourg s’amuse_, Vol. XXXII in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The recreational activities of the Russian capital. (III, 4; V, 1;
IX, 2.)
Herschmann, Otto. _Wiener Sport_, Vol. XII in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
Describes the recreational activities of the dominant population
groups in Vienna. (IX, 4.)
Ostwald, H. O. A. _Berliner Kaffeehäuser_, Vol. VII in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Human behavior in the coffee houses of Berlin. (IX, 1, 4.)
——. _Berliner Tanzlokale_, Vol. IV in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin,
1905).
Intimate glimpses of the diverse types of dance halls and their
habitués. (V, 2, 3; VII, 5; IX, 1, 4.)
Phelan, John J. _Pool, Billiards, and Bowling Alleys as a Phase of
Commercialized Amusement in Toledo_ (Toledo, 1919). (VII, 5)
Rhodes, H. “City Summers,” _Harper’s_, CXXXI (June, 1915), 2–15.
The seasonal aspects of city recreation.
7. The city government shows, perhaps more clearly than many other
phases of city life, the extent to which the city has revolutionized
social life and has changed the habits and attitudes of the people. In
the city government we can see the various local, national, cultural,
and interest groups attempting to exert their influence. In the city we
see the political boss as a typical product of an anomalous situation.
Here we find such phenomena as non-voting, the clash between local and
occupational groups, and many other disharmonies between the needs of
the people and the institutions that are present to satisfy them.
Bruere, Henry. _The New City Government_ (New York, 1913).
A study of the commission form of government in cities.
Capes, William Parr. _The Modern City and Its Government_ (New York,
1922).
Clerk (pseudonym). _Berliner Beamte_, Vol. XLIII in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A study of the types of civil servants developed by modern city
government. (IX, 1, 2, 4.)
Cleveland, Frederick A. _Chapters on Municipal Administration and
Accounting_ (New York, 1909 and 1915).
Cummin, G. C. “Will the City-Manager Form of Government Fit All
Cities—Large Cities—Machine-Controlled Cities?” _National
Municipal Rev._, VII (May, 1918), 276–81.
Ely, Richard T. _The Coming City_ (New York, 1902).
An address taking up some of the problems connected with the
government, public interest in administration, and corruption in the
modern American city. (VII, 5.)
Gilbert, Arthur Benson. _American Cities: Their Methods of Business_
(New York, 1918).
Goodnow, Frank J. _City Government in the United States_ (New York,
1904 and 1909).
Hill, Howard C. _Community Life and Civic Problems_ (New York, 1922).
An elementary textbook for community civics classes. (V, 3; VI.)
McKenzie, R. D. “Community Forces: A Study of the Non-Partisan
Municipal Elections in Seattle,” _Journal of Social Forces_
(January, March, May, 1924).
A study of the relation between local groupings and political
attitudes. (IV, 3; V, 1, 2, 3; VII, 5; IX, 3.)
Munro, W. B. _Municipal Government and Administration_ (New York,
1923). (II, 3; IV, 3; VII, 1.)
——. _The Government of American Cities_ (3d ed.; New York, 1921).
A standard textbook on city government in the United States. By the
same author, a companion volume, _The Government of European
Cities_. (VI, 7; IV, 3.)
Odum, Howard W. _Community and Government: A Manual of Discussion and
Study of the Newer Ideals of Citizenship_ (Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, 1921).
Steffens, Lincoln. _The Shame of the Cities_ (New York, 1907).
An exposure of corruption in city governments. (VII, 5.)
Toulmin, Harry A. _The City Manager: A New Profession_ (New York,
1915). (IX, 1.)
Weber, G. A. _Organized Efforts for the Improvement of Methods of
Administration in the United States_ (New York and London, 1919).
Weyl, Walter E. “The Brand of the City,” _Harper’s_, CXXX (April,
1915), 769–75.
Wilcox, Delos F. _Great Cities in America: Their Problems and Their
Government_ (New York, 1910). (IV, 3; VI; VII, 1, 5.)
Zueblin, Charles. _A Decade of Civic Development_ (Chicago, 1905).
A discussion of the state of American city civilization at the
beginning of the twentieth century. (V, 4, 5; VI; VII, 1; VIII, 1.)
8. The complexity, specialization, and dependence of the city are seen
clearly in the methods by which the city gets its food supply and other
vital necessities for the existence of the population. The food trains,
milk trains, cattle trains, the miles of refrigerator cars and coal cars
that daily enter the large city, the warehouses and the stores, the
countless delivery wagons that line the streets—all these are evidence
of what a tremendously complex and efficient organization has grown up
to meet the urgent wants, the desires for subsistence and for luxury of
our millions of city-dwellers. Here too we sometimes see examples of
what anxiety and what calamity might result from the slightest
interruption or dislocation in the methods of supplying the city with
these varied specialties. The department store and the chain store are
characteristic city institutions, corresponding to the grouping of the
city population.
Colze, Leo. _Berliner Warenhäuser_, Vol. XLVII in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Berlin stores. (III, 4; IV, 1; V, 1; IX, 1.)
Loeb, Moritz. _Berliner Konfektionen_, Vol. XV in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Ready-made clothing establishments. (V, 1, 4; IX, 1.)
Parker, Horatio Newton. _City Milk Supply_ (New York, 1917). (IV, 1.)
Shideler, E. H. “The Business Center as an Institution,” _Jour. Appl.
Sociol._, IX (March, April, 1925), 269–75.
An outline of the local trade center in the urban community and its
significance in city life. (IV, 1; V, 1, 2, 3; VII, 1, 2.)
9. One of the latest phases of city development is the direct result of
the invention of a new technique of building. Steel construction has
made possible the skyscraper, the elevated railroad, and the subway, and
thus introduced a new dimension into city growth. This new technique has
made possible a density, per unit of ground surface, which has given the
city an entirely new complexion. The full effects of this new invention
are still not fully known.
Holborn, I. B. S. “The City: The Outer Expression of an Inner Self,”
_Art World_, III (December, 1917), 217–21. (III, 1; IX, 2.)
Mumford, Lewis. _Sticks and Stones: A Study of American Civilization_
(New York, 1925).
An evaluation and critique of the architectural aspects of American
cities and their cultural significance. (V, 5; VI, 9; X, 2.)
Nichols, C. M. (editor). _Studies on Building-Height Limitations in
Large Cities_ (Chicago, 1923).
Written from the point of view of the real-estate profession.
Schumacher, Fritz. “Architektonische Aufgaben der Städte,” in Wuttke,
_Die Deutschen Städte_, pp. 47–66.
Discussion of the changing needs and methods in urban construction.
The literature on the significance of the steel-construction technique
is still very small. The professional engineers and architects have
contributed some to their journals, but the interpretation of their
contributions is still to be made.
10. Land values are the chief determining influence in the segregation
of local areas and in the determination of the uses to which an area is
to be put. Land values also determine more specifically the type of
building that is to be erected in a given area—whether it shall be a
tenement house, an office building, a factory, or a single dwelling—what
buildings shall be razed, and what buildings are to be repaired. The
technique of determining city land values has developed into a highly
specialized and well-paid profession. Land values are so potent a
selective factor that the human ecologist will find in them a very
accurate index to many phases of city life.
Aronovici, Carol. _Housing and the Housing Problem_ (Chicago, 1921).
A study of the relation between rent, income, and housing.
Arner, G. B. L. “Urban Land Economics,” in volume, _Urban Land
Economics_, Institute for Research in Land Economics (Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 1922).
Gives a summary of land values in New York City and an outline of
the subject. (VII, 1, 2.)
George, W. L. _Labor and Housing at Port Sunlight_ (London, 1909).
(III, 4, 6; V, 4, 5; IX, 1.)
“Housing and Town Planning,” _Ann. Amer. Acad._, LI (January, 1914),
1–264.
An excellent collection of authoritative articles on housing, city
planning, city land values, transportation, and government. (III, 6;
IV, 1, 2, 3; V; VII; VIII.)
_Hull House Maps and Papers_ (New York, 1895).
A presentation of nationalities and wages in a congested district of
Chicago together with comments and essays on problems growing out of
the social conditions. (VII, 2, 3, 4, 5; IX, 3.)
Hunter, Robert. _Tenement Conditions in Chicago: Report by the
Investigating Committee of the City Homes Association_ (Chicago,
1901). (VII, 5.)
Hurd, Richard M. _Principles of City Land Values_ (New York, 1924).
Land valuation on the basis of city growth. Shows that the coming of
the automobile, making available large tracts for residential
purposes, the radio, and other devices for intercommunication have
not materially changed the general principles of city growth.
Contains maps and photographs showing foot-front values for various
cities and land utilization. (VII, 1, 4; VI, 2.)
Morehouse, E. W., and Ely, R. T. _Elements of Land Economics_ (New
York, 1924).
An introduction to land valuation. Chapter vi, on urban land
utilization. (VII, 1, 2; X, 2.)
McMichael, Stanley L., and Bingham, Robert F. _City Growth and Values_
(Cleveland, 1923).
An authoritative statement. (VII, 1.)
Olcott, George C. _Olcott’s Land Value Maps_ (annually, Chicago,
1909–25).
Valuations of Chicago real estate.
Pratt, Edward Ewing. _Industrial Causes of Congestion of Population in
New York City_ (New York, 1911).
Contains an excellent bibliography. (III, 4; V, 1, 2, 4, 5; VI, 2,
3; VII, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.)
Reeve, Sidney A. “Congestion in Cities,” _Geog. Rev._, III (1917),
278–93.
Regards congestion as a growing menace to public health and social
stability, and analyzes the causes and suggests remedies. (V, 4, 5;
VI; VII, 1, 2, 5; VIII 1.)
Riis, Jacob A. _How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements
of New York_ (New York, 1890 and 1914).
This together with his other book, _The Battle with the Slum_ (New
York, 1892), has done much to call public attention to the tenement
problem of the large American city and to invite remedial
legislation. (V, 1, 2, 4, 5; VII, 1, 2, 5.)
Schumacher, F. “Probleme der Grossstadt,” _Deutsche Rundschau für
Geog._, CXXC (July 5, 1919), 66–81, 262–85, 416–29. (V; VI; VII;
VIII.)
Smythe, William Ellsworth. _City Homes on Country Lanes: Philosophy
and Practice of the Home-in-a-Garden_ (New York, 1921). (V, 5.)
Stella, A. “_The Effects of Urban Congestion on Italian Women and
Children_,” _Medical Record_, LXXIII (New York, 1908), 722–32. (V,
1, 3; VIII, 1.)
Südekum, Albert. _Grossstädtisches Wohnungselend_, Vol. XLV in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A description of a typical tenement area in the European city and
its effects on human behavior. (VII, 5; IX, 3.)
Veiller, Lawrence. “The Housing Problem in America,” _Ann. Amer.
Academy_, XXV (1905), 248–75.
In this article, as well as in his later works (for instance,
_Housing Reform_ (New York, 1910)), the writer, who has been
regarded as one of the foremost housing students in America,
outlines some of the social consequences of bad housing in the
modern city and questions the adequacy of democratic form of
government in the slum areas. (V; IX, 3.)
VII. THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
The growth of the city has been described as the outstanding
characteristic of modern civilization. The sociologist is interested in
the processes underlying this phenomenon.
1. One of the most obvious phases of this growth is the addition in
numbers and the expansion in area of the city. This has been accurately
measured by the statisticians and geographers. The typical process of
expansion is from the core of the city outward toward the periphery.
While ample materials for such studies of processes exist, their
interpretation and analysis is yet to be undertaken. In the process of
growth the city tends to become empty, as concerns habitations, at the
center. This phenomenon is referred to as “city-building.”
Ballard, W. J. “Our Twenty-nine Largest Cities, _Jour. Educ._, XXCIII
(April 27, 1916), 468.
Bassett, E. M. “Distribution of Population in Cities,” _American
City_, XIII (July, 1915), 7–8.
Bernhard, H. “Die Entvölkerung des Landes,” _Deutsche Rundschau für
Geog._, XXXVII (1914–15), 563–67.
Of twenty-one countries examined, all showed an increase in urban
population between 1880–1910, in most cases far exceeding the
natural increase in population, and a decrease in percentage of
rural population. (VII, 3; VIII, 1; X, 2.)
Brown, Robert M. “City Growth and City Advertising” (Abstract of paper
read at 1921 Conference of American Geographers), _Ann. Assoc.
Amer. Geog._, XII (1922), 155.
A discussion of the causes of growth of American cities with an
analysis of the one hundred cities showing the largest gains since
1910. Classification as to type of advertising campaigns used.
Bushee, F. A. “The Growth of Population of Boston,” _Pub. Amer.
Statistical Assoc._, VI (1899), 239–74. (VIII, 3.)
_City-Building: A Citation of Methods in Use in More Than One Hundred
Cities for the Solution of Important Problems in the Progressive
Growth of the American Municipality_ (Cincinnati, 1913). (V, 4, 5;
VI; VII, 5.)
“City Growth by Dead Reckoning,” _Literary Digest_, XXCII (August 9,
1924), 12.
Fawcett, C. B. “British Conurbations in 1921,” _Sociol. Rev._, XIV
(April, 1922), 111–22.
Feather, W. A. “Cities That Make Good,” _Forum_, LVII (May, 1917),
623–28.
Gregory, W. M. “Growth of the Cities of Washington,” _Jour. Geog._,
XIV (May, 1916), 348–53. (VII, 3.)
“How Big Should a City Be?” _Literary Digest_, LI (August 28, 1915),
399–400.
James, Edmund J. “The Growth of Great Cities,” _Ann. Amer. Academy_,
XIII (1899), 1–30. (VII, 2, 3.)
Traces the growth of the cities and the genesis of the problems
connected with it.
Jefferson, Mark. “Great Cities of the United States in 1920,” _Geog.
Rev._, XI (July, 1921), 437–41.
Martell, P. “Die Bevölkerungsentwicklung der Stadt Berlin,”
_Allgemeines Statistisches Archiv_, X (1917), 207–15. (VII, 3;
VIII, 1.)
Püschel, Alfred. _Das Anwachsen der Deutschen Städte in der Zeit der
mittelalterlichen Kolonialbewegung_ (Berlin, 1910).
Contains fifteen city plans. Traces the growth of cities in the
medieval period and the changes in city structure. (II, 2; VII, 2.)
Ridgley, D. C. “Sixty-eight Cities of the United States in 1920,”
_Jour. Geog._, XX (February, 1921), 75–79.
One of a series of postcensus-report analyses of the growth of the
urban population.
Roth, Lawrence V. “The Growth of American Cities,” _Geog. Rev._, V
(May, 1918), 384–98.
Holds that the growth of the cities of the United States has passed
through four periods, each of which in its turn was the response to
the commercial and industrial development of a new geographical
region. Distinguishes between site and situation in city growth, and
is here concerned mainly with general situation as a contributory
influence. (III, 2, 3, 4.)
Sedlaczek. “Die Bevölkerungszunahme der Grossstädte im XIX Jahrhundert
und deren Ursachen,” _Report of the Eighth International Congress
of Hygiene and Demography_ (Budapest, 1894). (VII, 3; VIII, 1; X,
1.)
United States Bureau of the Census. _A Century of Population Growth_
(Washington, 1909). (VII, 3; VIII; X, 2.)
United States Bureau of the Census. _Population: Fourteenth Census of
the United States_ (3 vols.; Washington, 1920). (VII, 3; VIII, 1,
2; IX, 1; X, 2.)
Van Cleef, E. “How Big Is Your Town?” _American City_, XVII (November,
1917), 471–73.
Weber, Adna Ferrin. _The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century: A
Study in Statistics_, “Columbia University Studies in History,
Economics, and Public Law” (New York, 1899).
Besides being the most important book on the growth of the city from
a statistical standpoint, it contains many other features of great
value to the student of the city, especially of the influence of the
urban environment on the population. (VII, 2, 3; VIII.)
“Why Cities Grow,” _Literary Digest_, LVIII (August 17, 1918), 22–23.
Zahn, F. “Die Volkszählung von 1900 und die Grossstadtfrage,”
_Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie und Statistik_, XXCI (1903),
191–215. (VII, 3.)
2. Every addition in numbers and expansion of the city area is
accompanied by the redistribution and re-allocation of the whole
population. Some elements are given a new locus, while others shift but
little as a result of the stimulus incident to the arrival of newcomers.
This redistribution of the city population has become a constantly
operating process in view of the constant growth of the city either
through natural increase of the population or through migration from
without.
Allison, Thomas W. “Population Movements in Chicago,” _Jour. of Social
Forces_, II (May, 1924), 529–33. (V, 1, 3; VII, 4.)
Aurousseau, M. “Distribution of Population: A Constructive Problem,”
_Geog. Rev._, XI (October, 1921), 568–75.
“Density concerns itself with the number of people per unit of area;
distribution deals with the comparative study of density from area
to area; and arrangement considers the way in which people are
grouped. Grouping is the fundamental concept....” (I, 1; IV, 1; X,
2.)
Bushee, F. A. “Ethnic Factors in the Population of Boston,” _Pub.
Amer. Statistical Assoc._, Vol. IV, No. 2, pp. 307–477. (V, 1, 2,
3.)
Douglas, H. Paul. _The Suburban Trend_ (New York, 1925).
Traces the movement toward decentralization in the larger American
urban communities. (VII, 2, 1, 4; IV, 2; III, 5; V, 4.)
Hirschfeld, Magnus. _Berlins drittes Geschlecht_, Vol. III in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A study of the homosexuals in Berlin as a sample of the grouping of
population in the large city. (V, 1, 3; VII, 5.)
Hooker, G. E. “City-Planning and Political Areas,” _Nat. Mun. Rev._,
VI (May, 1917), 337–45. (IV, 3; V, 1, 4, 5; VI, 7.)
The London Society. _The London of the Future_ (New York and London,
1921).
An excellent view of the processes bringing about the allocation of
the population and the trend of growth of the city from the core
pressing outward toward the periphery. (II, 3; III, 1, 5, 6; IV; V;
VI; VII; VIII, 1, 2, 3; IX, 1, 2, 3, 4.)
Ripley, W. Z. “Racial Geography of Europe,” _Popular Science Monthly_,
LII (1898), 591–608; XIV, “Urban Problems.” See also his “Races of
Europe,” chap. xx, on “Ethnic Stratification and Urban Selection.”
(V, 3.)
Salten, Felix. _Wiener Adel_, Vol. XIV in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
Shows the local grouping of the nobility in the large European city.
(IX, 4.)
Schmid, Herman. _City bildung und Bevölkerungsverteilung in
Grossstädten: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des modernen
Städtewesens_ (München, 1909).
Shows that the normal process of growth of the city is by emptying
at the center, and redistributing its population around the
periphery. (Compare Mark Jefferson, “The Anthropography of Some
Great Cities: A Study in Distribution of Population,” _Bull. Amer.
Geog. Soc._, XLI (1909), 537–66. (VII, 4, 5.))
Williams, James M. _An American Town: A Sociological Study_ (New York,
1906).
Primarily an analysis of an American community from a
socio-psychological standpoint. Contains some interesting facts on
growth and distribution of population. (III, 5; V, 1, 2, 3; IX, 1,
3.)
Winter, Max. _Im unterirdischen Wien_, Vol. XIII in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A description of Vienna, showing the processes of segregation,
allocation, and communication at work in the city population. (V, 1;
VI, 4, 6; VII, 5; IX, 3, 4.)
3. During the latter part of the nineteenth century the expressions,
“the flight from the country,” and “the drift to the city” began to be
heard. The rapid increase in population of the cities was found to be
due not to natural increase, i.e., excess of births over deaths, but to
migration from the surrounding rural area. In America the rapid increase
in the size of the cities was due chiefly to an increasing stream of
European immigrants who avoided the farm but were attracted to the urban
environment. Population statisticians have been alert to discover
whether this process is continuing or whether a change is taking place.
Improvements in rural life and conscious efforts to control the movement
of population have been observed as to their possible effect on the
rural-urban population equilibrium.
Ashby, A. W. “Population and the Land,” _Edinburgh Rev._, CCXXIV
(1916), 321–39. (X, 1, 2.)
Ballod, C. “Sterblichkeit und Fortpflanzung der Stadtbevölkerung,”
_Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie und Statistik_, XXXIII (1909),
521–41. (VIII, 1, 3.)
Bauer, L. _Der Zug nach der Stadt_ (Stuttgart, 1904). Reviewed in
_Archiv f. Rassen u. Gesellschaftsbiologie_, II, 300. (VII, 1.)
Beusch, P. _Wanderungen und Stadtkultur: eine bevolkerungspolitische
und sozialethische Studie_ (München-Gladbach, 1916).
Böckh, R. “Der Anteil der örtlichen Bewegung an der Zunahme der
Bevölkerung der Grossstädte,” _Congress Intern. d’Hygiène et de
Démographie_ (Budapest, 1894). (VII, 1.)
Bowley, A. L. “Births and Population in Great Britain,” _Econ. Jour._,
XXXIV (June, 1924), 188–92. (VII, 1; VIII, 1.)
Bryce, P. H. “Effects upon Public Health and Natural Prosperity from
Rural Depopulation and Abnormal Increase of Cities,” _Amer. Jour.
Public Health_, New York, V, 48–56. (VIII; X, 1, 2.)
Cacheux, E. “Influence des grandes villes sur la dépopulation,” _Rev.
Philanthrop._ Paris, XXXVII (1916), 513–18. (VIII; X, 1.)
Dickerman, G. S. “The Drift to the Cities,” _Atlantic Monthly_, CXI
(1913), 349–53. (IX, 2; X, 1, 2.)
Dittmann, P. _Die Bevölkerungsbewegung der deutschen Grossstädte seit
der Gründung des deutschen Reiches_ (Bamberg, 1912). (VII, 1.)
Groves, E. R. “Urban Complex: A Study of the Psychological Aspects of
the Urban Drift,” _Sociol. Rev._, XII (1920), 73–81. (IX, 2; X,
2.)
Hecke, W. “Volksvermehrung, Binnenwanderung, und Umgangssprache in den
österreichischen Alpenländern und Südländern,” _Statist.
Monatsschr._, XXXIX (1913), 323–92. (VIII, 1. 3; X, 2.)
Hoaglund, H. E. “The Movement of Rural Population in Illinois,” _Jour.
Pol. Econ._, XX (1912), 913–27.
Mayr, G. von. _Die Bevölkerung der Grossstädte_, in “Die Grossstadt”
(Dresden, 1903).
One of the best statements of the problem. (VII, 1, 2; VIII, 1, 2,
3.)
Prinzing, Dr. F. “Die Bevölkerungsentwicklung Stockholms, 1721–1920,”
_Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie und Statistik_, XLVII (1924),
87–93.
An excellent case study of the situation in a modern European city.
(VII, 1; X, 1, 2.)
——. “Einheimische und Zugezogene in den Grossstädten,” _Zeitschr. für
Sozialwiss._, VII (Berlin, 1904), 660–67.
Ravenstein, E. G. “The Laws of Migration,” _Jour. Royal Statist.
Soc._, XLVIII (1885), 167–227. (X, 2.)
Spencer, A. G. “Changing Population of Our Large Cities,”
_Kindergarten Primary Mag._, XXIII (1910), 65–71.
Steinhart, A. _Untersuchung zur Gebürtigkeit der deutschen
Grossstadtbevölkerung, Entwicklung, und Ursachen_, “Rechts und
Staatswissenschaftliche Studien,” Heft 45 (Berlin, 1912). (VIII,
1; X, 2.)
Voss, W. “Städtische Kleinsiedlung,” _Archiv für exacte
Wirtschaftsforschung_, IX (1919), 377–412.
Weisstein, G. “Sind die Städte wirklich Menschenverzehrer?” _Deutsche
Städte Ztg._ (1905), pp. 153–54.
4. The mobility of a city population incident to city growth is
reflected in the increased number of contacts, changes of movement,
changes in appearance, and atmosphere of specific areas due to
succession of population groups, and in differences in land values.
Mobility implies not mere movement, but fresh stimulation, an increase
in number and intensity of stimulants, and a tendency to respond more
readily to new stimulation. The process by which the city absorbs and
incorporates its own offspring or foreign elements into its life, and
what becomes of them, may be referred to as the metabolism of city life.
Mobility is an index of metabolism.
Bercovici, Konrad. _Around the World in New York_ (New York, 1924).
Discusses the local communities and the sifting process in the large
city. (VII, 1, 2; IX, 3; V, 1, 2, 3.)
Digby, E. “The Extinction of the Londoner,” _Contemp. Rev._, London,
XXCVI (1904), 115–26. (VII, 2, 3; VIII, 1; IX, 2, 3.)
Herzfeld, Elsa G. _Family Monographs; The History of Twenty-four
Families Living in the Middle West Side of New York City_ (New
York, 1905).
Examples of extreme mobility (tendency to migrate) in the tenement
district. (VII, 5.)
Meuriot, P. “Les Migrations internes dans quelques grandes villes,”
_Jour. Soc. Stat._, Paris, L (1909), 390. (V, 1; VII, 2.)
Prinzing, F. “Die Bevölkerungsbewegung in Paris und Berlin,”
_Zeitschr. für Soziale Medizin_, Leipzig, III (1908), 99–120.
Stephany, H. “Der Einfluss des Berufes und der Sozialstellung auf die
Bevölkerungsbewegung der Grossstädte nachgewiesen an Königsberg i.
_Pr._,” _Königsb. Statist._, No. 13, 1912. (VII, 2, 3.)
Weleminsky, F. “Über Akklimatisation in Grossstädten,” _Archiv für
Hygiene_, XXXVI (1899), 66–126. (VII, 3, 5; VIII, 1.)
Woods, Robert A. _Americans in Process: A Settlement Study, North- and
West-End Boston_ (Boston, 1902). (VII, 2; V, 3; IX, 3.)
Typical of a number of settlement studies giving a view of the
effect of the city on its foreign population.
5. City growth may be thought of as a process of disorganization and
reorganization. Growth always involves these processes to some extent,
but when the city grows rapidly we see the disorganization assuming
proportions which may be regarded as pathological. Crime, suicide,
divorce, are some of the behavior problems in which social
disorganization, when viewed from the personal side, expresses itself.
The disappearance of the neighborhood and the local community with its
personal forms of control is one of the immediate causal elements in
this process.
Addams, Jane. _The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets_ (New York,
1909). (V, 1, 2, 3; IX, 3; X, 2.)
Bader, Emil. _Wiener Verbrecher_, Vol. XVI, “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905). (VI, 4; VII, 5; IX, 4.)
Bonne, G. “Über die Notwendigkeit einer systematischen
Dezentralisation unserer Grossstädte in hygienischer, sozialer,
und volkswirtschaftlicher Beziehung,” _Monatschr. für soz. Med._,
I (Jena, 1904), 369, 425, 490. (V, 5; VIII.)
Buschan, G. H. _Geschlecht und Verbrechen_, Vol. XLVIII, “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Some observations on the natural history of the city population.
Very fragmentary. (VIII, 2; IX, 3, 4.)
Chalmers, Thomas. _The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns_
(Glasgow, 1918). (IV, 5; VII; VIII, 1, 4.)
Classen, W. F. _Grossstadt Heimat: Beobachtungen zur Naturgeschichte
des Grossstadtvolkes_ (Hamburg, 1906).
Classen, W. _Das stadtegeborene Geschlecht und seine Zukunft_
(Leipzig, 1914).
Henderson, C. R. “Industry and City Life and the Family,” _Amer. Jour.
Sociol._, XIV, 668. (VIII, 1, 2, 3.)
Lasson, Alfred. _Gefährdete und verwahrloste Jugend_, Vol. XLIX,
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The dangers confronting youth in the city and juvenile delinquency.
(IX, 4.)
Marcuse, Max. _Uneheliche Mütter_, Vol. XXVII in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905). (VIII, 1, 3; IX, 3.)
Illegitimacy in Berlin. Types of unmarried mothers.
Ostwald, H. O. A. _Das Berliner Spielertum_, Vol. XXXV in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905). (VI, 6; IX, 4.)
Gambling in the city.
——. _Zuhältertum in Berlin_, Vol. V, “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin,
1905). Panderers and their victims in the city. (IX, 1, 4.)
Schuchard, Ernst. _Sechs Monate Arbeitshaus_, Vol. XXXIII in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Six months’ experiences in the workhouse of the city, where the
opportunity to observe social disorganization is great. (VI, 4; IX,
3, 4.)
Sears, Charles H. _The Redemption of the City_ (Philadelphia, 1911).
Sharp, Geo. W. _City Life and Its Amelioration_ (Boston, 1915).
Steiner, Jesse F. “Theories of Community Organization,” _Jour. Social
Forces_, III (November, 1924), 30–37. (V; VIII, 3.)
——. “A Critique of the Community Movement,” _Jour. App. Sociol._, IX
(November-December, 1924), 108.
Problems of social control in relation to community organization and
disorganization. (V; VIII, 3.)
Stelze, Charles. _Christianity’s Storm Center: A Study of the Modern
City_ (New York and Chicago, 1907).
Strong, Josiah. _The Challenge of the City_ (New York, 1907).
From a religious and moral standpoint. (X, 1, 2.)
Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, Florian. _The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America_, Vol. V, “Organization and Disorganization in
America” (Boston, 1920). (V, 3; VII, 2.)
“The Tragedy of Great Cities,” _Outlook_, CXXVI (1920), 749–50.
Werthauer, Johannes. _Sittlichkeitsdelikte der Grossstadt_, Vol. XL in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A collection of typical city delinquencies of the sex type. (V, 4;
IX, 4.)
VIII. EUGENICS OF THE CITY
Considerable literature has grown up recently dealing with the
biological aspects of city life. Detailed studies as to the effect of
city life on the human stock remain to be made. On the basis of the
material now available, however, fruitful avenues of research are
opened, and certain tentative conclusions may be entertained.
1. The changes incident to city life in the birth, death, and marriage
rates of the population are noticeable on the basis of statistics. These
phenomena permit of sociological interpretation and analysis. The
difference between the urban and the rural span of life offers a similar
problem to the investigator. The proportions of the human scrap-heap and
its social consequences in the city have been recognized as an important
phase of urban existence.
Bailey, W. B. _Modern Social Conditions: A Statistical Study of Birth,
Marriage, Divorce, Death, Disease, Suicide, Immigration, etc.,
with Special Reference to the United States_ (New York, 1906).
(VII, 5; VIII.)
Bajla, E. “Come si distribuiscono topograficamente le malattee
contagiose negli aggregati urbani,” _Attualita Med. Milano_, V
(1916), 542–46.
The local distribution of contagious diseases in the urban area.
Barron, S. B. “Town life as a Cause of Degeneracy,” _Pop. Sci. Mo._,
XXXIV (1888–89), 324–30. (X, 2.)
Billings, J. S. “The Mortality Rates of Baltimore; Life Table for
Baltimore; Mortality in Different Wards; Causes of Disease,”
_Baltimore Med. Jour._, X (1883–84), 487–89. (V, 1.)
“Biological Influences of City Life,” _Literary Digest_, LII
(February, 1916), 371–72.
“Birth- and Death-Rates in American Cities,” _Amer. City_, XVI (1917),
195–99.
Bleicher, H. “Über die Eigentümlichkeiten der städtischen Natalitäts-
und Mortalitätsverhältnisse,” _Intern. Kongr._ für Hygiene und
Demographie (Budapest, 1894). (VIII, 3.)
The peculiarities of urban birth and death rates.
Dublin, Louis I. “The Significance of the Declining Birth-Rate,”
_Science_, (new series), XLVII, 201–10.
Fehlinger, Hans. “De l’influence biologique de la civilization
urbaine,” _Scientia_, X (1911), 421–34. (VIII, 3.)
Guilfoy, W. H. _The Influence of Nationality upon the Mortality of a
Community, with Special Reference to the City of New York_,
“Department of Health of New York City Monograph Series 18,” 1919.
(V, 1, 2, 3.)
——. _An Analysis of the Mortality Returns of the Sanitary Areas of the
Borough of Manhattan for the Year 1915_, “Department of Health of
New York City Monograph Series 15,” 1916.
Hammond, L. J., and Gray, C. H. “The Relation of the Foreign
Population to the Mortality and Morbidity Rate of Philadelphia,”
_Bull. Amer. Acad. of Med._, XIV (1913), 113–29. (V, 1.)
Harmon, G. E. “A Comparison of the Relative Healthfulness of Certain
Cities in the United States, Based upon the Study of Their Vital
Statistics,” _Publ. Amer. Statist. Assoc._, XV (Boston, 1916),
157–74.
Holmes, Samuel J. _A Bibliography of Eugenics_, “University of
California Publications in Zoölogy,” Vol. XXV, Berkeley,
California, 1924.
Contains a chapter on “Urban Selection and the Influence of
Industrial Development on Racial Heredity.” Has served as a source
of many references listed in this bibliography. (VIII.)
Love, A. G., and Davenport, C. B. “Immunity of City-Bred Recruits,”
_Arch. Med. Intern._, XXIV (1919), 129–53.
Macpherson, J. “Urban Selection and Mental Health,” _Rev. of Neurol.
and Psychiatry_, I (1903), 65–73. (VII, 2, 5; IX, 2, 3, 4; X, 3.)
Meinshausen: “Die Zunahme der Körpergrösse des deutschen Volkes vor
dem Kriege; ihre Ursachen und Bedeutung für die Wiederherstellung
der deutschen Volkskraft,” _Archiv für Hygiene und Demographie_,
XIV (1921), 28–72.
Points out degeneration of urban youth. (VII, 3; X, 3.)
Pieper, E. “Über die Verbreitung der Geschlechtskrankheiten nach Stadt
und Land mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Verhältnisse der
Stadt Rostock und des Staates Mecklenburg,” _Arch. für Soz.
Hygiene und Demographie_, XIV (1923), 148–87. (X, 2.)
Sarker, S. L. “The Comparative Mortality of the Towns of the Nadia
District,” _Indian Med. Gaz._, LII (Calcutta, 1917), 58–60.
Walford, C. “On the Number of Violent Deaths from Accident,
Negligence, Violence, and Misadventure in the United Kingdom and
Some Other Countries,” _Jour. Royal Stat. Soc._, XLIV (1881),
444–521.
Number of violent deaths in cities greater than rural region. (X,
2.)
Weber, L. W. “Grossstadt und Nerven,” _Deutsche Rundschau_, CLXXVII
(December, 1918), 391–407. (IX, 2, 4.)
Weiberg, W. “Zur Frage nach der Häufigkeit der Syphilis in der
Grossstadt,” _Arch. Rass. und Gesellsch. Biol._, Vol. XI, 1914; 3
articles.
Whipple, G. C. _Vital Statistics: An Introduction to Demography_ (New
York, 1923). (VII, 1; VIII, 2, 3; IX, 2.)
2. The relative differences in the age and sex groups, in the city as
over against the country, and in the various areas in the city are
indicative of fundamental processes tending to produce typical results.
Baker, J. E. “City Life and Male Mortality,” _Publ. Amer. Statist.
Assoc._, XI (1908), 133–49. (VIII, 1.)
Böckh, R. “Sterbetafeln C (für Grossstädte); Die fünfzig Berliner
Sterbetafeln,” _Bericht über 14ten Intern. Kongr. Hygiene_, III
(Berlin, 1908), 1078–87. (V, 1, 2, 3, 4; VIII, 1.)
Heron, David. _On the Relation of Fertility in Man to Social Status
and on the Changes in This Relation That Have Taken Place during
the Last Fifty Years_ (London, 1906). (VII, 1, 5; VIII, 1.)
Röse, C. “Die Grossstadt als Grab der Bevölkerung,” _Aerztliche
Rundschau_, XV (München, 1905), 257–61. (VII, 3; VIII, 1.)
3. Whether the conditions of city life have an influence on the
fecundity of women and the size of the family is an aspect of city life
inviting accurate study, attempts at which have already been made.
Haurbeck, L. “Der Wille zur Mutterschaft in Stadt und Land,” _Deutsche
Landwirtsch. Presse._, XI (1915), 12. (VIII, 1, 2; X, 2.)
Kühner, F. “Stadt und Bevölkerungspolitik,” _Städte-Zeit_, XIV (1917),
306.
Lewis, C. F., and J. N. _Natality and Fecundity: A Contribution to
National Demography_ (Edinburgh, 1906).
Based on statistics in the Scottish birth register of 1855. (VIII,
1, 2.)
Manschke, R. “Innere Einflüsse der Bevölkerungswanderungen auf die
Geburtenzahl,” _Zeitschr. für Sozialwiss., neue Folge_, VII
(1916), 100–115, 161–74. (VII, 3; VIII, 1, 2; X, 2.)
Morgan, J. E. _The Danger of Deterioration of Race from the Too Rapid
Increase of Great Cities_ (London, 1866). (VII, 1, 3; VIII, 1.)
Prinzing, F. “Eheliche und uneheliche Fruchtbarkeit und Aufwuchsziffer
in Stadt und Land in Preussen,” _Deutsche Med. Wochenschrift_,
XLIV (1918), 351–54. (VIII, 1; X, 4.)
Theilhaber, F. A. _Das sterile Berlin_ (Berlin, 1913). (VIII, 1, 2.)
Thompson, Warren S. “Race Suicide in the United States,” _Sci. Mo._,
V, 22–35, 154–65, 258–69. (VIII, 1; X, 2.)
“Urban Sterilization,” _Jour. Hered._, VIII (1917), 268–69. (VIII, 1.)
IX. HUMAN NATURE AND CITY LIFE
The city is remaking human nature and each city is producing its own
type of personality. These influences of city life are of prime interest
to the sociologist. The materials bearing on this question are not
primarily those collected by the scientist, but by the artist. It
requires insight and imagination to perceive and to describe these
deep-seated changes which are being wrought in the nature of man
himself.
1. The division of labor and the fine specialization of occupations and
professions that is so distinctly characteristic of city life has
brought into existence a new mode of thought and new habits and
attitudes which have transformed man in a few generations. The city man
tends to think less in terms of locality than he does in terms of
occupation. In a sense he has become an adjunct of the machine which he
operates and the tools he uses. His interests are organized around his
occupation, and his status and mode of life is determined by it.
Bahre, Walter. _Meine Klienten._ Vol. XLII in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
Specialization and professional types and classes as seen from a
lawyer’s office. (IX, 4.)
Benario, Leo. _Die Wucherer und ihre Opfer_, Vol. XXXVIII in
“Grossstadt Dokumente.” (IX, 3, 4.)
The profession of money-lending in the large city and the behavior
patterns that this professional group exhibits. (IX, 3, 4.)
Burke, Thomas. _The London Spy: A Book of Town Travels_ (New York,
1922). (II, 3; V, 1, 2, 3; IX.)
Donovan, Frances. _The Woman Who Waits_ (Boston, 1920).
The impressions and occupational experiences of a waitress in
Chicago. (IX, 2, 3.)
Hammond, J. L., and Barbara. _The Skilled Labourer, 1760–1832_
(London, 1919).
The emergence of occupational types in the course of industrial
evolution. (III, 4; IV, 6.)
Hammond, J. L., and Barbara. _The Town Labourer, 1760–1832: The New
Civilization_ (London, 1917). (II, 3; III, 4; IV, 6; IX, 2, 3; X,
2.)
Hyan, Hans. _Schwere Jungen_, Vol. XXVIII in “Grossstadt Dokumente”
(Berlin, 1905).
Describes the life of an occupational group—the pugilists—in the
large city (Berlin). (V, 1, 3; VI, 6; IX, 4.)
Mayhew, Henry. _London Labour and London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the
Condition and Earnings of Those That Will Work, Those That Cannot
Work, and Those That Will Not Work_ (London, 1861–62), 4 vols.
A description of occupational types created by city specialization.
(II, 3; VII, 5; IX, 4.)
Noack, Victor. _Was ein Berliner Musikant erlebte_, Vol. XIX in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The experiences of a Berlin musician in his occupational life.
Showing the evolution of an occupational type, with many highly
specialized subtypes. (IX; X, 2.)
Roe, Clifford. _Panders and Their White Slaves_ (New York and Chicago,
1910). (V, 1; VII, 5.)
Rowntree, B. Seebohm, and Lasker, Bruno. _Unemployment: A Social
Study_ (London, 1911).
Simkhovitch, Mary K. _The City Worker’s World in America_ (New York,
1917). (V, 1, 2, 3; VI, 10; VII, 2, 5.)
Solenberger, Alice W. _One Thousand Homeless Men: A Study of Original
Records_ (New York, 1914).
What a social agency’s records reveal about occupational careers in
the city. (VI, 4; VII, 4, 5; VIII, 1.)
Veblen, Thorstein. _The Instinct of Workmanship, and the State of the
Industrial Arts_ (New York, 1914).
Showing the development of the specialization of labor and its
effect on human behavior. (IX, 2.)
Werthauer, Johannes. _Berliner Schwindel_, Vol. XXI in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Showing the extent to which fraud has become a technical profession.
(VII, 5; IX, 2, 4.)
Weidner, Albert. _Aus den Tiefen der Berliner Arbeiterbewegung_, Vol.
IX, in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The significance of the labor movement in the large city. (V, 1, 4;
VII, 5; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
2. There is a city mentality which is clearly differentiated from the
rural mind. The city man thinks in mechanistic terms, in rational terms,
while the rustic thinks in naturalistic, magical terms. Not only does
this difference exist between city and country, it exists also between
city and city, and between one area of the city and another. Each city
and each part of the city furnishes a distinct social world to its
inhabitants, which they incorporate in their personality whether they
will or no.
Carleton, Will. _City Ballads, City Festivals, and City Legends_
(London, 1907). (X, 2.)
Grant, James. _Lights and Shadows of London Life_ (London, 1842).
Giving a view of the picturesque aspects of the modern city.
——. _The Great Metropolis_ (London, 1836). (III, 5; IV, 6; V, 3; IX.)
Marpillero, G. “Saggio di psicologia dell’urbanismo,” _Revista
Italiana di Sociologia_, XII (1908), 599–626.
Morgan, Anna. _My Chicago_ (Chicago, 1918).
A city from the standpoint of the social aristocracy. (V, 3.)
Seiler, C. Linn. City Values. “An Analysis of the Social Status and
Possibilities of American City Life” (University of Pennsylvania,
Ph.D. Thesis, 1912).
Simmel, G. _Die Grossstädte und das Geistesleben_, in “Die Grossstadt”
(Dresden, 1903).
The most important single article on the city from the sociological
standpoint.
Sombart, Werner. _The Jews and Modern Capitalism_, translated from the
German by M. Epstein (London and New York, 1913).
The best study of a city people and the influence of city life on
their mentality. (IX, 1, 4; X, 3.)
Spengler, Oswald. _Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer
Morphologie der Weltgeschichte_, Vol. II (München, 1922), chap.
II, “Städte und Völker,” pp. 100–224. (II; VII, 1, 5; IX, 1.)
Winter, Max. _Das Goldene Wiener Herz_, Vol. XI in “Grossstadt
Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A study of the financial nexus in city life. (IX, 4.)
Woolston, H. “The Urban Habit of Mind,” _Amer. Jour. Sociol._, XVII,
602 ff.
3. The medium through which man is influenced and modified in the city
is the intricate system of communication. The urban system of
communication takes on a special form. It is not typically the primary,
but the secondary, contact that it produces. The public opinion that is
built up in the city and the morale and _ésprit de corps_ growing out of
it relies on such typical media as the newspaper rather than the gossip
monger; the telephone and the mails rather than the town meeting. The
characteristic urban social unit is the occupational group rather than
the geographical area.
Chicago Commission on Race Relations. _The Negro in Chicago_ (Chicago,
1922).
A study growing out of the Chicago race riots, showing the growth of
public opinion and the behavior of crowds and mobs in the city. (V,
1, 3; VII, 2.)
Follett, Mary P. _The New State: Group Organization the Solution of
Popular Government_ (New York, 1918).
Analyzes the conditions under which public opinion of today is
formed and suggests local organization as a possible way out. (V, 3;
VII, 5; IX, 1.)
Howe, Frederic C. “The City as a Socializing Agency,” _Amer. Jour.
Sociol._, XVII, 509 ff. (VII, 5.)
——. _The City: The Hope of Democracy_ (New York, 1905).
Has chapters on the new city civilization, the causes of political
corruption, and gives a general description of city life, showing in
particular the problems of public opinion it creates. (V; VI; VII,
1, 2.)
Park, Robert E. “The Immigrant Community and the Immigrant Press,”
_American Review_, III (March-April, 1925), 143–52. (V, 3.)
Triton (pseudonym). _Der Hamburger “Junge Mann,”_ Vol. XXXIX in
“Grossstadt Dokumente.”
Shows the effect of the city and the contacts it makes possible on
the development of an _ésprit de corps_ and a type. In this case the
young office clerks of Hamburg are shown to be a product of the
international character of the port of Hamburg. (IV, 6; IX, 1, 2,
4.)
4. The final product of the city environment is found in the new types
of personality which it engenders. Here the latent energies and
capacities of individuals find expression and locate themselves within
the range of a favorable milieu. This possibility of segregating one’s
self from the crowd develops and accentuates what there is of
individuality in the human personality. The city gives an opportunity to
men to practice their specialty vocationally and develop it to the
utmost degree. It provides also the stimulus and the conditions which
tend to bring out those temperamental and psychological qualities within
the individual through the multiple behavior patterns which it
tolerates.
Hammer, Wilhelm. _Zehn Lebenslaufe Berliner Kontrollmädchen_, Vol.
XVIII in “Grossstadt Dokumente.”
The life-history of ten Berlin prostitutes with a suggested
classification of types. (VI, 4; IX, 1.)
Deutsch-German, Alfred (pseudonym). _Wiener Mädel_, Vol. XVII in
“Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
An intimate study of the types of girls to be found in the large
city. (IX, 2, 3.)
Flagg, James M. _City People. A Book of Illustrations_ (New York,
1909).
Freimark, Hans. _Moderne Geistesbeschwörer und Wahrheitssucher_, Vol.
XXXVI in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Fortune-tellers and persons in the “occult fields” in the modern
city. A study of magical vestiges in city mentality. (IX, 1, 2.)
Hapgood, Hutchins. _Types from City Streets_ (New York, 1910).
——. _The Spirit of the Ghetto_ (New York and London, 1909).
An intimate study of life in the New York Jewish quarter with a
graphic presentation of personality types. (V, 2.)
Hecht, Ben. _A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago_ (Chicago,
1922).
Journalistic sketches of Chicago scenes, experiences, and types. (V,
3; IX.)
Mackenzie, C. “City People,” _McClure’s_, XLVII (August, 1916), 22.
Markey, Gene. _Men About Town: A Book of Fifty-eight Caricatures_
(Chicago, 1924).
Mensch, Ella (pseudonym). _Bilderstürmer in der Berliner
Frauenbewegung._
Types found in the feminist movement of Berlin. (IX, 2, 3.)
X. THE CITY AND THE COUNTRY
The city and the country represent two opposite poles in modern
civilization. The difference between the two is not merely one of
degree, but of kind. Each has its own peculiar type of interests, of
social organization, and of humanity. These two worlds are in part
antagonistic and in part complementary to each other. The one influences
the life of the other, but they are by no means equally matched. The
analysis of these differences, antagonisms, and interacting forces has
not passed even the descriptive stage.
1. The ancient city was regarded as a parasitic growth. It dominated the
country by skill and by force, but contributed little to its welfare.
The modern city, too, is often regarded as a superfluous burden which
the rural sections are carrying. This view of the matter is fast passing
away, however, as the city extends its influence, not by force, but by
fulfilling a set of functions upon which the rural population has become
dependent. The economists have been especially concerned with the
antagonistic interests which the city and the country have presented.
These antagonisms have come to play a political rôle which influences
local, national, and international affairs.
Bookwalter, J. W. _Rural Versus Urban; Their Conflict and Its Causes:
A Study of the Conditions Affecting Their Natural and Artificial
Relation_ (New York, 1911). (X, 2.)
Damaschke, Adolf. _Die Bodenreform: Grundsätzliches und
Geschichtliches zur Erkenntnis der sozialen Not_ (19th ed.; Jena,
1922). (VI, 10.)
Reibmayr, A. “Die wichtigsten biologischen Ursachen der heutigen
Landflucht,” _Arch. für Rass. und Gesellsch. Biol._, VII (1911),
349–76.
Decrease in rural population of Germany. Shows also unfavorable
effects of alcohol, venereal disease, and other factors on
population of city, and the effects of the city on the country.
(VII, 2, 5; VIII, 1.)
Ross, E. A. “Folk Depletion as a Cause of Rural Decline,” _Publ. Amer.
Sociol. Soc._, XI (1917), 21–30. (VII, 3; VIII, 1, 3; X, 2.)
Roxby, P. M. _Rural Depopulation in England During the Nineteenth
Century and After_, LXXI (1912), 174–90. (VIII, 3.)
“Rural Depopulation in Germany,” _Scient. Amer. Suppl._, LXVIII
(1908), 243. (VII, 3.)
Smith, J. Russell. _North America: Its People and Resources,
Development, and the Prospects of the Continent as an
Agricultural, Industrial, and Commercial Area_ (New York, 1925).
One of the best geographical discussions of the relation between
country and city. (I, 1, 4; III, 2, 3, 4.)
Vandervelde, E. _L’exode rural et le retour aux champs_ (Paris, 1903).
(VIII, 3.)
Waltemath. “Der Kampf gegen die Landflucht und die Slawisierung des
platten Landes,” _Archiv für Innere Kolonisation_, IX (1916–18),
12.
2. As a result of city life new forms of social organization have been
developed which are foreign to the country. The family, the
neighborhood, the community, the state have become transformed by city
needs into new institutions with a different organization and with a
different set of functions. The social processes that characterize rural
life do not apply in the city. A new moral order has developed which is
fast breaking down the precedents of an earlier epoch of civilization.
Bowley, A. L. “Rural Population in England and Wales: A Study of the
Change of Density, Occupations, and Ages,” _Jour. Royal Stat.
Soc._, LXXVII (1914), 597–645. (VII, 2; VIII, 2.)
Brunner, Edmund de S. _Churches of Distinction in Town and Country_
(New York, 1923). (VI, 5.)
Busbey, L. W. “Wicked Town and Moral Country,” _Unpop. Rev._, X
(October, 1918), 376–92. (X, 3.)
Cook, O. F. “City and Country, Effects of Human Environments on the
Progress of Civilization,” _Jour. Hered._, XIV (1921), 253–59.
Galpin, Charles J. _Rural Life_ (New York, 1918).
One of the best analyses of rural life available, and of great value
as a basis for comparison between city life and country life. (IV,
1, 2, 5; V, 1, 2, 3; X, 1, 3.)
Gillette, J. M. _Rural Sociology_ (New York, 1922). (IV; V, 1, 2; VI,
8; X, 1, 3.)
Groves, E. R. “Psychic Causes of Rural Migration,” _Amer. Jour.
Sociol._, XXI (1916), 623–27. (IV, 5; VII, 3; X, 1, 3.)
Jastrow, J. “Die Städtegmeinschaft in ihren kulturellen Beziehungen,”
_Zeitschr. für Sozialwiss._, X (1907), 42–51.
Indicates institutions to which urban life has given impetus.
Morse, H. N. _The Social Survey in Town and Country Areas_ (New York,
1925).
Peattie, Roderick. “The Isolation of the Lower St. Lawrence Valley,”
_Geog. Rev._, V (February, 1918), 102–18.
An excellent study of provincialism as a result of isolation. (IV,
5.)
Prinzing, F. “Die Totgeburten in Stadt und Land,” _Deutsche Med.
Wochenschr._, XLIII (1917), 180–81.
The number of still births indicates the technique available in city
and country. (VIII, 1.)
Sanderson, Dwight. _The Farmer and His Community_ (New York, 1922).
(V, 1, 2, 3.)
Smith, Arthur H. _Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology_ (New
York, Chicago, and Toronto, 1899).
The oriental village and its place in social organization.
Thurnwald, R. “Stadt and Land im Lebensprozess der Rasse,” _Arch. für
Rass. und Gesellsch. Biol._, I (1904), 550–74, 840–84.
Contains excellent bibliography. (VII, 3; VIII, 1, 3.)
Tucker, R. S., and McCombs, C. E. “Is the Country Healthier Than the
Town?” _Nat. Mun. Rev._, XII (June, 1923), 291–95. (VIII, 1.)
Welton, T. A. “Note on Urban and Rural Variations According to the
English Census of 1911,” _Jour. Royal Stat. Soc._, LXXVI (1913),
304–17. (VII, 3; VIII; X, 1.)
3. The rustic and the urbanite not only show certain fundamental
differences in personality, but the variations found in the city far
exceed the country, and the rate at which new types are constantly being
created in the city far exceeds that of the country. The rural man still
is to a great extent the product of the nature which surrounds him,
while the urbanite has become a part of the machine with which he works,
and has developed as many different species as there are techniques to
which he is devoted. The attitudes, the sentiments, the life
organization of the city man are as different from the country man as
those of the civilized man are from the primitive. As the city extends
its influence over the country the rural man is also being remade, and
ultimately the differences between the two may become extinguished.
Anthony, Joseph. “The Unsophisticated City Boy,” _Century_, CIX
(November, 1924), 123–28. (VII, 5.)
Coudenhove-Kalergi, H. “The New Nobility,” _Century_, CIX (November,
1924), 3–6.
A concise analysis of the outstanding differences in the personality
of the rustic and the urbanite. (IX, 1, 2, 3, 4; X, 1, 2.)
Humphrey, Z. “City People and Country Folk,” _Country Life_, XXXVII
(January, 1920), 35–37.
McDowall, Arthur. “Townsman and the Country,” _London Mercury_, VIII
(August, 1923), 405–13. (IV, 5; IX, 2; X, 1, 2.)
Myers, C. S. “Note on the Relative Variability of Modern and Ancient
and of Rural and Urban Peoples,” _Man_, VI (London, 1906), 24–26.
An anthropological study. (VIII.)
Vuillenmier, J. F. “A comparative Study of New York City and Country
Criminals,” _Jour. Crim. Law and Criminol._, XI (1921), 528–50.
(VII, 5; IX, 2.)
XI. THE STUDY OF THE CITY
Attempts to understand the city and city life have resulted in two types
of studies. On the one hand there are the investigations into special
phases of the subject, and on the other are a number of systematic,
generally co-operative, scientific approaches to the city as a whole.
The increased attention which the city has been receiving at the hands
of various types of experts has brought into existence a number of
organizations and institutions which regularly occupy themselves with
the collection of information relating to the city. This has given rise
to a number of technical journals which are of great importance to the
student of the city.
1. There are available at the present time a number of fairly exhaustive
systematic studies of various cities. In most instances they represent
the combined efforts of many students, extending over a period of years,
to explore the realms of urban life in diverse parts of the world,
generally with a definite objective in view. Only a few of such studies
have been listed under this category.
Booth, Charles. _Life and Labor of the People of London_ (16 vols.;
London, 1892).
Attempts to describe the people of London “as they exist in London
under the influence of education, religion, and administration.”
Required seventeen years for its completion. Contains a wealth of
information about the city and city life.
Gamble, Sidney D. _Peking: A Social Survey_ (New York, 1921).
Harrison, Shelby M. _Social Conditions in an American City: A Summary
of the Findings of the Springfield Survey_ (New York, 1920).
Johnson, Clarence Richard. _Constantinople Today, or the Pathfinder
Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental Social Life_ (New
York and London, 1923).
Kellogg, Paul U. (editor). _The Pittsburgh Survey_ (6 vols.; New York,
1914).
Kenngott, George F. _The Record of a City: A Social Survey of Lowell,
Massachusetts_ (New York, 1912).
Ostwald, Hans O. A. “Grossstadt Dokumente,” (Berlin, 1905).
A series of fifty volumes by various authors giving accounts of
personal experience and investigation in the local communities and
among various groupings and personality types in the city of Berlin
and in some other large cities of Europe.
Rowntree, B. Seebohm. _Poverty: A Study of Town Life_ (London, 1901).
Rowntree, B. S., and Lasker, Bruno. _Unemployment: A Social Study_
(London, 1911).
2. The social survey is not only a technique which has been employed to
study the urban community, but has grown into a movement of considerable
proportions. From another standpoint the social survey may also be
regarded as a means of control. Many of the “surveys” are merely single
investigations of administration, housing, justice, education,
recreation, in urban and rural communities, carried on by the group
itself or by some outside experts called in for the purpose. Others are
highly integrated studies of the community in all its phases. There is a
tendency at the present time for systematic social research to take the
place of the social survey in the study of community life. The latter
emphasizes diagnosis and treatment, while the former strives to develop
methods of disinterested research into various aspects of city life.
Aronovici, Carol. _The Social Survey_ (New York, 1916).
Burns, Allen T. “Organization of Community Forces,” _Proceedings of
Nat. Con. Charities and Corrections, 1916_, pp. 62–78.
Elmer, Manuel C. “Social Surveys of Urban Communities,” Ph.D. Thesis,
University of Chicago (Menasha, Wisconsin, 1914).
Considers the social survey up to 1914 and outlines the scope and
methods of the urban community survey. Also his “Technique of the
Social Surveys” (Lawrence, Kansas, 1917).
Kellogg, P. U., Harrison, S. M., and Palmer, George T. _The Social
Survey Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City
of New York_, Vol. II (July, 1912), 475–544.
“The Social Survey and Its Further Development,” _Publ. Amer. Statist.
Assoc._, 1915.
3. While there are many periodicals which contain departments devoted to
the urban community, such as the _Survey_, the _Journal of Social
Forces_, and a number of others, the following are listed as typical of
periodicals exclusively concerned with various phases of the study of
the city.
_The American City_ (monthly), New York. Now in its thirty-second
volume.
_American Municipalities_ (monthly), Marshalltown, Iowa. Now in its
forty-ninth volume.
_Municipal and County Engineering_ (monthly), since 1890.
Indianapolis, Indiana.
_The Municipal Journal and Public Works Engineer_ (weekly). Now in its
thirty-fourth year. London.
_The National Municipal Review_ (monthly), published by the National
Municipal League. Now in its fourteenth volume. New York.
_Die Städte-Zeit._ In its fourteenth volume in 1917.
_Der Städtebau. Monatsschrift für die künstlerische Ausgestaltung der
Städte nach ihren wirtschaftlichen, gesundheitlichen, und sozialen
Grundsätzen_ (monthly), since 1904. Berlin.
_The Town-Planning Review._ The journal of the department of civic
design of the school of Architecture. University of Liverpool. Now
in its eleventh volume. Liverpool.
_La Vie Urbaine._ Volume VII in 1924.
LOUIS WIRTH
INDEXES
SUBJECT INDEX
Age, the _New York_, 139
Areas: natural, 6, 50–51, 54, 77, 188;
of vice and poverty, 55;
“bright light,” 56;
local trade, 67;
commuting, 184;
of deterioration, 193
Attitudes: sentiments and interests, 16, 22;
and money, 17
Automobiles: and community growth, 70;
and vice, 107
Bohemia, 150
Chain stores, characteristic of city, 202
Chicago: Little Sicily, 10, 56;
the Gold Coast, 10;
regional planning association of, 48;
the Loop, 51;
the Ghetto, 56;
population of, 60;
land values in, 61;
occupations in, 57;
ecological forces in, 147;
Black Belt of, 147
Church, the, and city life, 24
Cities: classified by functions, 178;
satellite, 185;
as cultural centers, 186;
systematic studies of, 226
City, the: A product of nature, 1–2;
an ecological unit, 2;
natural habitat of civilized man, 2;
population of, 5, 6, 8;
and human nature, 4, 46, 63;
and the division of labor, 14;
and primary relations, 23;
vice and crime in, 25;
and secondary relations, 26;
and intellectual life, 30;
crusades in, 33;
and politics, 34;
advertising in, 37;
a melting-pot, 40;
rewards eccentricity, 41;
growth of, 47;
population groups, 47;
expansion of, 49;
age groups in, 47;
aggregation, 48;
defined, 165, 169;
statistics of, 167;
and economic development, 168;
natural history of, 170;
bibliographies of, 174;
types of, 175;
relation to town and metropolis, 180;
and ecological organization, 187, 196;
as a physical mechanism, 195;
and politics, 201;
growth of population in, 208–9, 212;
as a parasitic growth, 222
City-building, 206
City life: biological aspects of, 214;
and the new moral order, 223
City man, the, life-organization of, 225
City mentality, 219
Colonies: immigrant, 26;
and second generation, 28
Communication: mechanism of, 29, 197;
and the newspaper, 39;
and social contagion, 45
Community: defined, 64, 115, 144;
and human nature, 65;
four types of, 66;
agricultural, 68;
skeletal structure of, 73;
and moral codes, 105–6;
and the delinquent, 111;
local, 114, 191;
measure of efficiency, 118;
institutions of, 199
Community-center associations, 117
Community organizations, 114
Competition, and the struggle for space, 63, 64, 71
Conurbation, 49
Crisis: financial, 21;
defined, 27;
positive law, 28
Cultural areas. _See_ Bohemia, Ghetto, Gold Coast
Culture, city-born, 2;
urban life and, 3;
and political organization, 116–17;
and the local community, 145–46
Dance hall, public, and the neighborhood, 151
Delinquency triangle, the, 152
Department store, characteristic city institution, 202
Division of labor, the, and new modes of thought, 217
Ecological organization, of the city, 2, 115
Ecology: human, 2, 63, 145;
succession, 50, 75;
centralization, 51;
climax, 68, 77;
culmination, 71;
invasion, 72, 74, 76
Economic organization, 116
Family, modern, as an environment for children, 104
Gangs, boys’, 113
Geography, urban, 165
Ghetto, 150
Group, primary: defined, 23;
primitive society, 36;
politics, 37
Hobo, the mind of, 158, 160;
colleges, 159
Hobohemia: the home of homeless men, 54;
as a cultural unit, 150
Human nature: man, a “city-building animal,” 2;
and city life, 40, 217
Industry, and community growth, 70
I.W.W.: and casual labor, 159;
songs of, 160
Juvenile delinquency, 110
Land values: and community organizations, 149;
and local segregation, 203
Literacy, and city life, 139
Local community, 114.
_See_ Community
Locomotion: mind as an incident of, 156;
characteristic of animals, 157;
and social organization, 157
London, East, 10
Magic: as emotional expression, 127;
a form of thought, 129;
transition to science, 132
Magic, Thorndyke’s _History of_, 127
“Main stem,” the, 54
Markets, and news, 19
Metabolism, social, 54
Mobility: measurement of, 17, 60;
and money, 18;
and news, 22;
and routine, 58;
and disorganization, 153;
an index of metabolism, 211
Moral region, defined, 45
Natural areas. _See_ Areas
Negro migration, and delinquency, 108
Neighborhood, and the community, 148;
recreation centers, 151;
and politics, 153;
and social research, 155
Neighborhood institutions, 146
Neighborhood, scientific basis for study of, 154
Neighborhood work, scientific basis for, 142
News, and crisis, 19; defined, 93
_News-Letter, Boston_, the 83
Newspapers: why shocking, 3;
as means of social control, 38;
definition of, 80, 81–82;
circulation, 80;
and democracy, 85–86;
two types of, 93;
metropolitan and provincial, 94;
Sunday, 96;
and community morale, 220;
_New York Gazette_, _Herald_, _Sun_, _Times_, _Tribune_, _World_,
89–96;
_San Francisco Examiner_, 89–96;
_St. Louis Post Dispatch_, 89–96
New York: studies of population in, 5;
Harlem, 8;
Chinatown, 10;
Greenwich Village, 10;
foreign-language press in, 27;
Bureau of Research, 39;
city plan, 48;
transportation, 60
Obeah: Negro magic, 123;
and Negro mentality, 133;
fashions in, 135;
and popular medicine, 138;
in New York City, 139
Occupational group, the, characteristic urban social unit, 220–21
Playgrounds, as character-forming agencies, 111–12
Population: cycle, 71, 74;
sifting of, in city, 79
Position, the concept of, 64
Press: power of, 90, 91;
party, 90;
independent, 90, 94;
yellow, 94
Primitive mentality, 124–25, 126, 140
Psychic compensation, Alfred Adler’s theory of, 101–2
Public opinion, and gossip, 85
Reform, and militant minorities, 28
Reporters, parliamentary, 87
Sage Foundation, the, city-planning studies of, 5
St. Lucia, obeah in, 136
San Francisco, Chinatown, 10
_San Francisco Examiner_, 150
Science, geographical limitations of, 139
Seattle, 76, 78;
age and sex groups in, 78
Segregation, 5, 40, 56;
segregated areas, 9;
and occupations, 57
Settlement, the, and neighborhood work, 142
Skyscraper, and population density, 203
Slum, the, 148
Social agencies, 109–10
Social Centers, location of, 150
Social control: changes in, 31;
and vice, 32;
and advertising, 37;
public opinion and, 38;
and city life, 107;
as type-factors, 143
Social distances, 145
Stock exchange, a measure of mobility, 26
Temperament, and city life, 45
Town-planning, 115
Transportation, an ecological factor, 69
Virgin Islands, changing mental habits of natives, 140
Wanderlust, and the romantic temperament, 158
Wishes, defined, 119
INDEX TO AUTHORS
Adams, 145
Addams, Jane, 188, 198, 212
Agache, Auburtin, 194
Agache, Redont, 194
Allison, Thomas W., 208
Anderson, Nels, 54, 62, 109, 158, 188
Anthony, Joseph, 225
Arndt, Arno, 200
Arner, G. B. L., 204
Aronovici, Carol, 204, 227
Ashby, A. W., 209
Assessor (pseudonym), 198
Aurousseau, M., 165, 181, 208
Bab, Julius, 188
Bader, Emil, 212
Baer, M., 187
Bagehot, Walter, 17
Bahre, Walter, 217
Bailey, W. B., 214
Baillie, J. B., 138, 139
Baily, W. L., 172
Bajla, W. B., 214
Baker, J. E., 216
Ballard, W. J., 206
Ballod, C., 210
Barron, S. B., 214
Barrows, Harlan H., 166
Bartlett, Dana W., 194
Bassett, E. M., 206
Bauer, L., 210
Bax, E. B., 171
Beard, C. A., 172
Below, George von, 168
Benario, Leo, 218
Benson, E., 171
Bercovici, Konrad, 211
Bernhard, Georg, 187
Bernhard, H., 206
Besant, Walter, 11, 26, 191
Beusch, P. 210
Bierman, Charles, 177
Billings, J. S., 214
Bingham, Robert F., 75, 204
Blanchard, Raoul, 166
Blankenburg, R., 167
Bleicher, H., 214
Böckh, R., 210, 216
Bodine, H. E., 182
Bonne, G., 212
Bookwalter, J. W., 222
Booth, Charles, 188, 226
Bowley, A. L., 210, 223
Bowman, LeRoy E., 200
Brown, Junius Henri, 188
Brown, Robert M., 206
Bruere, Henry, 201
Brunhes, Jean, 65, 178
Brunner, Edmund, deS., 223
Bryce, James, 34, 38
Bryce, P. H., 210
Bücher, Karl, 167, 172
Buchner, Eberhard, 191, 200
Burgess, Ernest W., 64, 144
Burke, Thomas, 191, 218
Burns, Allen T., 227
Busbey, L. W., 223
Buschan, G. H., 212
Bushee, F. A., 206, 208
Cacheux, E., 210
Capes, William Parr, 201
Carbaugh, H. C., 198
Carleton, Will, 219
Carroll, Charles E., 199
Chalmers, Thomas, 212
Cheney, C. H., 193
Cheney, Edward Potts, 168
Chisholm, George G., 166, 183
Classen, W. F., 212, 213
Clemens, Samuel, 42
Clements, F. E., 68, 74
Clerget, Pierre, 170
Clerk (pseudonym), 201
Cleveland, Frederick A., 201
Colze, Leo, 202
Consentius, Ernest, 171
Cook, O. F., 223
Cooley, Charles Horton, 23
Cornish, Vaughn, 178
Cottrell, E. A., 180
Coudenhove-Kalergi, H., 225
Coulanges, Fustel de, 170
Coulton, George Gordon, 171
Cruickshank, J. Graham, 123
Cummin, G. C., 201
Cunningham, William, 167
Cushing, C. P., 182
Damaschke, Adolph, 222
Daniels, John, 190, 191
D’Avenel, G. le Vicomte, 197
Davenport, C. B., 215
Davis, W. S., 170
Day, Clive, 168
Denison, John Hopkins, 188
Desmond, S., 186
Deutsch-German, Alfred (pseudonym), 221
Dewey, John, 199
Dickerman, G. S., 210
Dietrich, Richard, 189
Digby, E., 211
Dillen, Johannes Gerard van, 168
Dittmann, P., 210
Donovan, Frances, 218
Douglass, H. Paul, 68, 208
Dreiser, Theodore, 191
Dublin, Louis I., 215
Dunn, Arthur W., 191
Ebeling, Martin, 172
Eberstadt, Rudolph, 193
Edel, Edmund, 184
Eldridge, Seba, 191
Elmer, Manuel C., 227
Ely, Richard T., 182, 201, 204
Ende, A. von, 173, 174
Faris, J. T., 176
Fassett, Charles M., 196
Fawcett, C. B., 206
Feather, W. A., 206
Febvre, Lucien, 180
Fehlinger, Hans, 215
Felton, Ralph E., 190
Fitzpatrick, Edward A., 198
Flagg, James M., 221
Fleure, Herbert John, 175
Follett, Mary P., 220
Fosdick, Raymond, 198
Fowler, W. W., 170
Fraser, E., 175
Freimark, Hans, 221
Friedländer, L., 170
Galpin, C. J., 182, 183, 223
Gamble, Sidney D., 176, 226
Geddes, Patrick, 176, 194
Geisler, Walter, 181
George, M. Dorothy, 173
George, W. L., 204
Gide, Charles, 180
Gilbert, Arthur Benson, 201
Gilbert, Bernard, 180
Gillette, J. M., 70, 224
Goldmark, Pauline, 189
Goodnow, Frank J., 201
Goodrich, E. P., 197
Goodwin, Frank P., 192
Grahn, E., 196
Grant, James, 219
Gras, Norman S. B., 168, 180
Gray, C. H., 215
Green, Alice S. A., 171
Gregory, W. M., 206
Gross, Charles, 184
Groves, E. R., 210, 224
Guilfoy, W. H., 215
Günther, Viktor, 200
Hadley, A. T., 69
Hammer, Wilhelm, 221
Hammond, Barbara, 218
Hammond, J. L., 218
Hammond, L. J., 215
Hanslik, Erwin, 176
Hapgood, Hutchins, 221
Hare, Augustus J. C., 173, 174
Harmon, G. E., 215
Harper, Charles George, 189
Harris, Emerson Pitt, 197
Harrison, Shelby M., 198, 226, 227
Hassert, Kurt, 166
Haurbeck, L., 216
Haverfield, F. J., 195
Hebble, Charles Ray, 192
Hecht, Ben, 221
Hecke, W., 210
Henderson, C. R., 213
Heron, David, 216
Herschmann, Otto, 200
Herzfeld, Elsa G., 211
Hessel, J. F., 173
Hill, Howard C., 201
Hirschfeld, Magnus, 197, 208
Hoaglund, H. E., 210
Höffner, C., 196
Holborn, I. B. S., 203
Holmes, Samuel J., 215
Homburg, F., 176, 179
Hooker, G. E., 208
Howe, Frederic C., 173, 185, 220
Hughes, W. R., 195
Humphrey, Z., 225
Hunter, Robert, 204
Hurd, Richard M., 204
Hyan, Hans, 218
Irwin, Will, 93, 95, 173
Izoulet, Jean, 169
James, Edmund J., 207
Jastrow, J., 224
Jefferson, Mark, 166, 176, 187, 207, 209
Jenks, A. E., 192
Jephson, H. L., 196
Johnson, Clarence Richard, 173, 226
Johnson, James Welden, 8
Johnson, R., 61
Jones, James Jesse, 190
Kales, Albert M., 185
Katcher, Leopold, 192
Kellogg, Paul U., 179, 226, 227
Kenngott, George F., 179, 226
Kern, Robert R., 193
King, C. F., 178
King, Grace, 174
Kingsbury, J. E., 197
Kirk, William, 173
Kirwan, Daniel Joseph, 189
Knowles, L. C. A., 66, 70
Kübler, Wilhelm, 196
Kühner, F., 216
Lambin, Maria Ward, 200
Lasker, Bruno, 180, 218, 226
Lasson, Alfred, 213
Levainville, Jacques, 183
Lévy-Bruhl, 123 ff.
Lewis, C. F., 216
Lewis, H. M., 197
Lewis, J. N., 216
Lewis, Nelson P., 195
Lippmann, Walter, 85, 93, 97
Loeb, Jacques, 30
Loeb, Moritz, 202
Lohman, K. B., 180
Love, A. G., 215
Lucas, Edw. V., 192
Lueken, E., 184
McCombs, C. E., 224
MacDonough, Michael, 87
McDowall, Arthur, 225
Maciver, R. M., 192
MacKenzie, C., 222
McKenzie, R. D., 190, 201
McLean, Francis H., 179
McMichael, Stanley L., 75, 204
Macpherson, J., 215
McVey, Frank L., 181
Maine, Sir H. A., 181
Manschke, R., 217
Marcuse, Max, 213
Markey, Gene, 222
Marpillero, G., 219
Martell, P., 207
Maunier, René, 169
Maurice, Arthur Bartlett, 192
Maxey, C. C., 185
Mayhew, Henry, 218
Mayr, G. von, 210
Meinshausen, 215
Mensch, Ella (pseudonym), 222
Mercier, Marcel, 177
Meuriot, P. M. G., 167, 211
Miller, H. A., 192
Moore, E. C., 199
Morehouse, E. W., 204
Morgan, Anna, 219
Morgan, J. E., 217
Morgan, W. S., 173
Morse, H. N., 224
Mowrer, Ernest R., 62
Mulvihill, F. J., 185
Mumford, Lewis, 203
Munro, W. B., 60, 201
Myers, C. S., 225
Nichols, C. M., 203
Noack, Victor, 218
Ober, Frederick A., 132
Odum, Howard W., 202
Olcott, George C., 205
Olden, Balder, 187
Ormiston, E., 182
Ostwald, Hans O., 189, 200, 213, 226
Palmer, George T., 227
Park, Robert E., 64, 119, 144, 192, 197, 220
Parker, Horatio Nelson, 203
Payne, George Henry, 89
Pearl, Raymond, 120
Peattie, Roderick, 224
Penck, Albrecht, 187
Perry, Clarence A., 190
Petermann, Theodor, 186
Phelan, John J., 200
Pieper, E., 215
Pirenne, Henry, 172
Pollock, H. M., 173
Pratt, Edward Ewing, 205
Preuss, Hugo, 172
Prinzing, F., 210, 211, 217, 224
Purdom, C. B., 195
Püschel, Alfred, 207
Quaife, Milo Milton, 197
Ratzel, Friedrich, 177
Ravenstein, E. G., 211
Reckless, Walter C., 62
Reeve, Sidney A., 205
Reibmayr, A., 222
Reuter, E. B., 167
Rhodes, Harrison, 176, 200
Richmond, Mary E., 198
Ridgley, Douglas C., 177, 207
Riis, Jacob A., 205
Ripley, W. Z., 209
Roberts, Kate L., 195
Roberts, Peter, 179
Roe, Clifford, 218
Röse, C., 216
Ross, E. A., 223
Rostovtzeff, Michael, 171
Roth, Lawrence V., 207
Rowntree, B. Seebohm, 218, 226
Roxby, P. M., 223
Salten, Felix, 209
Sanborn, Frank B., 179
Sanderson, Dwight, 224
Sarker, S. L., 215
Schäfer, D., 167
Scharrelmann, Heinrich, 189
Schmid, Herman, 209
Schrader, F., 166
Schuchard, Ernest, 213
Schumacher, Fritz, 203, 205
Sears, Charles, 192, 213
Sedlaczek, 207
Seiler, C. Linn, 219
Seligman, Edwin R. A., 189
Semple, Ellen C., 178, 179
Sennett, R. A., 195
Sharp, George W., 213
Shideler, E. H., 62, 203
Shine, Mary L., 181
Simkhovitch, Mark K., 218
Simmel, Georg, 219
Sims, Newell Leroy, 72, 181
Slosson, P., 181
Smith, Adam, 13
Smith, Arthur H., 224
Smith, F. Berkley, 189
Smith, Joseph Russell, 69, 166, 178, 223
Smythe, William Ellsworth, 205
Solenberger, Alice W., 218
Sombart, Werner, 168, 220
Spencer, A. G., 211
Spengler, Oswald, 1, 2, 3, 220
Steele, Rufus, 179
Steffens, Lincoln, 202
Steiner, Jesse F., 213
Steinhart, A., 211
Stella, A., 205
Stelze, Charles, 213
Stephany, H., 212
Stote, A., 195
Stow, John, 172
Strong, Josiah, 173, 213
Strunsky, Simeon, 189
Südekum, Albert, 205
Sumner, Charles, 36
Taylor, Graham Romeyn, 185
Tews, Johann, 199
Theilhaber, F. A., 217
Thomas, William I., 19, 27, 99, 108, 119, 128, 213
Thompson, Warren S., 217
Thorndyke, Lynn, 123
Thrasher, F. M., 62, 111
Thurnwald, R., 224
Timbs, John, 189
Todd, Robert E., 179
Toulmin, Harry A., 202
Tout, T. F., 195
Tower, W. S., 179
Traquair, Ramsay, 73
Trawick, Arcadius McSwain, 199
Triggs, H. Inigo, 195
Triton (pseudonym), 221
Tucker, R. S., 224
Turszinsky, Walter, 199
Uhde-Bernays, Herman, 176
Van Cleef, E., 207
Vandervelde, E., 223
Veblen, Thorstein, 219
Veiller, Lawrence, 205
Villchur, Mark, 81
Voss, W., 211
Vuillenmier, J. F., 225
Waentig, H., 168
Walford, C., 216
Wallas, Graham, 82, 104
Waltemath, E., 223
Ward, Edward J., 199
Warming, Eugenius, 145
Weatherly, U. G., 131
Weber, Adna Ferrin, 57, 207
Weber, G. A., 202
Weber, L. W., 216
Weiberg, W., 216
Weidner, Albert, 219
Weisstein, G., 211
Weleminsky, F., 212
Wells, Joseph, 186
Welton, T. A., 224
Werthauer, Johannes, 189, 214, 219
Weyl, Walter E., 202
Whipple, G. C., 197, 216
Whitbeck, R. H., 182
White, Bouck, 190
Wilcox, Delos F., 185, 202
Williams, Fred V., 192
Williams, James M., 190, 209
Wilson, Warren H., 72, 181, 198
Winter, Max, 209, 220
Wood, Arthur Evans, 179
Woods, Robert A., 7, 154, 189, 212
Woolston, Howard, 220
Wright, Henry C., 177, 184
Wright, R., 185
Wuttke, R., 193
Young Erle Fiske, 190
Zahn, F., 208
Zimmern, Alfred E., 171
Zimmern, Helen, 187
Znaniecki, Florian, 128, 213
Zorbaugh, H. W., 62
Zueblin, Charles, 173, 202
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
-----
Footnote 1:
Oswald Spengler, _Der Untergang des Abendlandes_, IV (München, 1922),
105.
Footnote 2:
Oswald Spengler, _Untergang des Abendlandes_, IV, 106.
Footnote 3:
Robert A. Woods, “The Neighborhood in Social Reconstruction,” _Papers
and Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the American
Sociological Society, 1913_.
Footnote 4:
James Welden Johnson, “The Making of Harlem,” _Survey Graphic_, March
1, 1925.
Footnote 5:
“Wenn wir daher das Wort [Natur] als einen logischen Terminus in der
Wissenschaftslehre gebrauchen wollen, so werden wir sagen dürfen, dass
Natur die Wirklichkeit ist mit Rücksicht auf ihren gesetzmässigen
Zusammenhang. Diese Bedeutung finden wir z. B. in dem Worte
Naturgesetz. Dann aber können wir die Natur der Dinge auch das nennen
was in die Begriffe eingeht, oder am kürzesten uns dahin ausdrücken:
die Natur ist die Wirklichkeit mit Rücksicht auf das Allgemeine. So
gewinnt dann das Wort erst eine logische Bedeutung” (H. Rickert, _Die
Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung_, p. 212).
Footnote 6:
Walter Besant, _East London_, pp. 7–9.
Footnote 7:
Adam Smith, _The Wealth of Nations_, pp. 28–29.
Footnote 8:
Walter Bagehot, _The Postulates of Political Economy_ (London, 1885),
pp. 7–8.
Footnote 9:
Cf. W. I. Thomas, _Source Book of Social Origins_, p. 169.
Footnote 10:
Charles Horton Cooley, _Social Organization_, p. 15.
Footnote 11:
Walter Besant, _East London_, p. 13.
Footnote 12:
William I. Thomas, “Race Psychology: Standpoint and Questionnaire with
Particular Reference to the Immigrant and Negro,” _American Journal of
Sociology_, XVII (May, 1912), 736.
Footnote 13:
_Reports of the United States Immigration Commission_, VI, 14–16.
Footnote 14:
Jacques Loeb, _Comparative Physiology of the Brain_, pp. 220–21.
Footnote 15:
_Ibid._, p. 221.
Footnote 16:
James Bryce, _The American Commonwealth_, I, 566.
Footnote 17:
Sumner, _Folkways_, p. 12.
Footnote 18:
Cf. Bryce, _The American Commonwealth_, p. 267.
Footnote 19:
“British Conurbations in 1921,” _Sociological Review_, XIV (April,
1922), 111–12.
Footnote 20:
See E. H. Shideler, _The Retail Business Organization as an Index of
Community Organization_ (in preparation).
Footnote 21:
For a study of this cultural area of city life see Nels Anderson, _The
Hobo_, Chicago, 1923.
Footnote 22:
Weber, _The Growth of Cities_, p. 442.
Footnote 23:
Adapted from W. B. Munro, _Municipal Government and Administration_,
II, 377.
Footnote 24:
_Report of the Chicago Subway and Traction Commission_, p. 81, and the
_Report on a Physical Plan for a Unified Transportation System_, p.
391.
Footnote 25:
Data compiled by automobile industries.
Footnote 26:
Statistics of mailing division, Chicago Post-office.
Footnote 27:
Determined from _Census Estimates for Intercensal Years_.
Footnote 28:
From statistics furnished by Mr. R. Johnson, traffic supervisor,
Illinois Bell Telephone Company.
Footnote 29:
From 1912–23, land values per front foot increased in Bridgeport from
$600 to $1,250; in Division-Ashland-Milwaukee district, from $2,000 to
$4,500; in “Back of the Yards,” from $1,000 to $3,000; in Englewood,
from $2,500 to $8,000; in Wilson Avenue, from $1,000 to $6,000; but
decreased in the Loop from $20,000 to $16,500.
Footnote 30:
Nels Anderson, _The Slum: An Area of Deterioration in the Growth of
the City_; Ernest R. Mowrer, _Family Disorganization in Chicago_;
Walter C. Reckless, _The Natural History of Vice Areas in Chicago_; E.
H. Shideler, _The Retail Business Organization as an Index of Business
Organization_; F. M. Thrasher, _One Thousand Boys’ Gangs in Chicago; a
Study of Their Organization and Habitat_; H. W. Zorbaugh, _The Lower
North Side; a Study in Community Organization_.
Footnote 31:
_Encyclopedia Americana_, New York (1923), p. 555.
Footnote 32:
As indicated later on in this paper, ecological formations tend to
develop in cyclic fashion. A period of time within which a given
ecological formation develops and culminates is the time period for
that particular formation. The length of these time periods may be
ultimately measured and predicted, hence the inclusion of the temporal
element in the definition.
Footnote 33:
The word “position” is used to describe the place relation of a given
community to other communities, also the location of the individual or
institution within the community itself.
Footnote 34:
Park and Burgess, _Introduction to the Science of Sociology_, p. 509.
Footnote 35:
Although the actions of individuals may be designed and controlled,
the total effect of individual action is neither designed nor
anticipated.
Footnote 36:
_Human Geography_, p. 52.
Footnote 37:
Brunhes points out by a series of maps the very intimate relation
between the distribution of human habitations and the water systems of
different countries. He also demonstrates the relation of the modern
industrial community to the regions of coal deposits.
Footnote 38:
The close relation existing between the coal and iron areas and the
location of modern industrial communities has frequently been pointed
out. L. C. A. Knowles says: “Apart from special and exceptional
circumstances industry in Europe and the United States tends to grow
up within easy railway access to the great coal areas and on these
areas the population is massed in towns” (_The Industrial and
Commercial Revolutions in Great Britain during the Nineteenth
Century_, p. 24).
Footnote 39:
To be sure, if the interests in question are commercialized, the
growth of the community is subject to the same laws of competition as
the other types of communities, with the exception that change is
likely to be more rapid and fanciful.
Footnote 40:
See H. P. Douglass, _The Little Town_, p. 44.
Footnote 41:
F. E. Clements, _Plant Succession_, p. 3. Carr-Saunders refers to the
point of population adjustment to resources as the “optimum.”
Footnote 42:
J. Russell Smith, _Industrial and Commercial Geography_ (1913), p.
841.
Footnote 43:
A. T. Hadley, “Economic Results of Improvement in Means of
Transportation,” quoted in Marshall, _Business Administration_, p. 35.
Footnote 44:
L. C. A. Knowles, _The Industrial and Commercial Revolutions in Great
Britain during the Nineteenth Century_ (1921), p. 216.
Footnote 45:
See Gillette, _Rural Sociology_ (1922), pp. 472–73.
Footnote 46:
For a good statistical summary of the decline in village population in
the United States from 1900 to 1920 see Gillette, _op. cit._ (1922),
p. 465.
Footnote 47:
Warren H. Wilson, “Quaker Hill,” quoted in Sims, _Rural Community_, p.
214.
Footnote 48:
In actual count of some thirty-odd communities in and around Seattle
this was about the sequence of development.
Footnote 49:
The axial or skeletal structure of civilization, Mediterranean,
Atlantic, Pacific, is the ocean around which it grows up. See Ramsay
Traquair, “The Commonwealth of the Atlantic,” _Atlantic Monthly_, May,
1924.
Footnote 50:
Compare F. E. Clements, _Plant Succession_, p. 6.
Footnote 51:
For good discussions of the effect of new forms of transportation upon
communal structure see McMichael and Bingham, _City Growth and Values_
(1923), chap. iv; also Grupp, _Economics of Motor Transportation_
(1924), chap. ii.
Footnote 52:
By actual count in the city of Seattle over 80 per cent of the
disorderly houses recorded in police records are obsolete buildings
located near the downtown business section where land values are high
and new uses are in process of establishment.
Footnote 53:
A term used by members of the Department of Sociology in the
University of Chicago.
Footnote 54:
This has also been suggested by the Chicago group.
Footnote 55:
Walter Lippmann, _Public Opinion_, pp. 361–62.
Footnote 56:
Michael MacDonagh, _The Reporters’ Gallery_. Pp. 139–40.
Footnote 57:
George Henry Payne, _History of Journalism in the United States_, p.
120.
Footnote 58:
William I. Thomas, _The Unadjusted Girl—with Cases and Standpoint for
Behavior Analysis_, _Criminal Science_, Monograph No. 4, Boston, 1923.
Footnote 59:
Thomas and Znaniecki, _The Polish Peasant_, I, 87–97, quoted in Park
and Miller, _Old-World Traits Transplanted_, p. 34.
Footnote 60:
_Ibid._, II, 259, quoted in Park and Miller, _Old-World Traits
Transplanted_, pp. 39–40.
Footnote 61:
W. I. Thomas, _The Unadjusted Girl_, p. 71.
Footnote 62:
Robert E. Park, “The Significance of Social Research in Social
Service,” _Journal of Applied Sociology_ (May-June, 1924), pp. 264–65.
Footnote 63:
J. Graham Cruickshank, _Black Talk_, p. 8.
Footnote 64:
Archbishop E. J. Hanna, head of the Catholic diocese of California,
recently, during the drouth on the Pacific Coast, issued formal
instructions to the pastors of all Catholic churches to offer the
following prayer immediately after mass: “O God, in whom we live and
move and are, grant us seasonal rain that we, enjoying a sufficiency
of support in this life, may with more confidence strive after things
eternal.”—From _Los Angeles Evening Herald_, January 17, 1924.
Footnote 65:
Thomas and Znaniecki, _The Polish Peasant in Europe and America_
(Boston, 1918), I, 3: “The oldest but most persistent form of social
technique is that of ‘ordering-and-forbidding’—that is, meeting a
crisis by an arbitrary act of will decreeing the disappearance of the
undesirable or the appearance of the desirable phenomena, and the
using arbitrary physical action to enforce the decree. This method
corresponds exactly to the magical phase of natural technique. In
both, the essential means of bringing a determined effect is more or
less consciously thought to reside in the act of will itself by which
the effect is decreed as desirable, and of which the action is merely
an indispensable vehicle or instrument; in both, the process by which
the cause (act of will and physical action) is supposed to bring its
effect to realization remains out of reach of investigation.”
Footnote 66:
The following telegram was recently in the _San Francisco Bulletin_:
“Stanford University, Jan. 24, 1924—Stanford has established what is
termed a unique course in the curriculum of western universities. It
teaches scientific yell-leading, according to the rally committee,
which sponsors the course. The course is open to sophomores only.
Practices will be held in Encina gymnasium.”
Footnote 67:
Frederick A. Ober, _A Guide to the West Indies Bermudas_, New York,
1908, p. 351.
Footnote 68:
J. B. Baillie, _Studies in Human Nature_, p. 242.
Footnote 69:
A distinction made by Professor Robert E. Park.
Footnote 70:
Park and Burgess, _Introduction to the Science of Sociology_, p. 163.
Footnote 71:
P. 163.
Footnote 72:
One of the committees of the Chicago Council of Social Agencies has a
subcommittee which is studying this problem in connection with the
subject of uniform districts for social agencies. Several departments
of the city government are interested in considering the possibilities
of uniform administrative districts.
Footnote 73:
See chapter “The Growth of the City” for a more elaborate analysis of
urban expansion (pp. 47–62).
Footnote 74:
Numbers in parentheses after titles indicate that the work cited
contains material bearing on the topics in the outline corresponding
to these numbers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected palpable typographical errors; retained
non-standard spellings and dialect.
2. Reindexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end
of the last chapter.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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