An Approach to Urban Sociology

P.H. Mann

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415176965
• eBook ISBN: 9781136256615
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is Volume I of thirteen in the Urban and Regional Sociology series. Originally published in 1965, the study aims with trying to present a sociological perspective rather than a guide to social policy. Written just before the change of government in October 1964, the purpose of this book is to try to introduce an element of theoretical consideration into the study of urbanism in contemporary Britain.

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM

I HAVE entitled this book An Approach to Urban Sociology because it is seriously intended to be an approach. That is to say that the way in which the problem is tackled is, I hope, not quite the same as may be found in a number of standard texts on urban sociology. Indeed, it was deliberate policy in beginning this book to try to get away from the conventional text-book formula which appears to require an introductory chapter on the history of cities, and finally a chapter on either town planning or ‘social change and the city’.

The purpose of this book is to try to introduce an element of theoretical consideration into the study of urbanism in contemporary Britain. If this sounds a grandiose purpose it is certainly not meant to do. But it does seem to me that British urban sociology, itself a comparatively neglected field, tends to be greatly tied up with social policy, town planning and various aspects of social work. If urban sociology is worthy of the name sociology it should be more than any of these, even though it may well include such details within its purview.

Professor Ginsberg once wrote, ‘Probably a great deal of the opposition to sociology as a branch of learning is due to the fact that for philosophers it is not philosophical enough, and for empirically-minded scientists it is not scientific enough’.¹ To this could probably be added that for historians it is not historical enough and for geographers it is insufficiently geographical. Perhaps in giving too much consideration to what others think of them, sociologists have diluted their own interests in an over-zealous attempt to be of interest to others.

This book is not written especially for any group of readers other than sociologists, but I hope it may interest others, even if only to stimulate them to disagreement. My aim in the following chapters is to consider urbanism as a field of sociology. In doing this I have attempted to bring together certain empirical findings that are relevant to problems of urban sociology. I have also used theoretical propositions in sociology and applied them to urban questions. In this process I am not trying to please philosophers, empirical scientists, town planners, social workers or even sociologists. Indeed, such are the further unsolved problems that are stimulated in the author's mind by the writing of a book that I have certainly not pleased myself.

Urbanisation is one of the major phenomena of social development over the past hundred years in British society, and today Britain is one of the most urbanised countries in the world. Yet, given these undoubted facts, there is wide agreement with Ruth Glass when she writes that, ‘British anti-urbanism has a long history’ and that ‘The absence of any general British texts on urbanism ... is undoubtedly in keeping with the native dislike of towns’.² Indeed, the popular reaction to a recent American book by a woman who actually likes living in the heart of New York was one of amusement as much as anything. Certainly, at a recent conference, I found a very eminent architect and a hardly less eminent town-planner, neither of whom would publicly acknowledge this work to be other than a rather amusing piece of nonsense. In Britain ‘urbanism’ is almost synonymous with slums, overcrowding, traffic chaos and, currently, land speculation. Just as the American citizen was supposed to have lived twenty years before he learned that ‘damn British’ was two words, so might it be suggested that for the British citizen he might live the same time before he learned than ‘urban’ and ‘problem’ were not the same thing.

The history of British urban sociology is essentially one of the study of social problems raised by urban development. Right from the reform movements of the nineteenth century, with their genuine concerns for the evils which attended urban growth, British sociology has rarely detached itself from problems of social policy. There can be few fields of specialisation within the general body of sociology in which impartiality, objectivity and detachment have been so little sought. Perhaps it is foolhardy to attempt impartiality in this field, but if urban sociology is to be something other than the study of problems standing in the way of social reform, then some serious attempt at detachment must be the aim. I cannot claim that I am completely free from value judgments about urbanism, and many must inevitably show through in this book. As a townsman born and bred, but who has lived very happily in a village, I can merely claim some personal experience of living in a range of environment from village, through a variety of sizes of town to larger cities. In all of them I have known happiness and sadness ; in all of them I have found things to admire and things to deplore. So it is with us as a society; we have our likes and dislikes, and these are part of the data upon which the sociologist draws. But rather than take sides in any battle, I see the function of the sociologist as being that of the observer who can present the analysis for the use of any interested party.

The following chapters, therefore, are an approach to the analysis of urbanism, especially in Britain. Rather than being a campaign to ‘sell’ a plan for a better urban life, this book is concerned with stock-taking. It is as a piece of urban sociological stock-taking that it is offered.

Chapter Two

DESCRIPTIVE COMPARISON OF RURAL AND URBAN

THE highly urbanised form of so much of Western civilisation is a phenomenon of fairly recent development and it is not surprising that the method of contrasting rural and urban groups has been used for a better understanding of changes that have taken place and which are still continuing today.¹ So long as we are clear in our minds as to just what we are comparing, the method can be extremely valuable. However, there are two pitfalls which must be carefully avoided if true justice is to be done to the method.

The first pitfall comes with working with the four factors, rural, urban, past and present. The danger lies in comparing rural and urban without taking care to remember (or specify) whether the comparison is at a given time or over a period of time. For example, one can compare the present village with the past village (defining, of course, with what period in the past one is concerned). One can also compare the past village with the present city. Any comparison using these four variables is a valid one, so long as the time aspect is made clear. But it is not uncommon to find that a comparison of rural and urban is made in which the reader (and perhaps the writer too) has little idea of when the comparison is being made. As one example, we find Thomas Sharp saying, ‘Now the point about the agricultural village, for my present argument, is that it is, or at least was a comparatively simple social organism’.² Such an argument, ignoring the time factor, must be suspect, since the writer is admitting by implication that a change has taken place in the village and we cannot be sure just where in time he is basing his statements.

The second pitfall, closely linked with the first, is that of dealing in stereotypes rather than generalisations. By this we mean to refer to two allied problems. Firstly there is the problem of knowing just what a person is meaning when he refers to a rural community: it may well cover anything from a primitive village in Africa to a village inhabited wholly by wealthy commuters not far from New York. In general this problem is covered to some degree by the implication normally made that the reference is to a village in Western society based mainly upon agriculture as a way of life. This vague definition in itself covers a wide range of differences, but for most general purposes it suffices. The second point concerns the attitudes towards rural communities that are held by many writers. Here we find a wealth of value judgments that are not always made explicit, and it becomes evident that many writers, consciously or unconsciously, are ‘anti-urban’ and ‘pro-rural’. By this we mean that in comparing village and city there is a glorification of rural life which at times is based purely on sentiment, and at times pretty sickly sentiment at that. The thatched cottage, with roses round the door and honeysuckle in the garden is a favourite picture used in greeting cards, calendars and so on. This writer has yet to see a birthday card where a large block of flats is the central pictorial theme. In song and story, and film, the ‘country life’ is the one for me, and ‘my home town’ is always a small place, never sounding larger than an overgrown village. The ‘local yokel’ is a figure of fun, but the laughter he arouses is essentially friendly in its spirit: he may be simple, but he is good hearted. His counterpart the city wage-slave never ever raises a joke, he is far too drab and uninteresting, and even if he should show signs of life he is likely to be portrayed as a fat, self-indulgent moron or a slick spiv-like character.³ It would be an interesting topic for research to make a detailed analysis of the various stereotypes such as are mentioned above in the rural-urban contrast. But perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it all lies in the constant emphasis upon urbanism and urban life as a problem. Perhaps in the U.S.A. where rural sociology is more advanced, and where rural problems have been very great in fairly recent years, the attitude is more realistic and a better balance is kept. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle may be balanced by John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. But certainly the position in Great Britain seems to be heavily weighted in favour of the ‘truly-rural’. It will be our contention in future pages that the attitudes of ‘for rural’ and ‘against urban’ do much to obscure the true understanding of both rural and urban life, and place a wholly undue emphasis upon the problems of city life. This is not to say that, allowing everyone his own value judgments, there should not be preferences for rural or urban life. The present writer has lived in city and village, and finds much that is attractive in both, with, if anything, a preference for village life. Where the danger lies, surely, is in the idea that city life is very busy and complicated, whereas the village is simple and cosy. It then follows that it would be ideal for us all to live in villages, and, if we cannot do this, then we should try to make our cities as much like villages as possible. Such an argument, we contend, is positively dangerous and can lead to a complete lack of any sensible orientation towards studying the form and structure of urban society. The viewpoint is distorted, and the city stands condemned before it is even put on trial.

The glorification of the rural community is further linked with a harking back to ‘those good old days’ so beloved of song-writers whose memories, or knowledge of facts, appear to be highly selective. Here the two pitfalls join together to make one large hole, and we find a blind groping after a form of life that probably never existed in the past, and certainly could never exist in present life.

If we can avoid the two major errors referred to above it should be possible to make an objective and impartial comparison between rural and urban forms of community. In doing this we shall use the method of the polar contrasts, linked by a continuum. As T. L. Smith points out,

Rural and urban do not exist of themselves in a vacuum, as it were, but the principal characteristics of each may be found shading into, blending or mixing with the essential characteristics of the other . . . Rather than consisting of mutually exclusive categories, rural and urban, the general society seems to resemble a spectrum in which the most remote backwoods sub-rural [sic] settlements blend imperceptibly into the rural and then gradually through all degrees of rural and suburban into the most urban and hyper-urban [sic] way of living. If such be the case, a scale, rather than a dichotomy, would provide the most satisfactory device for classifying the population or the group according to rural or urban characteristics.⁴

(It is interesting in passing to note that in the above passage Smith gives the prefix ‘sub’ to the most extreme rural pattern, and the prefix ‘hyper’ to the most extreme urban. Perhaps this is meant to imply the development of urban from rural, but it is worth noting as just one example of the way in which attitudes to rural and urban influence the selection of terminology.)

Using the method of analysis put forward by Sorokin and Zimmerman we can see how, ‘through the classification of a complex and uninterrupted series of phenomena into a few types or classes, they (scientists) overcome the complexity of the concrete reality and give its important traits in the form of a few classes or types of phenomena’.⁵ Sorokin and Zimmerman consider the principal criterion of difference between rural and urban society to be occupational. From this basic difference a further series of differences can be developed, most of which are related in some way to the basic one. Eight characteristics in all are given as a means for comparing what are called the rural and urban ‘worlds’, they are (i) Occupation, (2) Environment, (3) Size of Community, (4) Density of Population, (5) Heterogeneity and Homogeneity of Population, (6) Social Differentiation and Stratification, (7) Mobility, (8) System of Interaction. In this chapter we shall give each characteristic, with the comparative illustrations made by Sorokin and Zimmerman, and, with each, develop the contrast for our own purposes. In the following chapter we shall attempt to make rural and urban comparisons using quantitative data for this country.

RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES SUGGESTED BY SOROKIN AND ZIMMERMAN

(1) Occupation

Rural—Totality of Cultivators and their families. In the community are usually few representatives of several non-agricultural pursuits.

Urban—Totality of people engaged principally in manufacturing, mechanical pursuits, trade, commerce, professions, governing and other non-agricultural occupations.

Since agriculture is concerned primarily with the cultivation of crops and the breeding and rearing of animals, the typical rural work is out-of-doors and requires comparatively large areas of land. There is, from this, a further requirement that at least some of the labour force shall live close at hand to the land or, particularly, animals, and it becomes apparent that large communities of agricultural workers are highly unlikely. Rural work also tends to call for a high degree of adaptability; the general farm worker is a man with a variety of skills who can fulfil a number of functions. (It is always a wonder to me, after spending two summers as a student working on farms, that agricultural workers are considered to be unskilled: the man with five years’ experience of farm work is surely at least as skilled as the fitter or turner in an engineering works). Conditions vary according to place, but, in general, the agricultural worker is employed in a relatively small labour unit. The ‘family farm’ often has as its only labour force the farmer, his wife, his sons and, possibly, his daughters. Even where outside hands are employed the numbers are still generally small and a comprehensive personal relationship between the farmer and his men is possible. The continuous and relatively unchanging needs of farming make for a tradition which often results in the land being worked by succeeding generations of families. This, in turn, leads to training for farm work beginning at an early age and work and home are closely linked. An example may be cited of a farm known to me, where the farmer, an oldish man, was helped by his three sons, one of whom was married and had twin sons. At the age of four, both the boys could handle a farm-tractor and were capable of carrying out many routine farm jobs. It is not suggested that all farms have such a tradition, and the growth (as it appears) of managed farms owned by absentee city businessmen may cut across this pattern. Nevertheless, in contrast to the industrial type of occupation, the above picture may be used.

With urban occupations a very different system operates. The home and the family group rarely have any direct connection with the occupation of the wage-earner or earners. Few industrial workers have a traditional occupation into which it might be said that they ‘grew’. It is often suggested that coalmining, dock-work and a few professions such as the church and the armed forces, do have a father-to-son tradition. But even if this is so, the home is not the occupational centre, and in the case of the professions particularly, the following-on of the son in his father's profession may well necessitate his leaving home altogether. Work unit and home unit no longer have the same tie as in agriculture. In the urban setting the choice of occupation open to the young schoo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. Introduction to the Problem
• 2. Descriptive Comparison of Rural and Urban
• 3. Rural-Urban Comparison: A Quantitative Approach
• 4. Urban Society
• 5. The Control of Urban Development
• 6. Focus on the Neighbourhood
• 7. A Theoretical Viewpoint
• 8. Conclusions
• Notes
• Index