1. The Urban World, 9th Ed.
J. John Palen

2. Chapter 7: Urban Culture and Lifestyles
Introduction
Social Psychology of Urban Life
Reevaluations of Urbanism and Social Disorganization
Characteristics of Urban Populations
Urban Lifestyles
A Final Note of Caution
Summary

3. Introduction
Move to the consideration of the city as a unique social organizational form and social milieu
Urbanism rather than urbanization
Understanding the influences of the beliefs and myths about city, suburban, and rural life

4. Social Psychology of Urban Life
Early Formulations
Tönnies’s description of the shift from gemeinschaft (a community where ties are based upon kinship) to gesellschaft (a society based on common economic, political, and other interests)
Karl Marx’s dichotomy between the urban and the rural
In all frameworks, the rural represents the past

5. “Urbanism as a Way of Life”
The Chicago School
Concerned with examining scientifically the changes produced by urbanization
Influenced by Georg Simmel’s earlier vision of the social-psychological consequences of city life
“Urbanism as a Way of Life”
Louis Wirth argued that the city created a distinct way of life—called “urbanism”—that is reflected in how people dress and speak, what they believe about the social world, what they consider worth achieving, what they do for a living, where they live, with whom they associate, and why they interact with other people

6. Reevaluations of Urbanism and Social Disorganization
Determinist Theory
Wirthian social disorganization, which included decline of family and weakening of bonds, breakdown of primary groups, and decline of cultural homogeneity
Community Lost: urbanization is said to more or less automatically produce the characteristics of urbanism as a way of life
Compositional Theory
Gans suggests that the city is composed of not just one urban way of life but rather a wide variety of lifestyles
The nature of the individual’s local community and primary groups are most important

7. Subcultural Theory
Claude Fischer argues that space does matter, and there is something different about cities
Urbanization strengthens and intensifies subcultural groups
Being middle class in a small town is not the same as being middle class in a city
Size does matter

8. Characteristics of Urban Populations
Age
Urban population is younger than rural because they attract immigrants
Cities have more activities for young adults
Gender
Less-developed countries have a higher proportion of urban males
Developed countries there is a higher likelihood that single women will leave rural areas for city jobs

9. Race, Ethnicity, and Religion
Cities more heterogeneous than small towns
Raises the potential of intergroup cleavage, competition, and conflict
More likely when represented by socioeconomic status boundaries
Socioeconomic Status
North American cities have been losing middle-class residents since World War II
Overall city income averages tend to hide sharp individual and neighborhood variations in socioeconomic status

10. Urban Lifestyles Cosmopolites Unmarried or Childless Gay Households
Urban sophisticates, most often having incomes to match their lifestyles
Unmarried or Childless
Overlap with the cosmopolites; younger and apartment dwellers
Brains have replaced money and accomplishment trumps religion and wealth
Gay Households
Estimated to be some 8.8 million gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons in the United States
According to the U.S. census, gay male households are more likely to live in downtown gay neighborhoods, while lesbians more commonly reside in suburban areas

11. Neighborhood Characteristics
Ethnic Villagers
Residents in neighborhoods dominated by a single ethnic group often called “urban villagers” or “urban provincials”
Often mislabeled as slums
Neighborhood Characteristics
Territoriality: strong sense of territory
Ordered Segmentation: each ethnic group carefully and specifically defines its territory
Peer-Group Orientation: a group made up of members of the same age and sex who are at the same stage of the lifecycle
Family Norms: Family life in middle-class families is child-oriented, but in settled, ethnic, working-class areas family life is generally adult-oriented

12. Deprived or Trapped Housing: not primarily viewed as a status symbol
Imagery and Vulnerability: psychological distance from the city; they are “in” but not “of” the city
Vulnerable to change induced from the outside
Deprived or Trapped
For the 15 to 20 percent of the population who are the bottom, the slum has the character more of an urban jungle than an urban village
Most of the residents of unstable slums are for all practical purposes excluded from the economic and social life of the larger society
Housing Problems

13. A Final Note of Caution
Urbanism as a way of life is remarkably diverse
There is no single urban lifestyle per se
It is important to distinguish between the different urban lifestyles