1. Chapter 15: Urbanization, Population,
Today I’ll be talking about the social effects of urbanization, population growth, and environmental challenges. The context for this lies with the rapid industrialization that began in Western nations over two hundred years ago, and which continues today in the developing world. Though I’ll separate the topics for analytical purposes, you will see fairly quickly how much they are connected to each other.
Chapter 15: Urbanization, Population,

2. Economy & Environment: China
Let’s think about a contemporary example: the ultra-rapid industrialization taking place in China today. In the past two decades, China has been working frantically to catch up (and perhaps pass) the developed nations of the West. In many ways, this process has been quite successful Hundreds of millions of people no longer live in poverty as a result of the growing economy, and China has been able to insist on a place of power in international affairs. But China’s industrialization and ascent to global power has come with a huge environmental price tag.
The image on the left shows a factory along the Yangtze River, while that on the right shows workers commuting in an urban center. Both illustrate very clearly the potential costs of rapid industrial growth with very little environmental regulation. In fact, your book tells us that 16 of the world’s most polluted cities are in China.
In more recent years, beginning around 2010, China’s leadership began to recognize and act on the threat that environmental disaster could bring. In 2011, the prime minister reduced national economic targets as a path to reducing damage to the environment. China provides an excellent case for examining the connections between urbanization, industrialization, and the environment, as it is trying to maximize the strengths of all three—a quite difficult task.

3. Important issues How cities have changed and why
Rural, urban, and suburban living
Globalization and urbanization
Population growth and its consequences
Globalization, urbanization, growth, and the environment
So what are our big issues? I will explore changes in the composition and purposes of cities, looking at both ancient cities and those of today, and we will spend some time thinking about rural, urban, and suburban living. What are the differences? How are these places changing? Whom do these changes benefit?
Then I will begin to link these issues to globalization and population growth. First, how are urbanization and globalization connected? Why are they connected? How does population growth play a role?
Finally, I will address the relationship among global population growth, urbanization, and environmental challenges. How is that sociological? It is sociological because as societies we must decide how we will deal with challenges or else we will bear the burdens of leaving them unresolved.

4. Ancient cities
Organized very differently than today’s cities, both spatially and socially
Centers for culture, science, commerce, and the arts
The vast majority of the population lived in rural towns and communities, with little or no connection to cities.
When we think about major cities, most of us are likely imagining modern cities, full of skyscrapers, with populations in the millions. Beginning around 3500 BCE, a few recognizable cities developed. In the ancient world, the most important cities would seem small to us—only around 300,000 in ancient Rome, for example. They would also look different spatially. These cities were walled for defense, with a central house of worship, a palace, an administrative complex, a market, and a public square. Elites lived closest to the center, with status going down the further out toward the wall. Those outside the city walls lived a life apart from those inside.
These cities, like ours today, were hubs of culture, science, commerce, and the arts. Even so, they had very little influence on the broader culture and, in fact, very little influence on those who lived outside their gates. The vast majority of people in ancient times lived outside the cities and had very little connection to them or their culture. 4

5. What is urbanization?
Urbanization is a shift in population from rural living to living in cities and towns.
Occurred alongside industrialization
London as a prime example:
1800: 1.1 million people
1900: > 7 million people
United States:
– : <10% urban
– : approximately 80% urban
Since ancient times a great deal has obviously changed. Today—and yes, we are skipping big chunks of time here—around 50 percent of the global population lives in urban areas, and the upward trend is continuing. This trend of population movement from rural living to living in cities and towns is called urbanization. What is truly amazing is how much this trend has accelerated in the last three hundred years. Why has the shift occurred? It is mostly because of industrialization.
We know that with industrialization people began moving to cities to find work in the rapidly growing factory system. We can look at London as an example. Already a very large city in 1800 with a population of 1.1 million, London grew by a factor of 7 in the next one hundred years. This growth coincided directly with the development of industrialization there. The same pattern took place in cities all across Europe, then the United States, Australia, and so on. In 1800, the U.S. population was only 10 percent urban, while today, around 80 percent of Americans live in urban settings.
We can think of the corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston as an example of the kind of urbanization that seems to be continuing. That 450-mile swath of the eastern seaboard has over 40 million people living in it, leading to its designation as a megalopolis, or city of cities. 5

6. Global urbanization
1900 onward: urbanization became a global, not just a national, process.
That trend intensified from 1950 forward.
Global, urban population statistics:
1975: 39%
2000: approximately 50%
2050: estimated 70%
Urbanization, of course, is not just happening in scattered or random places. The developing world is now experiencing this process to a significant enough degree that estimates suggest that by 2050 over 70 percent of the human population will be living in urban areas.

7. Theories of urbanism The Chicago School Urban ecology
Cities organized naturally so as to generate equilibrium
Robert Park
Urbanism as way of life
Urban interaction problem
Louis Wirth
Given this massive shift in how people live, it should come as no surprise that many sociologists have turned their attention to all aspects of urban life. I am going to spend a few minutes now giving you an overview of a few of the most significant approaches thinkers have taken to understanding life in the city.
First, I’ll introduce you to the Chicago School, a group of sociologists who were associated with the University of Chicago in the first half of the twentieth century. These scholars were the pioneers of urban sociology, studying such topics as crime, ethnic organization, and, our topic here, urbanism. There are two Chicago School perspectives I want you to be familiar with: the first is the idea of urban ecology and the second is urbanism as a way of life.
Urban ecology, an approach introduced by Robert Park, views cities as places that are—like natural environments—organized in ways that lead to social equilibrium. This does not suggest that cities are ordered equitably, but that they are the result of processes of competition, invasion, and succession, just like other ecological systems. Additionally, this approach emphasized the interdependence that develops in these urban settings.
Urbanism as a way of life, as put forth by Louis Wirth, focuses more on the way that urban life is different from other kinds of social life. Wirth saw urban interactions as more fleeting, more about needs than relationships. This also fosters what Wirth called the “urban interaction problem,” wherein normative behavior in cities has people studiously avoid intruding on others personal space, even in terms of making eye contact. This is seen as important for social boundaries, but it illustrates the differences with other settings. 7

8. The “urban interaction problem” is a necessity for city
dwellers—respecting social boundaries when so many people
are in close physical proximity all the time.
© 2013 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.

9. Theories of urbanism Jane Jacobs, “Eyes and ears”
Multiplicity of people on the streets increases security through watchfulness
Urbanism as a created environment
David Harvey
Manuel Castells
Two other approaches to studying urban life are “eyes and ears” and urbanism as created environment.
Jane Jacobs, actually an untrained architecture critic, drew on the reality that cities are places that are full of strangers. But rather than conceiving of that as a negative, or dangerous, statement, she saw that diversity and size as providing a safety net of “eyes and ears” that could help keep the city safe. Critics have contended that too much has changed since Jacobs was writing in the 1950s, but urban studies scholars still find her work important and influential.
David Harvey, a scholar whose work functions in part as a refutation of the urban ecology perspective, insists that urban environments are not natural, but are created environments. What he argues for is the position that cities are not static and that they are human creations. In other words, cities are constantly changing in form and function, and since people constructed them, they serve the purposes of those people with the most power. Manuel Castells, another scholar working in this tradition, pays especially close attention to the actions of those with less power and privilege to see how they go about changing their social environments. His work shows us that they are not entirely powerless in determining their own living conditions. 9

10. Rural life
Stereotypes of idyllic rural America often misrepresent rural realities.
Rural areas = 75% of land, but hold only 17% of the population.
The rural population has been in decline for most of the twentieth century.
Sociologists have also examined rural life, though perhaps not as thoroughly as we have urban and suburban life. What we know for sure is that idyllic, or even nostalgic, imaginings of rural life misrepresent, or at the very least obscure, parts of that tradition. The images of rural America are iconic, ranging over the wide-open West, our many beautiful mountain ranges and rivers, and the hundreds of miles of coastline. Those images however, are usually carefully constructed to remove the problematic aspects of rural life that have led to its decline.
In the United States, 75 percent of the land is rural, but only 17 percent of the population lives on that land. The rural population has been steadily declining—with a couple of brief exceptions—since the turn of the twentieth century. The question, of course, is why. 10

11. Declining rural population
Declines in farming and other rural industries
High poverty rates
Few opportunities or amenities
Few government services
Hard to attract new residents
New technologies and social programs work to reverse these trends
As it turns out, there are a number of reasons explaining the falling rural population here in the United States, some of which are the same as reasons elsewhere. With industrialization, large portions of the population abandon family farms and other rural industries for urban life and job opportunities.
In the United States, other factors include very high rates of poverty—which we often hear little about—lack of amenities and services, and a great deal of difficulty attracting newcomers.
There are those who see hope for a revitalization of rural life. They point to the ways that new technologies facilitate long-distance work and telecommuting, and to social programs designed to bring educated workers to rural communities. These things may be true, but without amenities and services, we are unlikely to see a real renewal.

12. Suburban development
Suburbs are towns that develop as residential hubs around industrial cities.
Suburbs developed during the economic boom that followed World War II.
This happened with significant government assistance.
Suburban populations have historically been largely white.
As I am sure you are well aware, huge numbers of Americans live between what we think of as rural and urban—in the suburbs. Suburbs are those areas that develop just outside cities, primarily as residential communities.
Following World War II, the United States experienced a major economic expansion, and the suburbs were one of the products of that expansion. With a great deal of government assistance—both direct and indirect—there was a significant movement of the population out of city centers. Mortgage assistance, new highways, and new home building spurred middle-class whites to seek out these new havens that were developed with all of the amenities and services they had previously enjoyed in cities. Many industries also left, leaving the people remaining in cities without jobs or services.
More recently, there have been increasing numbers of nonwhites moving to the suburbs, especially in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas like New York and Los Angeles.

13. Changes in the ‘burbs
Members of nonwhite racial groups have been moving to the suburbs.
Population growth in suburbs, 2000–2010:
Blacks: 11%
Latinos: 41%
Whites: -9.7%
What we’ve seen, beginning in the 1990s, is a movement of nonwhite families to the suburbs, and more recently, the movement of white families out. Black, Latino, and Asian families head to the suburbs for the same reasons whites have done for many decades: better schools, housing, safety, and other amenities.
This data shouldn’t suggest that the suburbs are no longer the primary residential choice of whites; they still are, but the ‘burbs are changing as members of other racial groups enter the middle class and wish to provide new opportunities for their families.

14. Suburban Levittown, New York, in the 1950s.
© 2013 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.

15. Regional population shift
Overall, the American population is moving away from the North and the East, and to the South and the West.
2010 census showed the following growth:
Northeast: 3.2%; Midwest: 3.9%
South: 14.3%; West: 13.8%
Recent Census data shows us that in addition to shifts in the suburban population, there have also been interesting shifts regionally. The biggest we see is that the South and West are growing far more rapidly than the North and East. This will, without question, have important effects on many aspects of life in the U.S., in terms of economics and politics, to name two fairly obvious ones.

16. Problems with urban life
Suburbanization led to changes in cities.
Industries left cities, taking mostly blue-collar jobs with them.
This led to increased residential segregation as poorer, nonwhites remained in cities.
This left cities with lower tax revenues, leading to perpetual financial problems.
One thing we do know is that the move to the suburbs—sometimes called “white flight”—was not good for cities. There were, of course, already problems, which white families would have said explained their departure to the more sanitized life in the suburbs. Unfortunately, their move only exacerbated many of these concerns.
One of these concerns was residential segregation, which refers to the degree to which people tend to live in islands of other people like them. Typically, when we talk about residential segregation we are referring to race, and it is by race that we segregate most strongly. In the case of suburbs versus cities, suburbs are very white and middle- to upper-middle-class, while cities remain more racially diverse, with larger populations struggling with poverty. Although the degree of residential segregation appears to be on the decline, many of the social problems associated with this living pattern continue, especially in the poorest areas of cities.
Industries migrated along with populations. Businesses were able to find cheaper real estate as well as favorable tax codes. With higher-income residents leaving for the suburbs, cities were left with less tax revenue and therefore more money problems than ever before. This remains a challenge, as many cities are stuck in a seemingly perpetual cycle of financial losses and needs.

17. Urban renewal
Gentrification is a process whereby wealthy people buy and renew deteriorating properties in cities.
This tends to be good for property values but bad for the previous, low-income residents.
One pattern that many people see as a potential way out of these difficulties for cities is what is often called urban renewal. The thought among some elements is that if wealthy people buy and update properties in decaying areas of cities, these neighborhoods will “come back.” In a sense that is correct. Neighborhoods are often successfully gentrified, such that wealthy property owners reclaim properties that have been allowed—whatever the reason—to deteriorate.
In these neighborhoods, property values do go up, sometimes exorbitantly so. The flip side is that the low-income residents who are bought out (or evicted by slumlords) are often left out in the cold. They can no longer afford to live in their homes and neighborhoods and are separated from communities that are their first line of assistance in a difficult life. Urban renewal, then, does help urban environments, but it only selectively helps urban dwellers. What has been created are moderately expensive to expensive, white, urban enclaves. 17

18. Clinton Street was a grim, graffiti-ridden streetscape.
© 2013 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.

19. It has evolved into a lively restaurant row
on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
© 2013 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.

20. Global cities
Saskia Sassen’s global cities are those that house major transnational corporations and other global firms.
These are the seats of global power and control.
Global cities are sites of extreme wealth and poverty.
In a more global sense, there are other approaches to thinking about urban environments sociologically. One of these is the idea of global cities, first explicated by Saskia Sassen. Sassen describes urban cities as those which are home to major transnational corporations, along with other significant financial and technology firms. In large part because of these constituents, global cities become global hubs of power and control.
Sassen also indicates that alongside the high-profile, high-earning posts that front these major businesses, those who work behind the scenes are increasingly devalued. This creates a system where very high levels of wealth coexist with the extreme poverty of those working in the background. Additionally, she sees very little interaction between the two, making them virtually invisible to each other.

21. Urban Areas with over 10 Million People
For the first time ever, more than half the world’s population
lives in cities.
This figure illustrates for us the reality that more than half the world’s population now lives in cities. Here you see information about 10 of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, in 1950, 2010, and projected for 2025.
Source: Bruinius 2010.

22. Urban Areas with over 10 Million People
For the first time ever, more than half the world’s population live in cities.
CITY POPULATIONS IN Numbers in millions
CITY POPULATION
2010
2025
Tokyo, Japan
36.7
37.1
Delhi, India
22.2
28.6
São Paulo, Brazil
20.3
21.7
Mumbai, India
20.0
25.8
Mexico City, Mexico
19.5
20.7
New York–Newark, USA
19.4
20.6
Shanghai, China
Ch. 16 – Pt. 2
16.6
20.0
Calcutta, India
15.6
20.1
Dhaka, Bangladesh
14.6
20.9
Karachi, Pakistan
13.1
18.7
Numbers in millions
SOURCE: Bruinius 2010 22

23. Urban Areas with over 10 Million People
For the first time ever, more than half the world’s population live in cities.
Tokyo
Japan
CITY POPULATIONS IN Numbers in millions
Delhi
India 30
CITY POPULATION
2010
2025
Mumbai
India
New York City
USA
Calcutta
India
Tokyo, Japan
36.7
37.1
Delhi, India
22.2
28.6
São Paulo
Brazil
Dhaka
Bangladesh
Mexico City
Mexico
São Paulo, Brazil
20.3
21.7 20
Mumbai, India
20.0
25.8
Karachi
Pakistan
Shanghai
China
Mexico City, Mexico
19.5
20.7
New York–Newark, USA
19.4
20.6
Shanghai, China
16.6
20.0 10
Calcutta, India
15.6
20.1
Dhaka, Bangladesh
14.6
20.9
Karachi, Pakistan
13.1
18.7
Numbers in millions
5.0
Chicago
USA
5.1
Buenos Aires
Argentina
6.5
Paris
France
4.5
Calcutta
India
4.2
Osaka-Kobe
Japan
12.3
New York, USA
8.4
London, UK
5.4
Moscow, Soviet Union
4.3
Shanghai, China
11.3
Tokyo, Japan
SOURCE: Bruinius 2010 23

24. Urbanization in the developing world
Africa and Asia are still predominantly rural—only around 40% urban.
The urban population is growing more rapidly in these regions of the world.
While in wealthy nations like the United States we see people moving out of city centers, in the developing world urbanization is accelerating. In Africa and Asia, for example, only about 40 percent of the population lives in urban settings, but the percentage is increasing quite rapidly.
Why are people in these regions moving to cities? Jobs and opportunities are certainly part of the trend, explaining a good deal of internal migration. Additionally, however, urban populations are expanding so quickly because of ongoing high fertility rates. Chances are that these rates will come down in the not-too-distant future, but that could mean another generation or so of high birthrates and population growth. 24

25. Urbanization in the developing world
Major environmental risks are posed by such rapid growth, overcrowding, and poverty:
Housing
Pollution
Sanitation
Water supply
What this kind of rapid growth means—especially when paired with overcrowding and poverty, as it often is—includes the following:
Lack of proper housing
High levels of pollution caused by waste of many sorts
Lack of proper sanitation
Unsafe and inadequate water supply
The last three of these can be directly related to significant public health risks, which adds another level of concern. What can happen is the emergence of unplanned shantytowns (squatter towns) on the outskirts of major cities, which have virtually no amenities and no way out.
At the same time, estimates suggest that as birthrates begin to decline, internal migrants may be those with the best set of skills to succeed, and globalization will hopefully bring opportunities, even to those who seem to have few chances.

26. Studying global populations
The study of population is called demography.
Important terminology:
Crude birthrate
Fertility and fecundity
Crude death rate (mortality)
Life expectancy and life span
There are other ways of looking at population that take a step back from macro processes and focus on the population itself. This field of study is called demography, and it is closely linked with sociology because social factors play such an important role in population trends.
What are some of the most basic measures demographers begin with when investigating a population?
Crude birthrates constitute the number of live births per one thousand people in the population. This tells us little about the fertility behaviors of individual women, but does show us how a population is growing or shrinking.
Fertility and fecundity offer us a closer look at the actual number of children born to the average woman in a population. Fertility is calculated as the number of live births per one thousand women of childbearing age, while fecundity is a measure of the number of children a woman in a particular society could possibly have. Both of these numbers vary among populations.
The crude death rate, or mortality rate, is determined in the same way as the crude birthrate, and likewise gives us few specifics.
Life expectancy and life span give us information equivalent to fertility and fecundity: how long people in a population actually live versus how long they could live.

27. Map 15.1 Population Growth Rate, 1980–2002
© 2013 W. W. Norton Co., Inc.

28. Consequences of population change
Rapid population growth and urbanization may lead to:
Increased internal migration
Significant environmental challenges
Health concerns
Increased crime
More and larger squatter settlements
Famine and food shortages
As of right now, it is a bit hard to imagine global negative growth. Because of current trends of exponential growth in the developing world, we need to focus our efforts there. What are the consequences of current population growth and urbanization? Some of these are trends I have already mentioned:
Internal migration from rural to urban life continues.
The overcrowding that results leads to significant environmental problems (which I’ll return to in just a couple of minutes).
A host of factors (overcrowding, pollution, sanitation) lead to health risks in places with little if any health care.
Rising levels of crime in relatively lawless informal residential centers.
More and larger instances of these informal settlements adjoining global cities.
There are problems with food supply, including famine (environmental problems) and shortages caused by rapid population movements. 28

29. The one-child solution
Beginning in the late 1970s, China instituted what became known as the one-child policy, intended as a solution to slow population growth.
While population growth fell dramatically, there were unintended consequences, namely a population with a gender ratio skewed strongly toward males.
When confronted with a fertility rate of approximately 6 births per woman in the 1950s, China began thinking about how to slow its population growth to reach sustainable levels. In the 1970s the country enacted its policies aimed at incentivizing having only 1 child, and placing strong disincentives on having more than 2 children. In order to conform and still have the male children that were seen as bestowing greater status on the family, many who had girls put them up for adoption, or aborted or abandoned them. This has led to a country where men significantly outnumber women, leaving many men alone, and seemingly at loose ends.

30. The environment and society
The way of life in Western societies creates major environmental challenges.
Massive amounts of nonrecyclable waste
Pollution
Depletion of resources and biodiversity
As you can see, many of the deleterious effects of urbanization have significant environmental consequences. But these problems do not come solely from the developing world. In fact, certain by-products of wealthy Western lifestyles have done more to harm our environment than have any developing nations.
For one thing, Western societies produce nonrecyclable waste in extremely high volume and at a fast pace. Nearly everything we buy comes in packaging that cannot be recycled in full, and we frequently replace items like cell phones, computers, and televisions, which then wind up in landfills around the world (especially in poor countries with even fewer environmental controls than we have here).
A second problem is the amount of pollution we release into the environment: air, seas, and land. As a result of our longer period of industrialization, Western societies have polluted more than the rest of the world. Today, up-and-coming nations like China are now contributing their own exorbitant levels of pollution and hearing a great deal about it. That is understandable, but we must police ourselves as well.
A third problem is largely a result of the other two and of global warming, and that is the depletion of natural resources and of biodiversity. We will lose more species of animal and plant life that not only are of some innate value, but that also contribute to our lives in real ways, such as medications, ecological stability, and other contributions. 30

31. The environment and society
Global warming—also a human product—affects us all.
Energy consumption may outstrip certain resources.
In 2010, China outpaced the US in energy consumption for the first time.
Even so, individuals in the US use more than individuals in other countries (China has 5x as many people…)
Global warming is another consequence of our urban, industrial way of organizing social life. This process will change our weather patterns and may even alter the coastlines of many continents as the polar icecaps erode. While there may be some natural component to the warming of the earth, a scientific panel coordinated by the United Nations found that without question, “human activity is the principal source of global warming” (textbook, p. 458).
Finally, it appears that unless we wean ourselves off oil and fossil fuels, we will exhaust these supplies sometime in the next hundred or two hundred years. Take a look at the chart on the next slide to see comparisons of many types of consumption, including energy. 31

32. Figure 15.3 Shares of Total World Consumption of the Richest 20 Percent and the Poorest 20 Percent, 1995

33. Sustainable development and change
New sustainable development policies seek equilibrium between environmental concerns and the economy.
Such policies tend to work well for wealthy countries at the expense of poorer countries.
So what do we do? One movement has been to design what is called sustainable development. This would ideally be a balance between economic and environmental needs, such that development would take into mind the various environmental and population concerns I’ve been discussing.
The concern is that these policies and programs work very well for countries that are already developed but are highly constraining to those that are not. In other words, the economic balance is okay for countries with big, strong economies, but not for countries that still need to generate revenue quickly. 33

34. Do-IT-Yourself Sociology
Let’s do a little exercise to see what kinds of things you are doing to reduce your energy footprint.

35. Do-IT-Yourself Sociology
Now we can see the percentage of all Americans who have taken some of these steps.

36. Chapter 15: Urbanization, Population, and the Environment
Where does this leave us? It leaves us, as sociologists, with the responsibility to continue studying the relationships between social processes like urbanization and globalization and issues like population growth and environmental concerns. Such connections clearly exist, and perhaps with better—and fairer—planning, we can reduce some of the strains both on human populations and on the physical environment.

37. Clicker Questions
1. What approach to urban analysis claims that “cities do not grow up at random but in response to advantageous features of the environment”? a. Wirth’s urbanism as a way of life b. the Chicago School’s ecological view c. Harvey’s view of cities as restructured space d. Castells’s view of urbanism as contested space
Answer: b
Feedback: How Do Cities Develop and Evolve? pp. 475–476. The Chicago School’s ecological view claims that “cities do not grow up at random but in response to advantageous features of the environment.” An example of the Chicago School’s ecological view is that large urban areas in modern societies tend to develop along the shores of rivers, in fertile plains, or at the intersection of trading routes or railways. 37

38. Clicker Questions
2. According to David Harvey, urbanism is a process that involves a constant restructuring of space. What influences this process? a. the movement of new population groups into a city b. the degree to which cities remain undiversified culturally c. decisions made by business, government, and investors d. the pressures of various social movements
Answer: c
Feedback: How Do Cities Develop and Evolve? p In modern urbanism, space is continually restructured. The process of restructuring space is determined by where large firms choose to place their factories, research and development centers, and so on, as well as the controls that governments maintain over both land and industrial production and the activities of private investors when they buy and sell houses and land.

39. Clicker Questions
3. Louis Wirth was among the first to address the “urban interaction problem.” Which of the following best represents that problem? a. the necessity for city dwellers to move around the city quickly via public transportation b. the necessity for city dwellers to demonstrate the sophistication and critical acumen of the urbanite c. the necessity for city dwellers to put out-of-towners in their place d. the necessity for city dwellers to respect social boundaries when so many people are in close proximity all the time
Answer: d
Feedback: How Do Cities Develop and Evolve? p Wirth was among the first to address the “urban interaction problem,” the necessity for city dwellers to respect social boundaries when so many people are in close physical proximity all the time. Through such appearance of apathy they can avoid unwanted transgression of social boundaries.

40. Clicker Questions
4. As the population of developing countries undergoes a demographic transition in the years to come, what is likely to be the consequence? a. The population of these countries will steadily fall. b. There will be rapid growth of cities as more people migrate there in search of employment. c. There will be less famine, and food shortages will decrease. d. There will be a decrease in religiosity.
Answer: b
Feedback: What Are the Forces behind World Population Growth? p Some of the predicted consequences of these demographic changes, particularly in developing countries, include widespread internal migration, the rapid growth of cities, environmental damage, new public health risks, overloaded infrastructures, rising crime, and famine and food shortages.

41. Clicker Questions
5. In what way do more recent theories of urbanism differ from the earlier Chicago School? a. They focus on the negative social consequences when strangers occupy the same physical spaces. b. They focus on the way people interact in public spaces. c. They stress that urbanism is in response to major patterns of political and economic change rather than natural forces. d. They examine the development of urban culture and how that contributes to a particular way of life.
Answer: c
Feedback: How Do Urbanization and Environmental Changes Affect Your Life? p Whereas the earlier Chicago School of sociology emphasized that the distribution of people in cities occurs naturally, more recent theories of the city have stressed that urbanism is not a natural process but, rather, has to be analyzed in relation to major patterns of political and economic change.

42. Clicker Questions
6. Social problems such as high levels of child poverty, high rates of motor vehicle fatalities and other accidental deaths, and low levels of health and educational services are troubling realities faced by people living a. in suburbia. b. in rural areas. c. in gentrified neighborhoods. d. in America’s largest cities.
Answer: b
Feedback: How Do Rural, Suburban, and Urban Life Differ in the United States? p People living in rural areas face various social problems including high levels of child poverty, high rates of motor vehicle fatalities and other accidental deaths, and low levels of health and educational services