1. The Ties That Bind
Chapter 6
Amina Sillah, PhD.

2. What is a Community Consciously identify with each other
"Community" refers to a population whose members are :
defined by its geographic location
Consciously identify with each other
share a certain trait
Engage in common activities
People who share an identity and culture (social cohesion). See Phillips p.167
There is general agreement that communities in the United States are threatened, and many are in decline.

3. A Sense of Community? Communities based on territory
dominated by social relationships
Shared identity and interdependence (“we- ness”)
Communities based on common culture
Dominated by shared characteristics

4. Community as a System
The most difficult system to define with precision.
Community is a macro system.
Held together by feeling and sentiment.
At the interface between society and microsystems.

5. Energy Functions
The functions the community performs include the maintenance of a way of life or culture.
Another important function is the satisfaction of common needs, interests, and ambitions.
Members of a community must be aware of its “we- ness”.

6. Modernization theory and Social Change
Modernization: The process of social change initiated by industrialization. The key dimensions are:
Decline of small, traditional communities: Cars, TV, and high-tech communications puts small towns in touch with the world
Expansion of personal choice: An unending series of options referred to as “individualization”
These transformations – Economic and technical come with a loss of :
Loss of attachment
Loss of sense of connection to culture, security and identity
Evolutionary NOT revolutionary

7. Causes of Social Change
Innovation
Production of new objects, ideas, and social patterns
Discovery
Taking note of certain elements of a culture
Diffusion
The spread of products, people, and information from one culture to another

8. Social and Theoretical Roots of Modern Urban Theory (Selected)
Ferdinand Tonnies (Community and Society -1887)- German sociologist
Introduced in the West one of the more enduring and effective ways of understanding social change.
Proposed that we understand social change by distinguishing between communities and societies.

9. Ferdinand Tonnies (cont.)
Gemeinschaft (community) characterized :
people in rural village have an essential unity of purpose
work together for the common good
united by ties of family (kinship) and neighborhood
land worked communally by inhabitants,
social life characterized by intimate, private and exclusive living together
members bound by common language and traditions
recognized common goods and evils, common friends and enemies
sense of we-ness or our-ness

10. Ferdinand Tonnies (cont.)
Gesellschaft (Society)characterized:
large city
city life is a mechanical aggregate characterized by disunity, rampant individualism and selfishness
meaning of existence shifts from group to individual
rational, calculating, each person understood in terms of a particular role and service provided.

11. Georg Simmel
Society is not an abstract creation – rather it is an intricate web of patterned multiple relations between individuals in constant interaction
Society is made of group interaction vs. individual interaction

12. Social Types
Simmel created “social types” which characterized different individuals within a society
Each type needs to be present in order for society to exist
Examples of types include: “the stranger”, “the wanderer”, and “the poor”

13. Classical Urban Theory
Durkheim( )
Two types of social bonds
mechanical and organic solidarity
Mechanical solidarity- shared beliefs, values, and traditions; homogeneity of thought; typical of rural areas and simple societies
Organic solidarity- society held together by a specialized division of labor; common in complex societies

14. Living in cities
Spengler (Culture and civilization) – analysis based on socio–psychological: people interacted based on feelings
Wirth - urban dwellers develop coping mechanisms for living in high-density, heterogeneous areas, including becoming sophisticated and depersonalizing from others

15. Aspects of Community Systems
How a sense of community will be maintained is not clear.
Divisions of social class or status, ethnic or racial heritage, religion, or ideology, continue to frustrate efforts to strengthen a sense of “the common” shared by all inhabitants.
The shape taken by cities of the future is being determined by experiences and crises in cities today.