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The Sociological and Cultural Factors in The Growth of City and Urban Communities
The Sociological and Cultural Factors in The Growth of City and Urban Communities.
Louis Worth (1938:124) defines “the city as a relative large, density and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals.”
“Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.”
— Lewis Mumford
Introduction
While some sociologists’ say that the city is a place of specialists and secondary institutionalization; that is development of social institutions from the basic social institutions.
Only a couple of decades ago urban movements were demanding, usually without much success, increased participation by the grassroots and a democratization of urban politics. However, the movements’ demands appear to have become reality: the way politicians, urban scholars and activists in urban development now all highlight the importance of grassroots empowerment and citizen participation for dealing with urban problems makes it look as if success has finally been achieved. The topic of urban ‘exclusion’ is finally on the official agenda; policy-makers of all stripes apply not only the rhetoric of grassroots participation, but also a variety of programs addressing urban problems that seek to incorporate and harness community-based interests and local activism.
Sociocultural evolution(ism) is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time. Socio-cultural evolution also encompasses socio-cultural transformations accompanied by decreases of complexity (degeneration) as well as ones not accompanied by any significant changes of sociocultural complexity (clad genesis). Theories typically provide models for understanding the relationship between technologies, social structure, the values of a society, and how and why they change with time, they vary as to the extent to which they describe specific mechanisms of variation and social change.
Socio-cultural modeling is an umbrella term for theories of cultural and social evolution, which aims to describe how cultures and societies have developed over time.
Socio-cultural issues are as numerous and as diversified as Indian society itself. They include a wide range of factors which strongly interfere with demography and economy, but have their individual characteristics and dynamics. They are related to ‘large-scale’ issues such as the impact of globalization on the lifestyles, the relationships between ethnic or religious groups, immigration and also terrorism.
They also concern the increasing social divide with its growing negative impacts in the field of poverty, social exclusion. Globalization, driven by technological development, is changing people’s life globally, their customs and institutions and their views on the future. The human existence perspective is being narrowed by the technological imperative to concentrate on economic and political utility.
Socio-Cultural Evolution and The Idea of Progress
Evolution-like process leads to social progress of urban areas, If organisms could develop over time according to discernible, deterministic laws, then it seemed reasonable that societies/cities could as well. Human society was compared to a biological organism, and social science equivalents of concepts like variation, natural selection, and inheritance were introduced as factors resulting in the progress of societies/cities.
Idea of progress led to that of a fixed “stages” through which human societies progress, usually numbering three—savagery, barbarism, and civilization—but sometimes many more.
Process of societies growth can be divided into certain stages, have their beginning and eventual end, and that this growth is in fact social progress—each newer, more evolved society is better. Thus progressivism became one of the basic ideas underlying the theory of sociocultural evolutionism.
Effects of Urbanization on Society
The sociological analysis of urbanization touches almost all fields. But the major discussed conditions are:
Various aspects of urbanization as effecting the way of life and modernizing influencing are:
The Cast System, based originally on occupational class segregation, It was the living pattern in cities towns and villages in ancient India. Urbanization with growing trends to economic trends has created new classes in place of traditional ancient system. The new classes that have evolved in countries like India are, Upper class of high officials, Substantial Business men & land lords. Middle class including Rural Elite, Land Owners, Money Lenders, Middle men, Merchants. They live only in cities, Lower income groups both in cities & villages. Such a change is a clear indication that the society is becoming money-minded.
Formal Controls are increasingly introduced to provide social security and opportunities for the developments of personalities. This is supposed to be enforced irrespective of religion, caste, creed or class. Marjory Social security provisions protect only the workers engaged in organized industries, business or govt. sectors. A similar thing happens with the other protective measures like police & various laws. The upper class social workers and leaders gets the protection of such measures. The lower and the poorer class are left to themselves.
When we talk about Personal Disorganization. The growing rate of crime, Juvenile delinquency and vice is seen in almost all cities. The availability of welfare and health agencies are increasingly falling short of the requirements for meeting this solutions. The social insecurity and an political insatiability is commonly seen. This helps to generate tension an explosive atmosphere which encourage many young once to tend to crime and delinquency. Youths even from Upper and middle class families are also not free from such temptations. Migrants who have failed to get a good job and a place to stay in the city, are an easy prey for such elements.
With economic growth a possibilities of increased opportunities associated with urbanization, the need for education is growing rapidly in both urban and rural areas. Industrialization and urbanization are also increasing the demand of people with different kind of technical, managerial, executive, financial, administrative and other skills. Educational institutions are increasingly being provided in the urban & rural areas. The industrial revolution affected the production of the traditional crafts, which have faced a big set back. Factory centers and trading centers for foreign articles were mostly the urban centers, this affected the growth of the thriving centers of small scale & cottage industries in various parts of the country. Later with the growing demands of certain goods in large quantities and changed habits, it was not possible to revert to the cottage industry and village centered growth pattern. This new pattern, in turns, has guided the trends of urbanization.
The influence of mass media such as T.V, radio, newspaper, movies, internet are helping the spread of the urbanization pattern. Programmers coming over various media are essentially urban oriented. They rise more curiosity about the life in big cities in the minds of the rural people. All these are slowly and steadily corrupting the minds of the villagers, thus preparing the ground for a gradual shift.
The corruption is a widespread problem almost everywhere. Unlike before now, nobody minds so long as corruption directly concern him. The luxurious living of such officials, middlemen and dealers put an example before others who initially want to be law abiding and straightforward.
One of the most important features of growth of city is the migration. all other migration trends (rural to rural, urban to urban, rural to urban, urban to rural), the major migration is from villages to urban areas and also from small towns to big cities. From the studies it is seen that there is a steady flow of migrants in the age groups of 15-25 and26-40. There is another type of migration called floating migration. It is composed of people who wonder from one city to another, trying to make a place for themselves. The largest single cause of migration is is adverse economic conditions at home and search for employment or higher earnings outside the village. Transfer of service and marriage are also other strong factor for migration.
Urbanization with growing importance to economic activities is helping creating new classes in place of a traditional social structure based on castes.
These changes have also affected the planning principles of current planning parameters.
Effect of legacy of the past on the present pattern: The legacy of the past has a very strong influence on the present pattern, though it is also true that the changes in the modern age are faster than the past. Nevertheless, it is important to reckon the legacy of the past as one major force behind the pattern of growth.
Historic pattern of settlements: Settlement pattern of various countries, states and religions will indicate how the cities and the towns are located in relation to the system of communication and river valleys and once established such settlements have a tendency to grow under some other factors predominate.
Planned approach and its impact: The planning system is such that the planning activities mainly remain on a economic plane generally lacking spatial dimension. The planning system is also not integrated from the national to local level where the system is mainly standing on the socio-cultural structure of the people.
As conclusion what I believe is that, Cities are more like a living organism which follow the evolutionary process. It emerges, grows, mature, change, and decay as the time goes. This process is very dynamics and the duration are varies among the city. One city grows faster while others are slower or even stagnant. Industry, economic activity, settlement, and service make the city rows. However the density, emergence of slum, pollution, and environmental problem make the city decay.
The successful urban communities provide instructive and valuable lessons for future efforts to build upon, but a cautionary note that must be sounded: success is relative and, few reports point to complete neighborhood revitalization. Observers visiting the cites of the most successful urban revitalization projects note that conditions in these neighborhoods (social and cultural) do lead to a not always the best but a better urban space.
Ar. Ahammed Aflah E
References
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