Compare the concepts of urbanism and urban villagers, both pertaining to symbolic interactionist perspectives on city life

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Symbolic interactionists examine the experience of urban life. How does city life affect

the people who live in a city? Sociologist Louis Wirth suggested that urbanism is a

"way of life.". Urbanism refers to the distinctive social and psychological patterns of

life typically found in the city. According to Wirth, the size, density, and heterogeneity

of urban populations typically result in an elaborate division of labor and in spatial

segregation of people by race/ethnicity, social class, religion, and/or lifestyle. From

Wirth's perspective, people who live in urban areas are alienated, powerless, and

lonely. A sense of community is obliterated and replaced by the "mass society"—a

large-scale, highly institutionalized society in which individuality is supplanted by mass

messages, faceless bureaucracies, and corporate interests. Sociologist Herbert Gans

suggested that not everyone experiences the city in the same way. Gans identified five

different categories of adaptation among urban dwellers or villagers: cosmopolites,

unmarried people and childless couples, ethnic villagers, the deprived, and the trapped.

Cosmopolites are students, artists, writers, musicians, entertainers, and professionals

who choose to live in the city because they want to be close to cultural activities.

Unmarried and childless couples want to be close to work and entertainment. Ethnic

villagers live in ethnically segregated neighborhoods. Some of these are recent

immigrants who feel comfortable among similar others. The deprived are

poor individuals with bleak future prospects. They have limited education and

resources. Finally, the trapped people can find no escape from the city. These are often

downwardly mobile people who have lost their former position in society. Unlike Wirth,

Gans recognized that urban life was comfortable and appealing to some groups of

people.