The Council’s Committee on Urbanization has held three meetings since its appointment in September 1958. Comprising representatives of economics, geography, history, political science, social anthropology, and sociology,1In addition to the chairman, the members of the committee are: Norton S. Ginsburg, University of Chicago; Eric E. Lampard, Smith College; Oscar Lewis, University of Illinois; Wallace S. Sayre, Columbia University; Leo F. Schnore, University of Wisconsin; Gideon Sjoberg, University of Texas; Raymond Vernon, Harvard University; secretary, Beverly Duncan, University of Chicago. the committee first undertook to review the major frameworks in these disciplines for the study of the city and urban phenomena. The approaches in each of these disciplines, except political science, have been discussed during the committee’s first year. This report represents an effort to summarize the results of the committee’s deliberations so far and to indicate what its next steps may be. The discussion which follows is arbitrarily organized around the following four topics: metropolis and region; urban morphology and functions; the process of urbanization; the consequences of urbanism.

Metropolis and region

Among the various approaches found in the literature on the study and analysis of the metropolis and its hinterland, the following have been reviewed by the committee: “central place” theory; the “urban hierarchy,” including the rank-size rule and the differential functions and characteristics of places by size of population; the notions of “regions,” including “nodal” regions and “uniform” regions; the concept of “population potential” and related ideas from “social physics”; and the several “functional classifications” of cities.

“Also lacking an adequate theoretical formulation, although perhaps having some utility, are the various classification systems and taxonomies of cities and metropolitan areas.”

These approaches have in common an effort to describe and explain the “system” and “order” represented by the metropolitan areas and their hinterlands. Recognizing the merits of these respective approaches, the committee also discussed the limitations of each. Central place theory as developed by Losch2August Lösch, The Economics of Location, 2nd rev. ed, trans. William H. Woglom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954). and Christaller3W. Christaller, Die zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland (Jena: G. Fischer, 1935). is an example of deductive model building and the creation of constructs which have not yet been adequately subjected to empirical research. Contrariwise, much of the work concerned with the urban hierarchy, including treatments of the rank-size rule and descriptions of differential characteristics of places by size, constitutes empirical observation and description with largely inadequate theoretical frameworks. Similarly, work with the concept of population potential and related concepts, although indicating order and the play of systematic forces in the distribution of population and activities, still does not have an adequate theoretical framework in social science terms, and at points may illustrate the danger of pushing physical analogies too far into the social realm. Also lacking an adequate theoretical formulation, although perhaps having some utility, are the various classification systems and taxonomies of cities and metropolitan areas. Finally, although the delineations of metropolitan regions or communities are useful for many analytical and administrative purposes, they generally involve the construction of arbitrary boundaries, which by reifying specific definitions obscure many essential relationships.

The literature on nodal and uniform regions is oriented more to administrative needs or specific analytical purposes than to the improvement of understanding of metropolis and region. In general, closer interrelation of theory and empirical research seems to be needed, and also more work on the various classifications and taxonomies of urban places—work designed to test the utility of such classificatory and taxonomic systems for improving the understanding of urban phenomena. The pitfalls of accepting any of the various delineations of metropolitan areas or communities as anything more than arbitrary units for specific purposes should be avoided at the present stage of research on metropolitan and regional relationships.

“Changes in location patterns may be brought about…not so much by relative shifts in factor costs as by shifts in technology which make new combinations of factors possible and open up new possibilities of concentration and dispersal.”

Committee discussions suggested promising developments and leads that seemed to merit further attention. Among these was the input-output model developed by Isard and Kavesh4Walter Isard and Robert Kavesh, “Economic Structural Interrelations of Metropolitan Regions,” American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 2 (September 1954): 152–162. for showing interrelations of metropolitan center and hinterland. It was recognized that the limited available data make this model difficult to use in actual research situations. Also deemed promising was the framework developed in the New York Metropolitan Region Study,5See Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, Anatomy of a Metropolis: The Changing Distribution of People and Jobs within the New York Metropolitan Region (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). This is the first of a series of 9 volumes presenting the results of the Study. which represents a fusion of general economic theory and location theory. In this approach the clumping of population and activity is considered a means of minimizing costs and frictions in communication and transport, of encouraging division of labor to provide external economies, and of reducing entrepreneurial risks. Further use of this approach to provide results comparable with those of the New York study seems worthwhile. Changes in location patterns may be brought about, as suggested by Vernon, not so much by relative shifts in factor costs as by shifts in technology which make new combinations of factors possible and open up new possibilities of concentration and dispersal.

Finally, it was thought that the multidimensional approach to study of metropolis and region, of the type represented by Duncan and his colleagues,6In the forthcoming volume by Otis Dudley Duncan and others, Metropolis and Region, to be published in 1960 by Johns Hopkins University Press, for Resources for the Future, Inc. opens new vistas for comparative research. This approach is based essentially on consideration of “flows” and “interchanges” in the relations between metropolitan centers and their hinterlands, and led Duncan and his colleagues to develop a classification system multidimensional in character and fluid in geographic boundary.

Urban morphology and function

Various frameworks for describing and analyzing the internal structure and functions of the metropolitan area were also reviewed: the approach of the “Chicago school” in human ecology and the variations on the basic Chicago theme; the dichotomization of metropolitan functions into “basic” and “nonbasic,” or “export” and “service,” or “city building” and “city filling”; the statistical definitions of metropolitan areas and subdivisions thereof, as represented by the work of the US Bureau of the Budget and Bureau of the Census—the standard metropolitan area, the urbanized area, the central city and ring, and the standard metropolitan statistical areas adopted for the 1960 census and other statistical activities of the federal government.

Much of the early work in this general area was descriptive, subject to the criticism of historicism in that it focused largely on Western cities and disproportionately on the city of Chicago, and overgeneralized, especially as treated in current textbooks on urban sociology and related literature. The committee’s discussion pointed to the need for greatly expanded comparative and historical research, in particular, for research in non-Western cultures and more historical research in Western areas. It was recognized that the frameworks, in the main, represent “ideal type” concepts which have not been sufficiently used as tools of research but, on the contrary, have tended prematurely to be accepted as products of research.

The broadening of the concept of human ecology in the recent work of Hawley, Duncan, and Schnore7Amos H. Hawley, Human Ecology (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1950).
→Otis Dudley Duncan, “Human Ecology and Population Studies,” in The Study of Population: An Inventory and Appraisal, eds., Philip M. Hauser and Otis Dudley Duncan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959).
→Otis Dudley Duncan, Leo F. Schnore, and Peter H. Rossi, “Cultural, Behavioral, and Ecological Perspectives in the Study of Social Organization,” American Journal of Sociology 65, no. 2 (September 1959): 132–146.
was considered especially exciting, for it opens new possibilities for investigation of urban morphology and function. In essence, this resurgence of human ecological research by sociologists represents a return to long-neglected aspects of Durkheim’s consideration of social morphology. The new developments center on the “ecological complex,” which views the human social order as a product of interrelations of population and environment as mediated through technology and organization. Each of the four elements in this complex can be considered as either a dependent or an independent variable in relation to the others.

Process of urbanization

The work on the process of urbanization reviewed by the committee included that of Turner, Gras, Childe, and Pirenne, as well as more recent studies by Lampard, Sjoberg, and Schnore. Special attention was given to urbanization in relation to economic development, which has become a problem of major concern to the contemporary world. Here, again, past work was considered deficient. Generalizations in the literature are based essentially on the study of Western cities, and urbanization tends to be equated with industrialization. Urban history, on the whole, has been little concerned with the history of urbanization, but more with urban biography and the treatment of urban problems, and to some extent with comparative urban phenomena.

“The literature on the history and explanation of urbanization, on the whole, points to the interrelation of technological and social developments prerequisite to urban growth.”

The committee believes that in this area the need for comparative study is perhaps greater than in any other area reviewed, particularly for study of the process of urbanization in the less developed areas of the world—in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The literature on the history and explanation of urbanization, on the whole, points to the interrelation of technological and social developments prerequisite to urban growth. Turner and Childe, on the basis of archaeological and similar evidence, have skillfully traced the emergence of the city from its Neolithic peasant-village origins and have indicated the nature of the profound changes that have been antecedent and consequent to the urban cultural tradition.8→Ralph Turner, The Great Cultural Traditions, vol. 1, The Ancient Cities (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1941).
→V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself (New York: New American Library of World Literature, 1951).
N. S. B. Gras has provided a framework for comprehending the process of urbanization as a function of settlement patterns and form of economic organization, ranging from early village settlements of peoples following a collectional nomadic existence to the contemporary metropolitan order.9N. S. B. Gras, An Introduction to Economic History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922). Lampard has focused particularly on key elements in the development of preindustrial, industrial, and metropolitan centers. Sjoberg, focusing on the characteristics of the preindustrial city in relation to the industrial, has revealed many of the inadequacies of current generalizations about the process of urbanization and has emphasized their space and time limitations.

As Western scholars have had increasing opportunity to live in and to observe urban areas in other parts of the world, they have recognized more and more clearly that the process of urbanization is far from a unitary one: that, on the contrary, there are various types of urbanization, in respect to origin, process, and consequences. In the view of the committee much remains to be done in historical study of urbanization in the United States itself, to provide a better basis for understanding urbanization in the Western world and for comparative studies in other areas. Particularly in study of the process of urbanization the committee believes that multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary efforts can be most fruitful. The work of two of its members, Lampard and Sjoberg,10→Eric E. Lampard, “The History of Cities in the Economically Advanced Areas,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 3, no. 2 (January 1955): 81–136.
→Gideon Sjoberg, “The Preindustrial City,” American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 5 (March 1955): 438–445.
indicates possible types of analysis and the kinds of research problems that the committee thinks it important to pursue.

Consequences of urbanism

Much of the literature on urbanization and urbanism, especially in sociology, is concerned more with the consequences of urbanization—with urbanism as a way of life—than with consideration of the city as a dependent variable. Outstanding in the relatively voluminous literature in this area are the works of authors who have attempted to distinguish between urban and other forms of living: Maine, for example, in his dichotomization of status and contract; Tönnies in his differentiation of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft; Durkheim in his distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity; and the more recent distinction between folk and urban society, particularly as summarized by Redfield and by Wirth.11→Robert Redfield, “Folk Society,” American Journal of Sociology 52, no. 4 (January 1947): 293–308.
→Louis Wirth, “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” American Journal of Sociology 44, no. 1 (July 1938): 1–24.
The distinction between urban and rural living also constitutes a part of this development.

Generalizations in this literature, as in that discussed in the preceding section, were thought by the committee to be drawn from inadequate samples in time and space and again, on the whole, to constitute ideal-type constructs designed as tools for research rather than to be products of research. Wirth in his posthumously published paper has made explicit, perhaps more clearly than others, the limitations of the frameworks for examining the consequences of urbanization:

To set up ideal-typical polar concepts such as I have done, and many others before me have done, does not prove that city and country are fundamentally and necessarily different. It does not justify mistaking the hypothetical characteristics attributed to the urban and the rural modes of life for established facts, as has so often been done. Rather it suggests certain hypotheses to be tested in the light of empirical evidence which we must assiduously gather. Unfortunately, this evidence has not been accumulated in such a fashion as to test critically any major hypothesis that has been proposed.12Louis Wirth, Community Life and Social Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 173–174.

The committee was particularly impressed with the work of its fellow member, Oscar Lewis, whose field findings have demonstrated the inadequacies of the folk-urban dichotomization and whose research indicates the need for new and more suitable frameworks for analysis of the consequences of urbanization.13Life in a Mexican Village (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1951). An unpublished paper prepared for the committee by Hauser lists some of the specific elements ascribed by Wirth to “urbanism as a way of life” that in Asian cities have been found not to follow the anticipated patterns.

In general, the committee agreed on the need for testing of hypotheses implicit in much of this literature. The committee’s deliberations tended to stress the importance of comparative research in this area also, and the need for more intensive research in Western cities, since the literature, particularly in urban sociology, has repeated as generalizations—presumably based on research—hypotheses and ideal-type constructs that have never been used adequately in research on Western cities, to say nothing of cities in other cultures.

Concluding observations

The committee has not yet reviewed the literature on the political process in urban areas, but will turn to this subject at its next meeting. At this stage the members of the committee believe they have learned much from one another and have much left to learn. Among the promising ideas that have developed from its discussions are the following:

1. There is need to differentiate the study of the city as a dependent variable and as an independent variable. Much of the apparent conflict in the literature on urbanization lies in the failure to make this distinction clear.

2. Consideration should be given to the advancement of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research on the problems of urbanization, especially through the cooperation of the geographer, historian, economist, and human ecologist in study of the city as a dependent variable, and the cooperation of the social anthropologist, historian, and sociologist in study of the city as an independent variable.

3. More comparative and historical studies, both of the process and consequences of urbanization, should be undertaken.

4. There is great opportunity in the underdeveloped areas of the world for comparative urban studies. Through such studies better perspective could be achieved on the generalizations that have been made about urbanization, most of which have been derived from consideration of a relatively small number of Western cities over relatively limited periods of time.

In brief, the work of the committee up to this point has clarified the limitations of much that appears in the literature on urbanization and urbanism as a way of life. It has indicated the importance of reconsidering many of the “best ideas” in this area and of proceeding to the construction of urban theory on a broader foundation of empirical research than has yet been provided.

This report was presented at the annual meeting of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council in September 1959.


Philip M. Hauser (1909–1994) was professor of sociology and director of the Population Research and Training Center at the University of Chicago. He served on the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council, 1949–51, and was chairman of its Committee on Urbanization. Hauser also served as president of the American Sociological Association, the American Statistical Association, and the Population Association of America.

This essay originally appeared in Items Vol. 13, No. 4 in December 1959. Visit our archives to view the original as it first appeared in the print editions of Items.

References:

1
In addition to the chairman, the members of the committee are: Norton S. Ginsburg, University of Chicago; Eric E. Lampard, Smith College; Oscar Lewis, University of Illinois; Wallace S. Sayre, Columbia University; Leo F. Schnore, University of Wisconsin; Gideon Sjoberg, University of Texas; Raymond Vernon, Harvard University; secretary, Beverly Duncan, University of Chicago.
2
August Lösch, The Economics of Location, 2nd rev. ed, trans. William H. Woglom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954).
3
W. Christaller, Die zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland (Jena: G. Fischer, 1935).
4
Walter Isard and Robert Kavesh, “Economic Structural Interrelations of Metropolitan Regions,” American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 2 (September 1954): 152–162.
5
See Edgar M. Hoover and Raymond Vernon, Anatomy of a Metropolis: The Changing Distribution of People and Jobs within the New York Metropolitan Region (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). This is the first of a series of 9 volumes presenting the results of the Study.
6
In the forthcoming volume by Otis Dudley Duncan and others, Metropolis and Region, to be published in 1960 by Johns Hopkins University Press, for Resources for the Future, Inc.
7
Amos H. Hawley, Human Ecology (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1950).
→Otis Dudley Duncan, “Human Ecology and Population Studies,” in The Study of Population: An Inventory and Appraisal, eds., Philip M. Hauser and Otis Dudley Duncan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959).
→Otis Dudley Duncan, Leo F. Schnore, and Peter H. Rossi, “Cultural, Behavioral, and Ecological Perspectives in the Study of Social Organization,” American Journal of Sociology 65, no. 2 (September 1959): 132–146.
8
→Ralph Turner, The Great Cultural Traditions, vol. 1, The Ancient Cities (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1941).
→V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself (New York: New American Library of World Literature, 1951).
9
N. S. B. Gras, An Introduction to Economic History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922).
10
→Eric E. Lampard, “The History of Cities in the Economically Advanced Areas,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 3, no. 2 (January 1955): 81–136.
→Gideon Sjoberg, “The Preindustrial City,” American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 5 (March 1955): 438–445.
11
→Robert Redfield, “Folk Society,” American Journal of Sociology 52, no. 4 (January 1947): 293–308.
→Louis Wirth, “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” American Journal of Sociology 44, no. 1 (July 1938): 1–24.
12
Louis Wirth, Community Life and Social Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 173–174.
13
Life in a Mexican Village (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1951).