According to the text of the scholarly articles, comparisons show they are all exceptionally similar when discussing each of the authors’ views of urban cities as well as their surrounding environments. However; they also have strikingly different opinions as well. It’s easy to miss the day-to-day headlines of global economic implosion; the change that is altering our change is the rapid acceleration of urbanization, as more and more people in every corner of the world put down their farm tools and move from the countryside or the village to the city. The following articles will help justify the positive and negative outlooks on all different segments.
The initial article named “The city” is an excerpt written by Robert E Park was first published in 1925 and reprinted here in its entirety, is a cross-section of concerns of the Chicago urban school during the period of its most intense activity. Park and Burgess realized that ecological and economic factors were converted into a social organization by the traditions and aspirations of city dwellers. In their efforts to achieve objectivity, these sociologists never lost sight of the values that propel human beings.
The two authors’ Chunchy D. Harris and Edward L. Ullman write “The Nature of the Cites” was more focused on the need for zones, towns, cities, or farms, and the effect mass production in larger cities would have on the industrial cities in the United States. The authors also discussed their out look on how and where certain neighborhoods were described as well as the type of location it would be associated with, for example; “high-class” districts being more likely to be on a well-drained, higher land, away from annoyances such as noise, odors, smoke, and railroad lines, and “low-class” districts being more likely to arise near factories and railroad districts, wherever located in the city. This has ironically proved to be true with the way city and country limits have been set up, keeping all the hustle and bustle inside and the quiet, unobtrusiveness in almost desolate areas. Being separate from nature, but recent with trends.
The third article speaks on cities in general, their different locations and how it is incorporated into profit through the increasing growth of the land in the immediate and extended areas. The author was especially interested in the likes of certain social groups, how certain trends are set, and the influence it has on growth of the surrounding population. It anticipates an ethical structure that naturalizes growth goals as a background assumption of civic life. He believed that nature and cities are, can and should go together, whether we talk about parks, living green walls, green buildings or car-free communities. The diversity of what nature in cities can be is portrayed through various projects in a social science territory where successful practical generalizations have been few; the growth machine idea strongly and usefully describes reality.
The last article contained thoughts and opinions from author Stanley Milgram, from an excerpt titled “The Experience of Living in Cities”, in which he explained his personal research on the differences between living in the city versus living in a the country or rural area, and how he believed it to effect ones behavior towards other individuals. For example; a gentleman from the country being taught by his elders to open doors for a lady when necessary unlike men and women in the city in such a hurry to go places that they scarcely show manners or proper courtesy to one another. He asked himself why did everyone in the city seemed so rushed with the simple things they did in life such as walking in a subway station or getting to a cab, heading to locations unknown to him.
As previously mentioned, these articles are the same in more ways than one, however the differences are within the point of view in which they come from, when being explain by each author, giving examples from several different topics such as the effects different social groups have on the growth of the population, the location of homes in the city versus homes in the rural and country areas, industrialized businesses and where they are often located within the cities to help increase profit, and how individuals in the city differ from individuals in the country regarding different personality behaviors. While all these points are made and supported by factual evidence, they all seem to fit together within each other to deliver the same message concerning the environment’s we exist in.
In closing, it is proven and understood that buildings will continue to rise up tens of stories from the street and spread for miles out of view. Despite how hectic cities and their surrounding areas can be, attempts at creating models of the way cities function have been made and analyzed to make our understanding of the urban environment richer.
References
Harris, C., & Ullman, E. (1961). The nature of cities, (Vol. 242, pp. 7-17). Chicago: Syllabus Division, University of Chicago Press.
Milgram, S. (1974). The individual in a social world: Essays and experiments. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub.
Molotch, H. (1980). The city as a growth machine: Toward a political economy of place : A summary of a paper and presentation (2nd ed., Vol. 82, pp. 309- 332). Portland, Or.: Institute for Policy Studies, Portland State University.
Park, R. (1915). American Journal of Sociology (Vol. 20, pp. 577-612). Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.