The city

by Robert Ezra Park; E. W. Burgess; Roderick Duncan McKenzie

V. THE ECOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY

Just as the city as a whole is influenced in its position, function, and growth by competitive factors which are not the result of the design of anyone, so the city has an internal organization which may be termed an ecological organization, by which we mean the spatial distribution of population and institutions and the temporal sequence of structure and function following from the operation of selective, distributive, and competitive forces tending to produce typical results wherever they are at work. Every city tends to take on a structural and functional pattern determined by the ecological factors that are operative. The internal ecological organization of a city permits of more intensive study and accurate analysis than the ecology of the city from the external standpoint. For the latter phase of the subject we will have to rely on further investigations of the economists, the geographers, and the statisticians. The facts of the local groupings of the population that arise as a result of ecological factors are, however, readily accessible to the sociologist.

I. Plant ecologists have been accustomed to use the expression “natural area” to refer to well-defined spatial units having their own peculiar characteristics. In human ecology the term “natural area” is just as applicable to groupings according to selective and cultural characteristics. Land values are an important index to the boundaries of these local areas. Streets, rivers, railroad properties, street-car lines, and other distinctive marks or barriers tend to serve as dividing lines between the natural areas within the city.

Addams, Jane. A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (New York, 1912).

A discussion of vice and the vice district in Chicago. (V, 4; VI, 6.)

Anderson, Nels. The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man (Chicago, 1923).

The study of a typical deteriorated area in the city where the homeless men congregate. (VII, 5; IX, 4.)

Bab, Julius. Die Berliner Bohème, Vol. II in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).

An intimate study of a natural area which has developed an exotic atmosphere as a result of the social isolation of its members and their peculiar personalities. At the same time furnishes an excellent history of a local community and is a unique contribution to the mentality of city life. (V, 3; VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)

Booth, Charles. Life and Labor of the People of London (London, 1892).

The most comprehensive study of London in existence. Especially interesting in this connection for its description of the natural areas of that city. Volume V, on East London, offers a wealth of insight into city life. These volumes cover almost every phase of city life and should be cross-referenced with most of the categories suggested in this outline.

Brown, Junius Henri. The Great Metropolis: A mirror of New York (Hartford, 1869).

Gives a view of New York at about the middle of the nineteenth century. Is of interest for a comparative study of the city then, and now from the point of view of its natural divisions. (VII, 2; IX, 1.)

Denison, John Hopkins. Beside the Bowery (New York, 1914). (VII, 2.)

Dietrich, Richard. Lebeweltnächte der Friedrichstadt, Vol. XXX in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).

A view of Berlin’s bright-light area. (VI, 6; VII, 2, 5; IX.)

Goldmark, Pauline. West-Side Studies (New York, 1914).

Historical and social investigations of local urban areas, especially from the point of view of social welfare and pathology. (V, 2, 3; VI; VII, 2, 5; VIII; IX, 1.)

Harper, Charles George. Queer Things about London; Strange Nooks and Corners of the Greatest City in the World (Philadelphia, 1924). (II, 3; V, 2, 3; VI, 3, 5, 8, 10.)

Kirwan, Daniel Joseph. Palace and Hovel, or Phases of London Life; Being Personal Observations of an American in London (Hartford, 1870). (II, 3; VI; VII, 2; IX, 1, 4.)

Ostwald, Hans O. A. Dunkle Winkel in Berlin, Vol. I in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).

A description of the more obscure areas in Berlin, particularly those of the underworld. (II, 3; VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)

Scharrelmann, Heinrich. Die Grossstadt; Spaziergänge in die Grossstadt Hamburg, 1921.

Sketches of city areas encountered in a walk about the city.

Seligman, Edwin R. A. (editor). The Social Evil, with Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York (New York and London, 1912).

The vice area of a large city. Typical of a number of surveys of moral areas in the larger cities of the United States. Compare, for instance, with the report of the Illinois investigation, The Social Evil in Chicago. (VII, 2, 5; IX, 1.)

Smith, F. Berkley. The Real Latin Quarter (New York, 1901). (V, 3; VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)

Strunsky, Simeon. Belzhazzar Court, or, Village Life in New York City (New York, 1914). (V, 2, 3; VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)

Timbs, John. Curiosities of London (London, 1868). (IX, 1, 4.)

Werthauer, Johannes. Moabitrium, Vol. XXXI of the “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).

A report of a personal investigation of the rooming-house area of Berlin. (VII, 2, 4; IX, 2, 3, 4.)

Woods, Robert A. The City Wilderness: A Settlement Study of South End, Boston (Boston and New York, 1898).

One of a number of similar studies viewing the city and its slums from the standpoint of the settlement worker. (V, 2, 3; VI; VII, 5.)

Young, Erle Fiske. “The Social Base Map,” Jour. App. Sociol., IX (January-February, 1925) 202–6.

A graphic device for the study of natural areas. (VII, 2.)

2. The neighborhood is typically the product of the village and the small town. Its distinguishing characteristics are close proximity, co-operation, intimate social contact, and strong feeling of social consciousness. While in the modern city we still find people living in close physical proximity to each other, there is neither close co-operation nor intimate contact, acquaintanceship, and group consciousness accompanying this spatial nearness. The neighborhood has come to mean a small, homogeneous geographic section of the city, rather than a self-sufficing, co-operative, and self-conscious group of the population.

Daniels, John. America via the Neighborhood (New York, 1920). (V, 3; IX, 3.)

Felton, Ralph E. Serving the Neighborhood (New York, 1920). (V, 3; VI, 4.)

Jones, Thomas Jesse. The Sociology of a New York City Block, “Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law,” Vol. XXI (New York, 1904).

A minute cross-section of a congested urban block. (VI; VII, 2, 4, 5; VIII; IX, i, 3.)

McKenzie, R. D. The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in Columbus, Ohio (Chicago, 1923).

An excellent study of local groupings. (V, 1, 3; VII, 1, 2, 4, 5.)

Perry, Clarence A. “The Relation of Neighborhood Forces to the Larger Community: Planning a City Neighborhood from the Social Point of View,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (Chicago, 1924), pp. 415–21. (V, 2, 3; VII, 5.)

White, Bouck. The Free City: A Book of Neighborhood (New York, 1919).

A fantastic, sentimental picture of what city life might become if the author’s views of social organization were a reality. (V, 3, 5; IX, 1, 2, 3.)

Williams, James M. Our Rural Heritage; the Social Psychology of Rural Development (New York, 1925).

A book which has as its subject matter the analysis of rural life in New York State up to about the middle of the last century. Chapter iii deals with the distinction between neighborhood and community. (V, 3; X, 1, 2, 3.)

3. The local community and the neighborhood in a simple form of society are synonymous terms. In the city, however, where specialization has gone very far, the grouping of the population is more nearly by occupation and income than by kinship or common tradition. Nevertheless, in the large American city, in particular, we find many local communities made up of immigrant groups which retain a more or less strong sense of unity, expressing itself in close proximity and, what is more important, in separate and common social institutions and highly effective communal control. These communities may live in relative isolation from each other or from the native communities. The location of these communities is determined by competition, which can finally be expressed in terms of land values and rentals. But these immigrant communities, too, are in a constant process of change, as the economic condition of the inhabitants changes or as the areas in which they are located change.

Besant, Walter. East London (London, 1912).

A remarkable account of an isolated community in a metropolis. (V, 1; VII, 2; IX, 1, 2, 3, 4.)

Buchner, Eberhard. Sekten und Sektierer in Berlin, Vol. VI in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1904).

An intimate account of the habitat of the many obscure religious sects that congregate in local communities in the large city. (VII, 2; IX, 2, 3, 4.)

Burke, Thomas. Twinkletoes: A Tale of Chinatown (London, 1917).

A romantic account of London’s Chinatown. (VII, 2.)

Daniels, John. In Freedom’s Birthplace (Boston and New York, 1914).

The Negro community in Boston. (VII, 2.)

Dreiser, Theodore. The Color of a Great City (New York, 1923).

The various aspects of city life by an observer with keen insight and rare literary genius. (IX, 2, 4)

Dunn, Arthur W. The Community and the Citizen (Boston, 1909).

An elementary textbook in civics. Gives a simple presentation of the concept community. (V, 3, 2; I, 4; II, 3; IV, 3; VI.)

Eldridge, Seba. Problems of Community Life: An Outline of Applied Sociology (New York, 1915).

A sociological textbook dealing with the various phases of community organization and disorganization. (V, 2, 4, 5; VI; VII, 5; VIII; IX, 3.)

Hebble, Charles Ray, and Goodwin, Frank P. The Citizens Book (Cincinnati, 1916).

Discusses the foundations of community life, its cultural activities, business interests, governmental activities, and gives suggestions on the future city. (VI, 7; IX, 3.)

Jenks, A. E. “Ethnic Census in Minneapolis,” Amer. Jour. Sociol., XVII (1912), 776–82.

The ethnic groupings in a large city.

Jewish Community of New York City: The Jewish Communal Register of New York City (New York, 1917–18).

A collection of studies on the organization, size, distribution, history, and activities of the New York Jewish Community. (VII, 2, 3, 4, 5; IX, 3, 4.)

Katcher, Leopold (pseudonym, “Spektator”). Berliner Klubs, Vol. XXV in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).

An inside view of club life in Berlin. (VI, 6; IX, 1, 2, 3, 4.)

Lucas, Edw. V. The Friendly Town: A Little Book for the Urbane (New York, 1906). (V, 1; IX, 2, 3.)

Maciver, R. M. Community; a Sociological Study, Being an Attempt to Set Out the Nature and Fundamental Laws of Social Life (London, 1917).

Distinguishes between natural areas and communities, showing how occupational and cultural groupings enter into the political process. (IV, 3; V, 1, 2, 4; VI, 7.)

Maurice, Arthur Bartlett. The New York of the Novelists (New York, 1916).

The New York as seen through the eyes of literary men.

Park, Robert E., and Miller, H. A. Old-World Traits Transplanted (New York, 1921).

A study of immigrant communities. (VII, 2, 5; IX, 3, 4.)

Sears, C. H. “The Clash of Contending Forces in Great Cities,” Biblical World, XLVIII (October, 1916), 224–31. (VII, 5; IX, 1, 3.)

Symposium, “The Greatest Negro Community in the World,” Survey Graphic, LIII (March 1, 1925), No. 11.

A collection of articles on the Negro community in Harlem, New York. (VII, 2, 3; IX, 1, 3, 4; X, 1.)

Williams, Fred V. The Hop-Heads: Personal Experiences among the Users of “Dope” in the San Francisco Underworld (San Francisco, 1920). (VII, 2; IX, 3, 4.)

4. The city may be graphically depicted in terms of a series of concentric circles, representing the different zones or typical areas of settlement. At the center we find the business district, where land values are high. Surrounding this there is an area of deterioration, where the slums tend to locate themselves. Then follows an area of workmen’s homes, followed in turn by the middle-class apartment section, and finally by the upper-class residential area. Land values, general appearance, and function divide these areas off from each other. These differences in structure and use get themselves incorporated in law in the form of zoning ordinances. This is an attempt, in the face of the growth of the city, to control the ecological forces that are at work.

Cheney, C. H. “Removing Social Barriers by Zoning,” Survey, XLIV (May, 1922), 275–78. (V, 1, 5; VII, 2.)

Eberstadt, Rudolph. Handbuch des Wohnungswesens und der Wohnungsfrage (4th ed.; Jena, 1910).

An encyclopedic work on housing, city-zoning, and planning. (VI, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; VII.)

Kern, Robert R. The Supercity: A Planned Physical Equipment for City Life (Washington, D.C., 1924).

A planned model city with co-operative services of many sorts, with zoning as an important feature. (V, 5; VI.)

Wuttke, R. Die deutschen Städte (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1904).

A collection of articles on various technical phases of city life. Article 4, “Die Baupolizei,” by Oberbaukommissar Gruner, is a discussion of the public regulation of buildings and the function of zoning and building codes in the modern city. (VI; VII, 3; VII, 1, 2.)

In addition there are available reports of zoning commissions of the various cities and numerous articles in magazines dealing with the administrative aspects of city life, such as The American City, in which digests, criticisms, and discussions of these zoning devices may be found.

5. The needs of communal life impose upon the city a certain degree of order which sometimes expresses itself in a city plan which is an attempt to predict and to guide the physical structure of the city. The older European cities appear more like haphazard, unplanned products of individualistic enterprise than the American cities with their checkerboard form. And yet, most European cities were built according to some preconceived plan which attempted to take account of the needs of the community and the limitations of the environment. There is a tendency, however, for the city to run counter to the plan which was laid out for it, as is seen, for instance, in the problems of city-planning of the city of Washington. The fact is that the city is a dynamic mechanism which cannot be controlled in advance unless the conditions entering into its genesis and its growth are fully known. City-planning, which has grown into a highly technical profession, is coming to be more concerned with studying the problems of a changing institution, with city growth, and the forces operating in city life than with the creation of artistic schemes of city structure. On the one hand the importance of devising a scheme of wholesome, orderly existence in the city is being recognized, on the other hand, the limitations of any attempt to make the city conform to an artificial plan impresses itself upon the experience of the technicians engaged in this work.

Agache, Auburtin and Redont. Comment reconstruire nos cités destruites, reviewed in Scott. Geog. Mag., XXXIII, 348–52, and Annales de Geog., January, 1917, by F. Schrader.

A criticism of suggested plans for the reconstruction of cities in the French devastated area. (III, 6.)

American Institute of Architects. City-Planning Progress in the United States (New York, 1917).

Bartlett, Dana W. The Better City: A Sociological Study of a Modern City (Los Angeles, 1907). (III, 6.)

English Catalogue, “International Cities and Town-Planning Exhibition, Gothenburg, Sweden, 1923.”

A comprehensive summary of the town-planning movement. A work to be consulted by all students of the subject. (II, 3; V, 4.)

Geddes, P. Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town-Planning Movement and the Study of Civics (London, 1915).

An introductory statement by the foremost authority in England. (II; III; IV, 2; V, 4; VI, 3, 5, 6, 9; VII, 1, 2.)

Haverfield, F. J. Ancient Town Planning (Oxford, 1913). (II, 1; III, 6.)

Hughes, W. R. New Town: A Proposal in Agricultural, Industrial, Educational, Civic, and Social Reconstruction (London, 1919).

Lewis, Nelson P. The Planning of the Modern City: A Review of the Principles Governing City-Planning (New York, 1916).

Mulvihill, F. J. “Distribution of Population Graphically Represented as a Basis for City-Planning,” American City, XX (February, 1919), 159–61. (VII, 2.)

Purdom, C. B. The Garden City (London, 1913). (IV, 6.)

Roberts, Kate L. The City Beautiful: A Study of Town-Planning and Municipal Art (New York, 1916). (VI, 3, 5, 6.)

Sennett, A. R. Garden Cities in Theory and Practice (2 vols.; London, 1905). (III, 6.)

Stote, A. “Ideal American City,” McBride’s, XCVII (April, 1916), 89–99.

Symposium. “Regional Planning,” Survey Graphic, May 1, 1925.

Contains a series of suggestive articles on various aspects of city growth and city-planning. (V, 5; VII, 1, 2, 3; III, 6.)

Tout, T. F. Medieval Town-Planning (London, 1907). (II, 2; III, 6.)

Triggs, H. Inigo. Town Planning (London, 1909).