Sociología Urbana americana: la influencia de Louis Wirth Louis Wirth ( ) *Obra clave: El urbanismo como modo de vida (1938)

Esquema básico del argumento de Wirth El “urbanismo” (vivir en ciudades)  “modo de vida” = soledad, alienación, desviación, etc. Se traduce en: “urbanismo” = “variable independiente” “modo de vida” = “variable dependiente”

Definiendo “urbanismo” y “modo de vida”: el continuo rural-urbano Criterios clave implicados en “urbanismo”: Tamaño de la población Densidad Heterogeneidad –¿Diversidad en qué sentido? ¿Étnica? ¿De clases? ¿Ocupacional? Urbanización y modo de vida se convierten en variables continuas que reflejan el gradiente urbano-rural.

Ejemplos de artículos académicos que emplean el esquema de Wirth McCall, P., K.F. Parker y J.M. MacDonald “The dynamic relantionship between homicide rates and social, economic, and political factors from 1970 to 2000”, Social Science Research 37: “Wirth’s (1938) classic study on urbanism chronicled the importance that urban population increases have on human behavior, such as leading to increasingly anonymous relationships and alienating settings that allow various social problems to flourish” (p. 723)

Carter, J.S. y C.A. Borch.2005 “Assesing the effects of urbanism and regionalism on gender- role attitudes, ”, Sociological Inquiry 75(4): As in previous research and consistent with the classical theoretical propositions of Wirth and Stouffer, we find that people living in more urban areas are more likely to hold more contemporary gender-role attitudes compared to those living in less urban areas, and that those living in the South tend to maintain more traditional attitudes than their non-Southern counterparts. The propositions of Wirth also predict a convergence in attitudes over time, creating similar attitudes across residential locations. Our findings support this assertion. (p. 548)

Oliver, J.E “City size and civic involvement in metropolitan America”, The American Political Science Review 94(2): On the other side are those who suggest that a large population is a detriment. Early classics of urban sociology (Simmel [1905] 1969; Tonnies 1988; Weber [1905] 1958; Wirth [1938] 1969) argue that the size, density, and heterogeneity of larger places dissolves the social and psychological bonds that exist between neighbors in small towns. (p. 363)