The document explores classical urban sociological theories, outlining the contributions of key figures such as Comte, Marx, Tönnies, Durkheim, Simmel, and Weber to urban sociology. It analyzes various perspectives on urbanization, including functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, focusing on the social dynamics and challenges within urban settings. Each theorist presents distinct views on the implications of urbanization and the nature of community and social cohesion in cities.

1. Classical urban sociological theories
By: Efa Tadesse Debele, Addis Ababa University,
Department of sociology, February 15, 2019

2. Presentation outline
• Urban sociological theory
• Sociological perspectives on urbanization
• Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
• Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936)
• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• George Simmel (1858-1918)
• Max Weber (1864-1920)

3. Urban Sociological Theories
• This paper intends to introduce the contribution of classical
sociologists for the development of urban sociology in general
and urbanization in particular.
• Urban issue from the very beginning becomes main concern of
sociologists.
• Urbanization was a key foundational factor of emergence and
development of sociology.

4. Sociological Perspectives on Urbanization
• To start with, Functionalist theorists differ on the relative
merits and disadvantages of urban life, and in particular on the
degree to which a sense of community and social bonding
exists within cities.
• A basic debate within the functionalist perspective centers on
the relative merits of cities and urbanization
• In what ways and to what extent are cities useful (functional)
for society, and in what ways and to what extent are cities
disadvantageous and even harmful (dysfunctional) for society?

5. Continued
• Conflict theory believes that Cities are run by political and
economic elites that use their resources to enrich their positions and
to take resources from the poor and people of color.
• More recent applications of conflict theory to urbanization
emphasize the importance of political economy, or the interaction of
political and economic institutions and processes.
• In this way of thinking, political and economic elites in a city
(bankers, real estate investors, politicians, and others) collaborate to
advance their respective interests.
• Thus urban development often takes the form of displacing poor
urban residents from their homes so that condominiums, high-rise
banks and other corporate buildings, posh shopping malls, or other
buildings favoring the rich can be built.

6. continued
• The last view is Symbolic interactionism which sees city
residents differ in their types of interaction and perceptions of
urban life.
• There are different residents types in cities such as
cosmopolites, unmarried and childless, ethnic villagers,
deprived and trapped.
• It supposes cities are not chaotic places but rather locations in
which strong norms and values exist.

7. continued
• Generally speaking, Functionalism offers both a
positive and a negative view of urbanization.
Functionalist sociologists differ in the degree of social
solidarity that exists in cities.
• According to conflict theory, economic and political
elites use their resources to develop cities in a way that
benefits them.
• The diverse social backgrounds of urban residents also
contribute to certain types of conflict.
• In line with symbolic interactionism, social inequality
based on social class, race/ethnicity, gender, age, and
sexual orientation affects the quality of urban
experiences.
• In addition to differences in their socio-demographic
profiles, city residents differ in other ways.

8. Auguste Comte(1798-1857)
• Comte considers Sociology into two Theoretical
Aspects; Social Statics and Social Dynamics.
• In view of that I associate Comte’s work with
urbanization as a social change undoubtedly
synchronizes with dynamics aspects of society.
• Social statics focuses on how order is maintained
in the society whereas social dynamics focuses on
how society changes over time.
• He saw social dynamics as a process of
progressive evolution in which people become
cumulatively more intelligent and in which
altruism eventually triumphs over egoism.

9. continued
• Social dynamics is an approach to sociology focusing on the
empirical studies of societies and social systems in the processes
of change in years gone by. But Comte did not prove that.
• Social dynamics is a mathematically inspired approach to
analyses societies, building upon systems theory and sociology.
• It is the study of the ability of a society to react to inner and outer
changes and deal with its regulation mechanisms.
• Social dynamics refers to the pattern of the revolutionary progress
in which the sequence of the development is necessary and
inevitable. But, progress not regress.
• The term ‘Progress’ refers to the orderly development of the
society, which is according to the natural law.
• Hence, the order and progress or statics and dynamics are co-
related to each other. Yet not supported by empirical data.

10. Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) political economy of urbanization
• Like other sociologists, Marx was so critical of urbanization process.
• He, with his colleague Engels, condemned the process of urbanization under
capitalism under the issue of the political economy and urbanization.
• According to them rise of city was transition from barbarism to civilization.
• Marx and Engels believe people realize political and economic freedom,
productive and specialization in city.
• They assert Social evolution of humans not complete through urbanization until
capitalism was transformed into socialism.
• Marx and Engels emphasizes on economics and problems of inequality and
conflict in urban area.
• They believed the consequence of urbanization is harmful for society.
• For them, pauperization and material degradation were aspects of urbanization.
• But they considered critically the most pervasive impact of urbanization which
was the destruction of the social nexus of the traditional community and its
replacement by the utilitarian world of the city (sociology guide.com, 2015).
• But, this work is more of philosophical than empirical study. It also
politically charged argument that reflect in the preference for socialism

11. Ferdinand Toennies (1855-1936)
• Toennies is pessimistic about futurity of urban growth and city life.
• In 1887, Toennies wrote on Community and society.
• He said that a traditional sense of community, or Gemeinschaft,
characterizes traditional societies.
• As societies grew and industrialized and as people moved to cities, he
wrote, social ties weakened and became more impersonal.
• Tönnies called this type of society a Gesellschaft, and he was quite
critical of this development.
• Ferdinand Tonnies worried about the loss of community.
• Tonnies observed a direct tension between community (Gemeinschaft)
and the city (Gesselschaft).
• He sees city as the center of science and culture, which always go hand
in hand with commerce and industry.
• The urban society is characterized by fragility or artificiality which
formed based on legal arrangement or contract but rural society has
strong status based attachment by giving extended family honor.
• But, he did not show us the way out.

12. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Emile Durkheim indicated urbanization in his book of division of
labor in which he attempted to describe organic solidarity or urban
society’s characteristics.
• Durkheim stated urbanization created a new form of social cohesion
based on mutual interdependence that signifies liberating.
• According to Durkheim such interdependence is typical feature of
organic solidarity or cooperative society.
• Durkheim was more positive than Tönnies about the nature of cities
and urbanized societies.
• He is optimistic about futurity of city.
• He certainly appreciated the social bonds and community feeling,
which he called mechanical solidarity, characteristic of small, rural
societies.
• However, he also thought that these societies stifled individual
freedom and that social ties still exist in larger, urban societies.
• He called these latter ties organic solidarity, which he said stems
from the division of labor.

13. George Simmel (1858-1918)
• George Simmel is pessimistic about urban growth and considered
importance of urban experience, i.e. chose to focus on urbanism (life
within the city) rather than urbanization (development of urban areas).
• "The Metropolis and Mental Life" is an essay detailing his views on
life in the city, focusing more on social psychological aspects.
• Individual develops a blasé attitude that is a social reserve, a
detachment, respond with head rather than heart, don’t care and don’t
get involved.
• Philosophy of Money: Money promotes rational calculation in human
affairs, furthering rationalization characteristic of modern societies.
• Money replaces personal ties by impersonal relations that limited to a
specific purpose.
• Above economic functions, it symbolizes and embodies modern spirit
of rationalism, calculability and impersonality.
• Simmel indicated that monetary interaction has negative impact on
social relationship that manifested in prostitution.
• Prostitution is another form of interaction that entertains monetary
values as central element in the sociation.

14. The Metropolis and Mental Life
• The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the
individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his
existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical
heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life.
• He talked about the detached and capricious urban cosmopolitan.
• The urban modernist is now embedded in the iron cage of a world
of work and bureaucracy as well as the consumer’s dilemma of a
search for identity in a soulless mass society.

15. Max Weber (1864-1920)
• Max Weber Considered social structure of city .
• Weber defined urban community as an ideal type that
required:
• A. Trade or commercial relations, e.g. market center
(economic perspective)
• B.Court and law of its own (legal perspectives)
• C.Partial political autonomy (political perspectives)
• D.Militarily self-sufficient for self-defense (Administrative
perspectives)
• E.Forms of associations or social participation whereby
individuals engage in social relationships and
organizations(sociological perspectives)
• Weber suggested that cities are linked to larger processes,
e.g. economic or political orientations and urbanism
determined by cultural and historical conditions

16. continued
• Weber agree with Marx & Engels who argued that human condition
of cities was result of economic structure.
• Thus, cities are treated in terms of their relations to other cities, to
other parts of their society, as integral parts of the social and
political order.
• To Weber, like his predecessors Marx, Tönnies and Simmel,
metropolis is the paradigm of an inhuman, debasing social
environment.
• He believes mass urbanization nullified opportunities for political
participation, which was one of the crucial characteristics of the
city.
• His ideal city is the medieval guild city, which combined economic
enterprise and religious activity as well as private and public life.
• Yet, Weber’s work Eurocentricity and nature of current city
question his theory’s relevance in contemporary world.

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