Theories of urbanism & architecture

Project Part II : Comparative Analysis Essay
Theories of Architecture and Urbanism

AARON CHONG YU HO
0320270
TUTOR : MR NICHOLAS

INTRODUCTION
Just as the beginning of civilization is marked by the permanent settlement of formerly
nomadic people, so the beginning of what is distinctively modern in our civilization is
best signalized by the growth of great cities. Under the conditions of life characteristics
of great cities, mankind has further removed itself from the organic nature. The city and
the country may be regarded as two poles in reference to one or the other of which all
human settlements tend to arrange themselves. For centuries, casual observers noted
many sharp personality differences between urban and rural people. The two examples
that will be compared in this article : Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, ShangHai and
Klang, Kuala Lumpur.
Klang or Kelang, officially Royal Town of Klang is divided into North Klang and South
Klang, which are separated by the Klang River. North Klang is divided into three
sub-districts. Klang North used to be the main commercial centre of Klang, but since
2008, more residential and commercial areas as well as government offices are being
developed in Klang South. Most major government and private healthcare facilities are
also located at Klang South. Hence, this area tends to be busier and becomes the
centre of social and recreational activities after office hours and during the weekends.
This is triggered by the rapid growth of new and modern townships. The South side of
Klang consist of The Little India enclave, located along Jalan Tengku Kelana in Klang, it
is the biggest Indian-influenced street in Malaysia. Lined with shops on both sides of the
road, and with stalls spilling onto sidewalks and back alleys, visitors are well and truly
spoilt for choice when it comes to shopping. Fierce competition among traders has
resulted in lower prices for both locals and tourists, making the place a haven for
bargain hunters and lovers of street food. Shops and stalls here sell almost everything
you can think of – from traditional clothing, textiles, jewellery and accessories to
garlands made of fresh flowers, home décor items and scrumptious Indian delicacies.
During Deepavali, the ‘Festival of Light’, Klang’s Little India is transformed into a colorful
spectacle of light and sound, and the electrifying atmosphere as festive shoppers and
revellers throng the street makes shopping here a unique experience.

China's premier shopping street, the 5.5-km-long (3.4-mile-long) Nanjing Road, starts at
the Bund in the east and ends in the west at the junction of Jing'an Temple and West
Yan'an Street. It is a must-see metropolitan destination attracting thousands of
fashion-seeking shoppers from all over the world. Nanjing Road was first the British
Concession, then the International Settlement. Importing large quantities of foreign
goods, it became the earliest shopping street of the city. Over time, Nanjing Road has
been restructured, undergoing significant change. For shopping convenience, its
eastern end has an all-weather pedestrian arcade. Big traditional stores no longer
dominate the market since modern shopping malls, specialty stores, theatres, and
international hotels have mushroomed on both sides of the street. Today over 600
businesses on the road offer countless famous brands, superior quality, and new
fashions. KFC, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and other world-famous food vendors line both
sides of the street. Upscale stores include Tiffany, Mont Blanc, and Dunhill. In addition,
approximately a hundred traditional stores and specialty shops still provide choice silk
goods, jade, embroidery, wool, and clocks. Open-air bars, abstract sculptures, and
lingering sounds from street musicians enhance evening strolls. A trackless sightseeing
train provides a comfortable tour of the night-transformed pedestrian street. Flashing
neon signs illuminate the magnificent buildings and spangle the night skyline of this
lively city.
Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street represents the modern day commercial district, while
Klang represents the old and rural times of the commercial district. These two
references presents two distinctive mode of human group life. This essay aims to study
the differences between the sociology or urban life in a metropolitan district and an old
rural district that is still undergoing the process of modernization.

ANALYSIS
The analysis conducted for this essay is based on three criteria
● Population size
● Social Heterogeneity
● Population Density
According Louis Wirth’s “Urbanism as a Way of Life”, he argues that there are three key
characteristics contributes to the development of a peculiarly “urban way of life” and the
distinct “urban personality” of the cities -population size, social heterogeneity, and
population density.
SIZE OF POPULATION
As the number of inhabitants in a settlement increases beyond the limit, the
relationships between them and the character of the city will be affected. A greater
range of individual variation when large numbers are involved. The personal traits, the
occupations, the cultural life, and the ideas of the members of an urban community may
therefore be more widely separated poles than those of rural inhabitants. Individuals are
segregated according to color, ethnic heritage, economic and social status tastes and
preferences. The bonds of kinship, of neighborliness, and the sentiments arising out of
living together for generations under a common folk tradition are likely to be absent or

relatively weak. Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street attracts not only many of the locals but
also tourists from around the world. The peak of its human intensity happens mostly
during the nighttime and moderate during daytime. In contrast to that, Klang’s peak
human intensity occurs on daytime, while low during nighttime. However when
comparing both side’s highest, the bulk of which Nanjing Road Pedestrian street attracts
is a lot more as there are a lot young adults compared to much older and younger
people. As young adults are a lot more active during the night.
The multiplication of persons in a state of interaction under conditions which make their
contact as full personalities impossible produces that segmentalization of human
relationships. Characteristically, urbanites meet one another in highly segmental roles.
They are, to be sure, dependent upon more people for the satisfactions of their life
needs than are rural people and thus are associated with a greater number of organized
groups. They are dependent upon more people for the satisfactions of their life-needs
than are rural people and thus are associated with a greater number of organized
groups, but less dependent on particular persons.
The contacts of the city may be indeed face to face, but they are nevertheless
impersonal, superficial, transitory, and segmental. The reserve, the indifference, and the
blase outlook which urbanites manifest in their relationships may thus be regarded as
devices for immunizing themselves against the personal claims and expectations of
others. Acquaintances in the city tend to stand in a relationship of utility to us in the
sense that the role which one plays in our life is overwhelmingly regarded as a means
for the achievement of our own ends. The segmental character and utilitarian accent of
interpersonal relations in the city find their institutional expression in the proliferation of
specialized tasks which we see in their most developed form in the professions. The

operations of the pecuniary nexus lead to predatory relationships, which tend to obstruct
the efficient functioning of the social order.
The premium put on utility and efficiency suggests the adaptability of the corporate
device for the organization of enterprises in which individuals can engage only in
groups. The advantage that the corporation has over the individual entrepreneur and
the partnership in the urban-industrial world derives not only from the possibility it
affords of centralizing the resources of thousands of individuals or from the legal
privilege of limited liability and perpetual succession, but from the fact that the
corporation has no soul.

SOCIAL HETEROGENEITY
The social interaction among such a variety of personality types in the urban milieu
tends to break down the rigidity of caste lines and to complicate the class structure. The
heightened mobility of the individual, bring him within the range of diverse individuals
and subjects him to fluctuating status in the differentiated social groups that compose
the social structure of the city. This produces a physical footlooseness of the population
and partly as a result of their social mobility, the turnover in groups generally is rapid.
This applies strikingly within the city into which persons become segregated more by
virtue of differences in race, language, income, and social status, than through choice or
positive attraction to people like themselves. The city dweller is not a home-owner, and
rarely is he a true neighbour. There is little opportunity for the individual to obtain a
conception of the city as a whole or to survey his place in the total scheme.
Consequently he finds it difficult to determine what is to his own “best interest” and to
decide between the issues and leaders presented to him by the agencies of mass
suggestion. Individuals who are thus detached from the organized bodies which
integrated society comprise the fluid masses that make collective behavior in the urban
community so unpredictable and problematical.
Although the city, through the recruitment of variant types to perform its diverse tasks
and the accentuation of their uniqueness through competition and the premium upon
eccentricity, novelty, efficient performance, and inventiveness, produces a highly
differentiated population, it also exercises a leveling influence. Whenever large numbers

of differently constituted individuals congregate, the process of depersonalization also
enters. Individuality under these circumstances must be replaced by categories. If the
individual would participate at all in the social, political, and economic life of the city, he
must subordinate some of his individuality to the demands of the larger community and
in that measure immerse himself in mass movements.

POPULATION DENSITY
As in the case of numbers, so in the case of concentration in limited space. Density
reinforces the effect of numbers in diversifying men and their activities and in increasing
the complexity of the social structure. The close physical contact of numerous
individuals necessarily produces a shift in the mediums through which we orient
ourselves to the urban milieu. Typically, our physical contacts are close but our social
contacts are distant. The urban world puts on a premium on visual recognition. We see
the uniform which denotes the role of the functionaries and are oblivious to the personal
eccentricities that are hidden behind the uniform. Between Nanjing Road Pedestrian
street and Klang, there is a glaring contrast between splendor and squalor, between
riches and poverty, intelligence and ignorance, order and chaos. Within the urban
context, the place of work tends to become dissociated from place of residence, for the
proximity of industrial and commercial establishments makes an area both economically
and socially undesirable for residential purposes.
The close living together and working together of individuals who have no sentimental
and emotional ties foster a spirit of competition, aggrandizement, and mutual
exploitation. To counteract irresponsibility and potential disorder, formal controls tend to
be resorted to. Without a rigid adherence to predictable routine a large, compact society
would scarcely be able to maintain itself. The clock and the traffic signal are symbolic of
the basis of our social order in the urban world. Frequent close physical contact,
coupled with great social distance, accentuates the reserve of unattached individuals
toward one another and, unless compensated for by other opportunities for response,
gives rise to loneliness. The necessary frequent movement of great numbers of
individuals in a congested habitat gives occasion to friction and irritation. Nervous
tensions which derive from such personal frustrations are accentuated by the rapid
tempo and the complicated technology under which life in dense areas must be lived.

CONCLUSION
Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street Klang
SIMILARITIES
Population Density ● The land area of both districts are proportionate to each of its
respectively people who inhabits the space
DIFFERENCES
Social Heterogeneity ● A wide range of diverse
individuals
● Footloose-ness in groups,
high turnover rate.
● Small range of individuals
● Generate binding
traditions and sentiments.
Population Size ● Large
● Big organized groups
● Consists of many young
adults
● Small
● Family
● Consisting of very old and
young people
Both Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street and Klang are a commercial district that attracts
locals and tourists around the world. However Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street reflects
on the modern premium lifestyle that catches the attention of more young adults. While
Klang holds on to its traditional and rural appeal in effort of preserve its heritage. The
development in the population density, social heterogeneity and population size of a
district contributes to the elements of urbanism which mark it as a distinctive mode of
human group life.

REFERENCES
Books
Wirth. L (1938) American Journal of Sociology, “Urbanism as a Way of Life”
Websites
https://www.shanghaihighlights.com/shanghai-shopping/pedestrian-streets.html
https://www.timeout.com/kuala-lumpur/things-to-do/best-bits-of-kl-little-india-in-klang
https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1801279494/
https://www.star2.com/travel/2018/03/08/klang-heritage-walk-klang/

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