SOME FEATURES OF URBAN LIFE

It must not be forgotten that modern technology has not made itself informed, nor even universally. Some areas-notably Russia, Pakistan and the Orient  -are still dominantly agriculture; and their cities do not display the characteristics of cities as we know them in the west.Generally speaking, they still follow the ancient pattern of self-sufficient entities drawing their support from and is turn serving,  fairly well- defined areas.

The size and character of any city will be determined by the amount of agriculture produce and the foodstuff available to support it,  and by nature and extent of the goods and survive which the city is equipped to supply to the area from which is draw its substance.Underlying all of this exchange of course,  transportation is implied in the very concept of trade; and no city can grow beyond the limits nimposed by the available means of-of transport.

If any single word could be used to describe the social life of the modern city, that word could probably be “impersonal”.individual desires and choices are reduced to a minimum,    and the contacts between one person and other are so brief and specialized that people seldom really knew even their associates. The city dweller,s  life has largely governed the clock, from the time he arises early enough to get to work-perhaps via the 7:30 bus or train, another impersonal obligation,-at a specific time.His works a day is usually mechanized or otherwise performed according to quite exacting standards that allow but little self-expression. His leisure time is most often spent in reading periodicals and books, or in viewing the latest movie that “everybody”  is talking about,  or in some other experience that is being shared by s perhaps millions of other in hundred of other or towns. Even his direct contact with a member  of his family— are extremely limited and segmental. The office or shop workers seldom sees anything of his fellow workers “  after office hour”; man and wife can not  fully share each other daily experiences or problem,  being so completely separated for the most of day; even parent and children see little of one another from morning till night. And, each in his own way, is using the multiplicity of goods and services offered by the city in highly standardize and impersonal ways.

The mechanization inherent in the industrialism of the present day has intensified the division of labor. Specialization has, in turn, narrowed the occupational interest and function of the individual to such an extent that only a fraction of his potential talent is utilized.The intensive use of land areas within the limits of the city has resulted in such a sheer massing of people that anything more than a most casual acquaintance even with “night dwellers” is virtually impossible; the term  “neighbor” has lost any real meaning in city life.  The enormously increased efficiency orb transportation facilities have only turn individuals loose from any sustained interest in a given locality,  but made available (and even necessary)    a  veritable welter of goods and service.The acceleration of exchange and the resulting dependence on money as the medium to accomplish that exchange has standardized not only the goods offered in trade but also the personal relationship involved in the exchange. Mass production, in effects, has produced a mass society.

 The impersonal mass society, however, affords the individual a   degree of freedom which he can not  have in the smaller,  more agrarian community.  He is no longer circumscribed in his thought nand action by an individual with whom he has little in common except physical proximity. The diversity of the urban environment gives him access to a  wide variety of social contact fromn which he can seek out,  to a fear degree, others like himself in tastest or interest. There is a mobility, both in the spatial and social sense. One can attend the temple or theatre or museum or social gathering of one,s skill; and he can expect a rise or fall in the social and economic scale much more upon his on merit than upon his family standing or lack of it.Similarly, the intricate variety of jobs in the city gives individual a chance to seek a type of work will be compatible with his own temperament and training.

 Nevertheless,  the development of the urban mass society is not without its costs.Mobility brings with it transience. If the individual gains in anonymity, he also loses in identity. The groups with which he is associated are themselves so specialized and unstable that they can give him little of the recognition and security that everyone normally must have. This as true in the job experience as in the social life.  The loneliness and isolation confronting the individual in the large city are well known, and it is the source of a large portion of the personal disorganization found among urban inhabitants.

 Probably the most disastrous effect of the mass of the urban life society, socially, has been its influence on the character of the family.  Family life in the city has been robbed of most of its traditional social and economic functions.The factories have made b the family almost entirely a consuming agency: it is no longer a working unit.Also, the intense use of land in the city had exerted a strong pressure in the reducing the size of the family dwelling.The together produce a severe train upon the cash resources of the family; and as might well be expected, the urban birth-rates are notably smaller than those of the rural areas. The city still is a consumer of people; it is not yet replenishing the population it draws from the hinterland. Even the time-honored social functions of family life, religious experience

,   instruction of the young, recreation, sociability are now to a very large extent centered out side the home; and this itself may well be a contributing factor in the personal disorganization.