Concept
urbanism
For Louis Wirth, the distinctive way of life and pattern of behaviour that arises from the settlement of a large, dense, permanent and socially heterogeneous population (1938).
Urbanism is the concept developed in Louis Wirth’s 1938 article “Urbanism as a Way of Life”. Wirth defines the city, for sociological purposes, as a relatively large, dense and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals, and derives the way of life called urbanism from those three criteria: size, density and heterogeneity. In his view urbanism is found not only in cities but also in places under the city’s influence.
The article also touches on the media: the press, radio stations, theatres and publishing centres concentrate in cities; schools, movies, radio and newspapers act as levelling influences because they address a mass clientele; the masses can be steered by those who control the instruments of communication from afar. In 1975 Claude Fischer argued that Wirth’s theory had been eclipsed but could be rebuilt through subcultures. In Turkish, this lesson uses “kentlilik”; in one Turkish source the article title appears as “Bir Yaşam Biçimi Olarak Kentlileşme”.
Example
A resident may not know most neighbours yet still share news through a local paper or group; Wirth’s city-dweller is tied together more by indirect communication than by face-to-face acquaintance (our interpretation).