First published in 1925, The City is a trailblazing text in urban history, urban sociology, and urban studies. Its innovative combination of ethnographic observation and social science theory epitomized the Chicago school of sociology. Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and their collaborators were among the first to document the interplay between urban individuals and larger social structures and institutions, seeking patterns within the city’s riot of people, events, and influences. As sociologist Robert J. Sampson notes in his new foreword, though much has changed since The City was first published, we can still benefit from its charge to explain where and why individuals and social groups live as they do.
a great classic for any sociologist. while some of the notions seem sexist, conservative, and downright racist, it illustrates just how far we've come regarding urban sociology... and how far we still have to go.
“in spite of all the progress represented in the long march from the amoeba to man, it is still true that the human creature is a good deal of a vegetable.” <3