Contemporary urban sociology / William G. Flanagan

By:

Flanagan, William G

Publication details: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, cop. 1993Edition: 1st edDescription: VI, 185 pISBN:

0521367433

Summary: This book provides an up-to-date overview of issues and debates in contemporary urban sociology. It reviews critically each of the major theoretical orientations in the field, providing a brief historical introduction to each approach but emphasizing the current theoretical debate. Classical urbanism and urban community theory, which investigate the effects cities have on the people who live in them, dominated the field during the first half of the twentieth century. The author juxtaposes these approaches - which argue for and against the alienating effect of cities- and explains their lasting contribution to the field. Developed at the same time but along somewhat different lines, the urban ecology approach investigates the spatial structure and the underlying patterns á cities, as described in Chapter 2. During the 1970s, political economy became the ascendant method in the field. This approach, described in Chapter 3, argues that global capitalism has the prime influence on the structure of cities. The author also covers the recent development of world-system theory and its application to the burgeoning cities of the Third World. The final chapter describes the postmodern approach of the 1980s - which eschews grand theories and looks instead to local studies and the effect of deliberate human action - and its implications for the study of urban sociology. Adherents of each of these conceptual styles contribute to the current debates within the field, making an overview volume all the more necessary. Each chapter also includes a section called "Managing Human Lives," which illustrates, in case study form, the theories being discussed. (Font: Editor)

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Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	Centre d' Informació i Documentació del CERC Sala	General	S 02547	1	Available (Disponible)		1900002864

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Contemporary theories of urbanism and community -- Urban ecology and its critics -- Urban political economy and its critics -- The Third World and the world system -- Agency, structure, and urban sociology -- Bibliography -- Index of names -- Index of subjects

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