History and Social Science, Part 93
Question 1: Compare and contrast urban place and city.
Answer 1: The United States census defines an urban place as a community that has at least 2500 citizens, the majority of whom do not farm. The census defines a city as a community that has at least 50,000 inhabitants. Sociologists have sharply disagreed about the effects of cities on human society. Some sociologists praise cities as places where social development can be accelerated, where innovation in science and the arts is spurred by the mingling of many different cultures. Other sociologists stress the negative aspects of cities: pollution, crime, anxiety. A great deal of debate has centered on the sense of community within a city: some sociologists, Tonnies included, suggest that the move from village life to urban life destroyed the continuity of human associations and alienated people from one another; other sociologists praise cities for providing a chance for communities based on common interest, rather than haphazard geographical arrangement.
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Question 2: Describe the suburb.
Answer 2: A suburb is an urban place neighboring a city. It is typically dependent on the city for its economic livelihood. Suburbs are usually populated by the middle and upper classes. They offer several advantages to residents: lower real estate prices, and thus the chance to own a family home; the potential to form enclaves with those of a similar race or ethnicity; protection from the drug and crime problems of the inner city; and easy access to commercial districts. These communities have evolved over the past few decades from being “bedroom communities,” in which all the residents commuted to the city for work every day, to being economic centers in their own right. This has resulted in massive population sprawl in the United States.
Question 3: Define a formal organization.
Answer 3: A formal (or rational) organization is one that is created to achieve specific goals. A formal organization has explicit rules and strategies that are evaluated and altered depending on their effectiveness. It has a clear chain of command, and clear lines of communication along this hierarchy. A formal organization selects and trains its members. These characteristics of the formal organization may seem rather obvious to contemporary students of sociology, but the formal organization as we know it has only been around for about a century. A great deal of sociological study is currently focused on the workings of formal organizations, partially in an effort to determine the most efficient organizational structures.
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