URBANIZATION IN LOS ANGELES

Urbanization in Los Angeles

Urbanization in Los Angeles

The shift from rural to urban society involves the appearance of more points or places of concentration and the rapidly increasing population size of certain favored points. This dual process has been especially transparent for the United States, as nearly all the nation's cities have been new establishments by European-origin empires and settlers. Both the northward expansion of the Spanish empire and the westward expansion of the American Republic were accompanied by the planting of new towns, whether by governmental edict or as real estate speculations. The history of urbanization through much of the United States is a story in which multiple town sites in a given region contend for economic growth, with some sites failing to gain any permanent population, others growing into small towns, still others into substantial cities, and a few into economically dominant metropolitan centers.

The progress of urbanization as a demographic or statistical process can be measured by comparing the largest settlements at six “snapshots” equally spaced over time.

During the first several decades of the twentieth century in the United States, the classical conceptions of community developed by European sociologists influenced the early development of what eventually became more broadly construed as urban and community sociology. Highly influential in this process were the theoretical conceptions of and empirical research conducted by sociologists at the University of Chicago, which were primarily focused on understanding the causes, processes, and consequences of urbanization. This was highly significant at this time because America had undergone several decades of rapid urbanization and had evolved into an urban society.

Human Ecology and the Chicago School

Adapting concepts from plant and animal ecology, members of the Chicago School of urban sociology developed the theoretical framework of human ecology. Within this framework, the human community was conceived as a response by human beings to their need to secure resources from the environment and ensure their survival. As described by Roderick McKenzie ([1925] 1967),

The human community has its inception in the traits of human nature and the needs of human beings. Man is a gregarious animal: he cannot live alone; he is relatively weak and needs not only the company of other human associates but shelter and protection from the elements as well. (P. 65)

Of particular concern was how the human community was organized and structured across geographic space. A key proposition of human ecology was that the human community was characterized by the ecological processes of competition, dominance, and succession (Park 1936). It was contended that human beings compete to determine how space in the community will be used. Through competition, a community is divided into a mosaic of “natural areas” characterized, or dominated, by particular population groups and/or land use patterns. This conception not only placed emphasis on the community as a physical territory but also extended it to encompass a system of social units (e.g., organizations, groups) through which specific human populations secure the resources needed to sustain their ...