Urban life today
It must not be forgotten that modern technology has not made itself felt uniformly, nor even universally. Some areas-notably Russia, India and the orient - are still dominantly agricultural; and their cities do not display the characteristics of cities as we know them in the west generally speaking they still follow the ancient pattern of self sufficient entities drawing their support from and in turn serving, fairly well-defined areas. The size and character of any city will be determined by the amount of agricultural products and the foodstuff available to support it, and by the nature and extent of the goods and services which the city is equipped to supply to the area from which it draws its sustenance.
Underlying all of this exchange, of course, is the existence of adequate transportation facilities. Indeed, transportation is implied in the very concept of trade; and no city can grow beyond the limits imposed by the available means of transport If any single word could be used to describe the social life of the modern city, that word could probably be "impersonal". Individual desires and choices are reduced to a minimum, and the contacts between one person and another are so brief and specialised that people seldom really know even their associates.
The city dwellers' life is largely governed by the clock, from the time he arises early enough to get to work- perhaps via the 7:30 bus or train, another impersonal obligation- at a specific time. His work-a-day is usually mechanized, or otherwise performed according to quite exacting standards that allow but little self-expression. His leisure time is most often spent in reading periodicals and books, or in viewing the latest movie that "everybody" is talking about, or in some other experience that is being shared by perhaps millions of others in hundreds of other cities or towns. Even his direct contact with other individuals - work associates, those who render services to him, or members of his family are extremely limited and segmented.
The office or shop worker seldom sees anything of his fellow workers "after office hours" ; man and wife cannot fully share each other's daily experiences or problems, being so completely separated for most of the day; even parents and children see little of one another from morning till night and each, in his own way, is using the multiplicity of goods and services offered by the city in highly standardized and impersonal ways. The mechanization inherent in the industrialism of the present day has intensified the division of labour. Specialization has in turn narrowed the occupational Interests and functions of the individual to such a sheer massing of people that anything more than a most casual aquaintance even with "night dwellers" is virtually impossible; the term "neighbour" has lost any real meaning in city life.
The enormously increased efficiency of transportation facilities has only torn individuals loose from any sustained interest in a given locality, but has made available a veritable welter of goods and services. The acceleration of exchange has standarized not only the goods offered in trade, but also the personal relationships involved in the exchange. Mass production, in effect, has produced a mass society. The impersonal mass society, however, affords the individuals a degree of freedom which he cannot have in the smaller, more agrarian community. He is no longer circumscribed in his thought and action by individuals with whom he has little in common except physical proximity.
The diversity of the urban environment gives him access to a wide variety of social contact from which he can seek out to a fair degree, others like himself in tastes or interests. There is a mobility, both in the spatial and social sense. One can attend the temple or theatre or museum or social gathering of one's liking; and he can expect a rise or fall in the social and economic scale much more upon his own merit than upon his family standing or lack, of it. Similarly, the intricate variety of jobs in the city gives the individual a chance to seek a type of work that will be compatible with his own temperament and training. Nevertheless, the development of the urban mass society is not without its costs. Mobility brings with it transience. If the individual gains in anonymity, he also loses in identity.
The groups with which he is associated are themselves so specialised and unstable that they can give him little of the recognition and security that everyone normally must have. This is as true in the job experience as in the social life . The loneliness and isolation confronting the individual in the large city is well known; and it is the source of a large portion of the personal disorganisation found among urban inhabitants. Probably the most disastrous effect of the urban mass society, socially has been its influence upon the character of the family.Family life in the city has been robbed of most of its traditional social and economic functions. Factories have made the family almost entirely a consuming agency; it is no longer a working unit. Also, the intense use of land in the city has exerted a strong pressure in reducing the size of the family dwelling. The two together produce a severe strain upon the cash resources of the family; and as might well be expected, the urban birth-rates are notably smaller than those of the rural areas.
The city still is a consumer of people; it is not yet replenishing the population it draws from the hinterland. Even the time-honoured social functions of family life, religious experience, instruction of the young, recreation, sociability are now to a very large extent centred out- side the home; and this itself may well be a contributing factor in the personal disorganisation. From the existence of the mass society springs the development of secondary group life and controls. The individual living in the city no longer feels the compulsion or the security of association with other individuals in his immediate environment Neither his family nor his neighbourhood means as much to him as they did formerly in terms of identity and conformity.
Urban life has become much too swift-moving, impersonal, and fragmented for the informal primary group controls to remain completely adequate. Consequently, life in the city is marked by dependence on law and a great variety of voluntary secondary groupings to assure a measure of conformity and complacence by the individual. Criticism and opinion are much too slow to assure compliance by the individual in the city; the specific requirements and penalties provided by law are easily understopd and applied. And on the less compulsive side, the great variety of voluntary associations - fraternal, religious, recreational, cultural, occupational, political, welfare, or community service - afford for the individual a means of satisfying, to some extent, the gregarious needs formerly met within the family and neighbourhood circles. It is to be noted, however , that this transfer is by no means universal.
The family and neighbourhood still are fairly stable in the less transient city-areas those sections where individual dwelling units still predominate. And membership in secondary groupings seems to be directly correlated with ascent in the economic scale. Unfortunately it is in those areas where over-crowding and under-privileged are greatest that these secondary associations are fewest and where crime and delinquency flourish. The inability of the individual to stand alone in today's world is never so well illustrated as by the position he has in urban life.
His most personal needs - food, water, clothing, shelter and security - are available to him only by grace of cooperative effort; and each one of them must be of a quality that will be satisfactory by standards assuring health and safety for that individual. In short, there must be "rules of the game", established by authority competent to enforce the rule; and that authority affects the urban individual most intimately at the local, or municipal level of government the struggle between individual freedom and governmental activity has been going on for centuries, but the modern fisc of urban life has greately acceleatd the movement toward the assumption of more responsibility by government.
Thus cities now provide public educational facilities, safeguard helath, create parks and playgrounds for recreation, administer assistance for the aged and the indigent Not infreqently, municipalities own and operate various utilities such as water,gas, electricity, and transportation system; and even when these services are privately provided, the quality of the service and the charges to be made are closely regulated by government authority. Many of the standards of public service and administration are set up state or central governments; but the actual performance of these duties is done in large part by the local government. Such extensive activities on the part of city government necessarily mean that public business is business in a very literal sense. City governments obviously must function through agents, so that large numbers of citizens are employed, from the highly trained technical or professional personnel down to the most unskilled labourer.
The municipality not only renders many services "free" to the cityzenry, but also sells others at a price set according to the service rendered, as in the case of the utilities. It, like wise, buys large quantities of supplies, such as coal, printed material for records, equipment for the maintenance of public buildings and parks, highways, police and fire protection. It contracts for the construction of public buildings such as schools, museums, libraries, administrative halls, police and fire stations, as well as highways and bridges to say nothing of negotiating for the necessary sites upon which to erect these various structures. And finally, like any other agency, it must pay its way; and the collecting of taxes and the financing of civic enterprises makes the fiscal operations no small part of the total governmental function.
