Download sociology: perspective, theory, and method

CHAPTER 15
 Why should we worry about the
rapid rate of global population
increase?
 What makes city and rural living
different?
 How is the state of the natural
environment a social issue?
Demography: The Study of
Population
 Demography
 The study of human population
 Fertility
 The incidence of childbearing in a
country’s population
 Crude Birth Rate
 The number of live births in a given
year for every 1,000 people in a
population
 Mortality
 The incidence of death in a country’s
population
 Crude Death Rate
 The number of death’s in a given year
for every 1,000 people in a population
 Infant Mortality Rate
 The number of deaths among infants
under one year of age for each 1,000
live births in a given year
 Life Expectancy
 The average life span of a country’s
population
 Migration
 The movement of people into and out of
a specified territory
 Immigration
 In-migration rate
 Number of people entering an area for every
1,000 people in the population
 Emigration
 Out-migration rate
 The number of people leaving for every 1,000
people
 Both types usually happen at
once
 Push-Pull factors
Population Growth
 Affected by fertility, mortality, and
migration
 Population growth of US and other
high-income nations is well-below world
average
 Highest growth region is Africa
 Troubling because these countries
can barely support existing
populations
Population Composition
 Sex Ratio
 The number of males for every 100
females in a nation’s population
 Age-sex Pyramid
 A graphic representation of the age
and sex of a population
 Lower-income nations are wide at the bottom
History and Theory of
Population Growth
 Malthusian Theory
 Rapid population increase would lead to
social chaos
 Geometric Progression of population
 Doubling of population (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.)
 Arithmetic Progression of food
production
 Limited farmland (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.)
 Reproduction beyond what the planet
could feed
 CRITICAL REVIEW
 Prediction flawed
 Birth rate began to drop with
industrialization
 Underestimated human ingenuity
 Ignored the role of social inequality in
world abundance and famine
 Lesson:
 Habitable land, clean water, fresh
air are limited resources
 Demographic Transition Theory
 A thesis that links population patterns
to a society’s level of technological
development
 Stage 1 – Pre-industrial Agrarian
societies
 High birth rate; High death rate
 Stage 2 – Industrialization
 Death rate falls; Birth rates remain high
 Stage 3 – Mature Industrial
Economy
 Birth rate drops; Death rate drops
 Stage 4 – Postindustrial Economy
 Demographic transition complete
 Low-birth rate; steady death rate
 Japan, Europe, and US
 CRITICAL REVIEW
 Linked to Modernization Theory
 Optimism that poor countries will solve their
population problems as they industrialize
 Dependency Theorists
 Unless there is redistribution of global
resources
 Division into affluent enjoying low population
growth
 Poor struggling in vain to feed more and more
people
Global Population Today:
A Brief Survey
 Zero Population Growth
 The level of reproduction that maintains population
at a steady level
 Factors that hold down population
 High proportion of men and women in labor force
 Rising costs of raising children
 Trends toward later marriage
 Singlehood
 Wide use of contraceptives
 Concern for under-population
 High-Growth
 Population is critical problem in poor
nations of Southern Hemisphere
 Advanced medical technology
provided by rich nations has lowered
death rate
 Poor societies account for 2/3 of world’s
population
 To limit population increase
 Must control births -- as successful as fending
off death
Urbanization: The Growth of Cities
 Urbanization
 The concentration of population
into cities
 The First Cities
 First urban revolution
 Preindustrial European Cities
 Industrial European Cities
 Second urban revolution
The Growth of U.S. Cities
 Colonial Settlements, 1565-1800
 Urban Expansion, 1800-1860
 The Metropolitan Era, 1860-1950
 Metropolis
 A large city that socially and economically
dominates an urban area
 Urban Decentralization, 1950-Present
 Occurred as people left downtown areas
for outlying Suburbs
 Urban areas beyond the political boundaries of a
city
Suburbs and Urban Decline
 Loss of higher-income taxpayers to
suburbs
 Left cities struggling to pay for expensive
social programs for the poor
 Cities fell into crisis leading to innercity decay
 Decline in the importance of public
space
 Spread of TV, Internet, and other
media people can use without leaving
home
Postindustrial Sun Belt Cities
and Sprawl
 60% of US population live in sunbelt
cities
 LA, Houston
 Argument
 Growth follows no plan
 Traffic congestion
 Poorly planned housing developments
 Overcrowded schools
Megalopolis: The Regional City
 Megalopolis
 A vast urban region containing a number
of cities and their surrounding suburbs
 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s)
 One city with 50,000 or more people
 Micropolitan Statistical Areas
 Urban areas with at least one city with 10,000 to
50,000 people
 Core-based Statistical Areas (CBSA’s)
 Include metropolitan and micropolitan areas
 New York and adjacent urban areas
 Edge Cities
 Business centers some distance from
the old downtowns
 No clear physical boundaries
 The Rural Rebound
 3/4 of rural communities across the
US gained population
 Scenic and recreational attractions
 Companies relocating to rural
communities
 Increased economic opportunities for rural
populations
Urbanism as a Way of Life
 Gemeinschaft
 A type of social organization in which
people are closely tied by kinship and
tradition
 Gesellschaft
 A type of social organization in which
people come together only on the
basis of individual self-interest
 Motivated by own needs rather than desire to
help improve the well-being of everyone
Mechanical and Organic Solidarity
 Emile Durkheim
 Mechanical Solidarity
 Social bonds based on common
sentiments and shared moral values
 Similar to Gemeinschaft
 Organic Solidarity
 Social bonds based on specialization and
interdependence
 Similar to Gesellschaft
The Blasé Urbanite
 Georg Simmel
 Tuning out much of what goes on
around one
 City dwellers keep distance as a
survival strategy
The Chicago School:
Robert Park and Louis Wirth
 City is a living organism – a human
kaleidoscope
 Define the city as a setting with a large,
dense, and socially diverse population
 City dwellers know others not in terms
of who they are but what they do
 Impersonal nature of urban relationships
with greater diversity makes city dwellers
more tolerant than rural villagers
 CRITICAL REVIEW
 Overlook the effects of class, race,
and gender
 Many kinds of urbanites
Urban Ecology
 The study of the link between they
physical and social dimensions of cities
 Concentric Zones
 Wedge-shaped Sectors
 Multicentered Model
 Social Area Analysis
 Households with fewer children cluster
towards city’s center
 Social class differences are responsible for
sector-shaped districts
 Racial and ethnic neighborhoods consistent
with muticentered model
Urban Political Economy
 Urban political-economy model
 Applies Marx’s analysis of conflict in
the workplace to conflict in the city
 Political economists reject ecological
approach of city as a natural organism
 See city life as defined by people with
power
 CRITICAL REVIEW
 Focus on US cities during a limited
period of history
 Unlikely any single model can
account for full range of urban
diversity
Urbanization in Poor Nations
 Two revolutionary expansion of cities in
world history
 1st began about 8000 B.C.E.
 2nd began in 1750 and lasted two
centuries
 3rd urban revolution is under way
 Result of many poor nations entering
high-growth stage 2 of demographic
transitions theory
 Cities offer more opportunities
than rural areas
 Provide no quick fix for problems of
escalating population and grinding
poverty
 ECOLOGY
 The study of the interaction of living
organisms and the natural environment
 NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
 Earth’s surface and atmosphere,
including living organisms, air, water,
soil, and other resources necessary to
sustain life
The Global Dimension
 Ecosystem
 A system composed of the interaction
of all living organisms and their natural
environment
 Change in any part of the natural
environments sends ripples through the
entire global ecosystem
 The Ecological Viewpoint of the
Hamburger
Technology and the
Environmental Deficit
 I=PAT
 Environmental impact (I) reflects a society’s
population (P), its level of affluence (A), and
its level of technology (T).
 Societies at intermediate stages of
sociocultural evolution have somewhat
greater capacity to affect the
environment
 Environmental impact of industrial
technology goes beyond energy
consumption
 Environmental Deficit
 Profound long-term harm to the
natural environment caused by
humanity’s focus on short-term
material affluence
 Environmental concerns are sociological
 Environmental damage to air, land, or
water is unintended
 Environmental deficit is reversible
 Societies create environmental
problems and can undo many of them
 80% never goes away
 Ends up in landfills
 Can pollute groundwater under Earth’s
surface
 Recycling – reuse of resources
Culture: Growth and Limits
 The logic of growth
 Material comfort, Progress, Science
 Holds that more powerful technology has
improved lives and new discoveries will continue
to do so in the future
 Progress can lead to unexpected problems
 Strain on the environment
 Environmentalists
 Logic of growth flawed
 Assumes natural resources will always be
plentiful
 The limits of Growth
 Cannot invent our way out of the
problems created by the logic of
growth
 Growth must have limits
 Humanity must put into place policies
to control population increase,
pollution, and use of resources to avoid
environmental collapse
 Shares Malthus’s pessimism about the
future
Solid Waste: The Disposable
Society
 US is a disposable society
 Consume more products than virtually
any other nation on earth
 Countless items are designed to be
disposable
 Rich society consumes hundreds of
times more energy, plastics, lumber,
and other resources
 80% never goes away
 Ends up in landfills
 Can pollute groundwater under Earth’s
surface
 Recycling – reuse of resources
 Water and Air
 Hydrologic Cycle
 Planet naturally recycles water and refreshes the
land
 Two major concerns
 Supply and pollution
 Water Supply
 1% of Earth’s water is suitable for
drinking
 Water rights prominent in laws
around the world
 Rising population and development
greatly increased world’s needs for
water
 Face the reality that water is a
valuable and finite resource
 Water Pollution
 In large cities, people have no choice
but to drink contaminated water
 Quality in US good by global
standards
 Special problem is Acid Rain
 Rain made acidic by air pollution which
destroys plant and animal life
 Global phenomenon
 Regions that suffer may be thousands of miles
from source of the pollution
 Air Pollution
 People in US more aware of air
pollution than contaminated water
 Air quality improved in the final
decades of the 20th century
 Rich nations passed laws banning
high-pollution heating
 Problem serious in poor nations
 Reliance on coal, wood, peat, or other “dirty”
fuels for heating
Rain Forests
 Regions of dense forestation,
most of which circle the globe close to
the equator
 Largest in South America, West-Central
Africa, and Southeast Asia
 7% of Earth’s total land surface
 Losing rainforests to hardwood trade
 People in rich nations
 Love parquet floors, fine furniture, fancy
paneling, weekend yachts, and high-grade
coffins
 No rainforests – no protection of
Earth’s biodiversity and climate
Global Warming
 A rise in Earth’s average
temperature due to an increasing
concentration of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere
 Carbon dioxide increasing while
amount of plant life on Earth is
shrinking
 Rainforests being destroyed by
burning
 Global warming is a problem that
threatens the future for all
Declining Biodiversity
 Clearing rainforests reduces Earth’s
biodiversity
 Rainforests home to almost half of
planet’s living species
 Four reasons for concern:
 Earth’s biodiversity provides a
varied source of human food
 Earth’s biodiversity is a vital
genetic resource used by medical
and pharmaceutical researchers
 Beauty and complexity of natural
environment are diminished
 Extinction of any species is
irreversible and final
Environmental Racism
 Patterns that make environmental
hazards greatest for poor people,
especially minorities
 Factories that spew pollution stood
near neighborhoods housing poor and
people of color
 Poor drawn to factories for work
 Low incomes led to affordable
housing in undesirable neighborhoods
Toward a Sustainable Society
and World
 Ecologically Sustainable Culture
 A way of life that meets the needs of
the present generation without
threatening the environmental legacy
of future generations
 Three strategies
 Bring population growth under control
 Conserve finite resources
 Reduce waste
 Dinosaurs dominated for 160 million
years
 Humanity is far younger
 250,000 years
 Compared to dimwitted dinosaurs,
humans have the great gift of
intelligence
 What are the chances that humans will
continue to flourish 160 million years
or even 1,000 years from now?
 Answer depends on the choices made
by one of the 30 million species living
on Earth
 HUMAN BEINGS