Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Urban Sociology: Images and Structure

The fifth edition of this text presents a balanced review of the ecological arguments that the urban arena produces unique experiential and urban-based cultural effects while exploring the broader political and economic contexts that produce and modify the urban environment. In addition to examining the urban dimensions of such topics as community formation and continuity, minority and majority dynamics, ethnic experience, poverty, power, and crime, it provides an analysis of the spatial distribution of population and resources with regard to the metropolitanization of the urban form, and the interaction between urban concentration and development and underdevelopment. From a first chapter that begins with a discussion of some of the more micrological features of the urban experience, the text focuses on the significance of the more macrological cultural, social organizational, and political dimensions of urban change, in an historical span that includes the first cities and concludes with an exploration of the implications of cyberspace, transnationalism, and global terrorism for the future of urban sociology. While the work focuses primarily on the North American case, its analytical and integrated discussion makes it applicable to urban societies in general. Review Flanagan's approach provides a richly historical and social theoretical view for understanding urban development. This book provides students with understanding both the changing urban form and the power of cities in societies, from early settlements to world urbanization. This accessible, yet sophisticated account of major debates in urban sociology is a wonderful teaching tool and reference guide. Readers can learn of key trends in urban development, in the intellectual understanding of the city, and in the policy responses that have been attempted by individuals and social groups to organize urban life through community development, social networks, economic institutions, and political agencies, such as national governments. The grand scope that Flanagan provides on urban growth and transformations allows students to imagine the urban world of the past as well as the future. This is an excellent foundational source for students.--Louise Jezierski, PhD, James Madison College of Public and International Affairs, Michigan State University About the Author William G. Flanagan is professor of sociology at Coe College.