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The paper discusses whether market-achieved city size is greater or less than optimum city size when externalities such as pollution are present. Optimally taxing or controlling pollution may or may not lead to a decline in production of polluting goods. Moreover, taxation reorders production and consumption patterns in the city so that the minimum net effect on welfare of city inhabitants is the decline in pollution. Since pollution taxation increases the welfare of city inhabitants, city size rises with immigration from the rest of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes some adaptations made by the small town newspaper in Washington to the social and cultural changes occurring in the rural environment. Among these adjustments are: a stability in numbers has been reached, although at the expense of some loss of per capita circulation strength; a reduction in the number of two-newspaper towns; an increase in the size of the newspaper page; a shift from Saturday to Thursday as the second most important day of publication; a decreased interest in political parties and policies; a concentration on local news, particularly of persons and organizations. These trends suggest certain observations on the process of change and adaptation in social institutions, which by nature are slow to change: (1) adjustment to change is forced upon an institution by the inroads of competing agencies; (2) the stimulus to change comes from without, not from within the institution; and (3) changes in any one of the four elements of any institution, (a) rank and file membership, (b) leadership, (c) physical structure and equipment, and (d) pattern of attitudes lending sanction to the operation of the institution, will evoke changes and adpatations in the structure and functions of the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a procedure for constructing a city theology which effectively deals with the two major problems confronted in developing such a typology (1) the selection of dimensions 'along which cities vary in a relatively uniform way, and (2) the formation of homogeneous groups of cities on the basis of these dimensions jointly considered. The procedure suggested in this paper consists of uniting findings from previous research on the "selection of dimensions" problem with hierarchical grouping cluster analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Demography (Springer Nature) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A study of neighborhood newspapers within a large city illuminates the role which this specialized medium plays in the social process, and underlines the thesis that the image of a source held by it's audience has a strong influence in enhancing the impact of communications from that source. The neighborhood newspaper is found to represent an auxiliary, rather than a competitor, to the daily press in the minds of its readers. It is not believed to be commercialized, it is not seen as politically partisan but rather as an agent of community welfare and progress, and it often acts as an extension of the personal and social contacts of its readers. The urban community press is defined as including any weekly English language publication addressed to residents of a specific locality or area of any metropolitan district. Coordination and the maintenance of consensus within the urban community has been closely associated with the development of interrelated systems of mass media, of which the community press is a part. The community press, long recognized by certain types of commercial advertisers, politicians and community leaders as a relevant media of communication, has been neglected by students of urbanism.

This paper reports a test of Burgess' concentric zone and Hoyt's sector hypotheses of urban residential structure using the structural dimensions suggested by Shevky and Bell. Residential areas in four cities were studied. Each city was selected because it possessed a roughly circular total shape and because its population was between 200,000 and 500,000. The results indicate clearly that Burgess' concentric zone hypothesis is essentially supported with respect to urbanization but not with respect to social rank (or prestige value as this dimension is termed in this paper), while Hoyt's sector hypothesis is supported with respect to social rank (prestige value) but not with respect to urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change of residence is a subject of strong and growing interest in urban sociology. This interest is based on the fact that mobility is the proximal cause of many changes in the demography and social structure of urban areas. A common technique used to study the reasons for individual and family mobility is to ask people the reasons for their contemplated or completed moves. This paper reports the results of such a study in a central city area. It suggests that the cause of mobility may be different for moves of different lengths and different directions, and thus integrates some of the simpler theories advanced in the literature. Perhaps the best-known explanation for residential mobility is change in family size. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to the likelihood that change of residence may be a more complex phenomenon than has been assumed in previous research and that various forms of change of residence may require different explanations. The results suggest that distance and direction of move may be useful as classificatory principles in the further analysis of residential mobility.

When all the fire companies in a region are engaged in fighting fires, protection against a future fire is considerably reduced. It is standard practice in many urban fire departments to protect the exposed region by relocating outside fire companies temporarily to some of the vacant houses. In New York City, situations requiring such relocations arise ten times a day on the average. The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) currently makes its relocations according to a system of preplanned moves. This system was designed at a time when alarm rates were low and is based on the assumption that only one fire is in progress at a time. Because of the high alarm rates currently being experienced in parts of New York City, this assumption is no longer valid, and the preplanned relocation system breaks down at the times when it is needed most. This paper describes a computer-based method for determining relocations that overcomes the deficiencies of the existing method by utilizing the computer's ability to (1) store up-to-date information about the status of all fires in progress and the location and activity of all fire companies, (2) generate and compare many alternative relocation plans quickly. The method, which will become part of the FDNY's real-time Management Information and Control System (MICS), is designed to be fast and to require little computer memory. After giving some background of the problem and the objectives of relocation, we give the problem a mathematical programming formulation and then describe the heuristic algorithm to be used for generating relocations in the MICS. The remainder of the paper is devoted to a discussion of an example illustrating how the algorithm works, a rigorous test of the algorithm using a computer simulation model of Fire-Department operations, and a description of the current use of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a general equilibrium model of an economy where production and consumption occur in cities. The study examines under what situations the equilibrium size differs from the optimum. The optimum city sizes are defined as those which maximize potential welfare of participants in the economy. The authors determined the city sizes' equilibrium through location or investment decisions of laborers and capital owners. Population agglomeration of cities is observed because there are technological economies of scale in production or consumption.

There is widespread view that rural-to-urban migrants are saturating the ghetto areas of large cities and disproportionately contributing to poverty in urban areas. In this paper, data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity are analyzed to explore both dimensions of the presumed relationship of rural-urban migration and the plight of cities: the location of rural migrants in urban areas; and the extent of their contribution to urban poverty. The location and poverty of rural-urban migrants is compared with that of indigenous urbanities in nonmetropolitan and in ring and central city portions of metropolitan areas by size. White-black differences are emphasized and the relationship of poverty and previous or prolonged urban experience among migrants is also examined. The findings indicate that urban poverty and the plight of cities are the consequences of broader structural features of our society—the handicaps of age, of being a female head of household, or of the status ascribed to blacks—and not the product of rural-urban migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a brief description of various reports and other proceedings at the 20th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society, which was held in December 1925. The general topic of discussion spread over three full days, and participated in by nine specialised sections, was "The City." As samples of the different approaches to this general problem of the City the titles of several articles were mentioned, which were published in different issues of the Society's journal "The Sociological Review." Some of those papers are, "The Problem of Personality in the Urban Environment," "The Eugenics of the City," "The city as a Community," and others. The tendency was to treat the City as an abstract entity rather than as a natural history object for systematic outdoor observation as well as by the generalised research of indoor study. There were, however, some, exceptions to this abstract treatment, such as some of the papers in which is studied a particular city, and not cities in general under the vague abstraction of "the city":

Since World War II urban areas in the United States have experienced a gigantic expansion. A number of problems have accompanied the growth—among them are a transportation lag, urban blight, and urban sprawl. Attempts to deal with these problems continually demonstrate our need for a better understanding of the complexities of metropolitan structures. For instance, when an individual selects property in a particular residential area, what influences his choice? Certainly land prices are one of the influencing forces but what determines land values? This paper, which given results of a study conducted at The RAND Corporation under the sponsorship of the Ford Foundation describes and tests a model of residential land values in Los Angeles County. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the paper presented by Dr. Pahl zu on social conditions in the Netherlands. With admirable clarity, displaying an extensive knowledge of the relevant literature, he has demonstrated that the traditional concept of the rural-urban continuum is more an obstacle than a help in the work. Of course, this conclusion as such is not new, as Dr. Pahl himself has shown in his review of recent literature. Any sociologist who has used the concept in his work, has come sooner or later to the finding that one or more elements did not fit in the construct. Whatever the criteria chosen for characterization may be, there is always the case to be found of an urban group behaving 'rural' and of a rural group being 'urban', or, worst of all, one finds rural and urban characteristics within one group or individual. With the description of the situation in 'urban villages' and with the examples taken from studies made in the developing countries, in which all sorts of discontinuities between the urban and the rural come into the view, Dr. Pahl has found strong support for his statements. It is clear that a typology of settlements, from the small to the large, can never form the basis for a continuum which classifies social structures.

In recent decades limited research attention has been given to those smallest population centers, beyond the individual farmstead, commonly referred to as hamlets. Alluding to this fact, the following statement made in 1943 by the geographer, Glenn T. Trewartha, is still indicative of the situation: "… one of the most numerous and widespread settlement types in the United States, the unincorporated hamlet, does not deserve the near oblivion that has been accorded it by geographers and other workers in the social sciences." The lack of research interest may be attributed partially to the dimunition of the farm population and rural institutions and the increasing significance of industrialization and urban development. Because of these and other changes, students of society may share the opinion that hamlets are rapidly disappearing and consequently not worthy of study. Various studies, however, are not in agreement concerning whether or not hamlets have increased or decreased in size and numbers. According to Fuguitt, the contradictory findings stem from the fact that previous researchers have not made "a clear distinction between (1) changes in population size categories over time, and (2) changes in individual places over time." In a study based on Census data, Fuguitt examined Wisconsin's incorporated small towns for the period 1880-1960. He simultaneously analyzed the two analytical components indicated above through the use of the Markov model. His general conclusion was: "While fewer small towns are being 'born' these days, they aren't 'dying,' but are growing up to be big towns, in some cases." Although it is possible, as Fuguitt also suggests, that small unincorporated places are declining in size and number, there is little reported data to suggest they are rapidly diminishing as a rural collectivity or settlement center in contemporary society. In general, the purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to our descriptive knowledge of hamlets. Initially, an effort is made to determine the main activity pursued by the principal family supporters within or near the hamlet area. Secondly, based on the major activity pursued by each resident family's primary income recipient, a statistically derived typology of hamlets is described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a regional interpretation of manufacturing as an urban function in the United States. But this interpretation is supplemented by the notion of a national systems of cities, which believes that urban and metropolitan functions are inter-regionally organized. This paper examines the occurrence of manufacturing activity in the larger urban and metropolitan centers of the West North Central geographic division, as defined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Using manufacturing activity as the dependent variable (Y) and an indication of accessibility as the independent variable (X), the regression of Y on X was computed for each groups as well as the correlation coefficient. Deviations of the actual percentage engaged in manufacture from the predicted percentage were computed for each city. On the basis of study three groups were identified: diversified manufacturing centers with metropolitan functions, diversified manufacturing centers with few metropolitan functions and specialized manufacturing centers. The second major grouping includes the regional metropolises and the regional capitals.

This paper attempts to answer several questions about urbanization in New Zealand: (1) How have the paradoxical phenomena of a high level of urbanization and an agriculturally oriented economy coexisted in New Zealand? (2) How do the levels of urbanization in New Zealand and in the other "new countries" of British origin (Australia, Canada, and the United States) compare? (3) Why has New Zealand never had a single dominant metropolis as is commonly found in other countries of its size? (4) How have the sources or urbanization--reclassification, differential natural increase, and migration--influenced the process of urbanization in New Zealand? (5) How has New Zealand's small population affected its urban proportion? (6) What factors underlie the phenomenal rate of urbanization of New Zealand's Maori population during the past generation? The analysis covers the period from 1861 to 1971. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main trend in urban/rural migration is a continuous gain, in net terms, of towns from villages and large cities. But this is a result of two distinct migration streams associated with the process of family formation. While before marriage there is positive net migration from villages to both large cities and towns (and from large cities towards towns), after marriage there is a tendency for couples to move towards villages. This is explained by the desire of families, particularly those belonging to the middle class to move out of the urban centres to better accommodation in smaller communities. Considerable variations in migrations within and into regions are observed. These reflect the continuation of long-term trends in internal migration (as described in Part I of this paper) in particular, population dispersal from Greater London and larger distance migration into the Southern and Eastern regions. Some social characteristics of migrants and non-migrants are compared. Associations between the intensity of internal migration on the one hand, and occupational status, education, social mobility and family size on the other are observed. An attempt is made to assess the extent of migration associated with the marriage process. Although this process increases mobility, its relative contribution to total adult mobility appears to be only slight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the theoretical link between the social differentiation of population groups in modern industrial society and the residential differentiation of such groups and suggests alternative methods of analyzing urban residential differentiation by outlining the results of a study of social areas in Melbourne, Victoria. The paper is primarily concerned with a limited model of urban society and is restricted culturally and temporally to the modern industrial city which emerged as a consequence of the industrial revolution. One criticism of social area analysis has been that, while its underlying theory is mainly concerned with understanding social differentiation in modern industrial society, the main empirical concern among social area analysts has been with a problem of a different, although related order, the residential differentiation of socially differentiated groups. The first section of the paper discusses the general processes through which the three constructs of social rank, urbanization and segregation come to have a spatial referent. The second section of the paper reports an empirical test of the Shevky-Bell schema using 1961 census data for Melbourne. A two-staged component analysis is used to test for the existence of the three hypothesized dimensions of residential differentiation. A more efficient method of classification is used to derive a typology of residential areas using two component scores for each area.

This paper analyzes the relationship between intelligence and occupation and, secondly, relates occupation to various aspects of migration. The relationship between occupation and test intelligence has been the subject of considerable investigation. There tends to be a hierarchy of occupational structure which is closely related to test intelligence, whether the classification is based on the subject's parental occupation or on his own occupation. The material for the investigation consists of the Ohio State University Intelligence Test scores for about 5,000 boys and girls who were high school seniors in 116 Missouri communities in 1939-41. There seems to be a distinct tendency for the brighter boys and girls in rural areas and small towns of Missouri, to find their occupational levels in the higher prestige occupations, especially the professional groups, while those who perform more poorly on tests are more likely to become manual worker and farmers with somewhat lower rankings on the prestige scale.

In the last two decades most of the Western world has experienced a striking marriage boom. The annual number of marriages and marriage rates have been at a higher level than before in the United States, most of Northwestern Europe, and among the European populations in the countries of the British Commonwealth. Many features of the sharp fluctuations in marriage rates can be explained by reference to events of the period. Thus all the belligerent countries had a conspicuous peak in marriages in the early postwar years. The decline in the age at marriage has been very rapid, and the marriage pattern revealed in recent data for several Western countries is unprecedented in the period for which statistical records exist. The extent to which different socio-economic groups have participated in this change in marriage patterns may give important clues to its significance. The present paper deals with the contrasts between urban and rural areas and with analysis by level of education.

Although the objective of the large study of which one facet is here reported was to test certain hypotheses with respect to causal factors in integration, this paper is not concerned with causes. But something must be said on this subject in order to make clear why the data concern only four cities. The studies through 1946 indicated that there was great variation among large American cities in integration as measured positively by welfare effort and negatively by crime, and that more than three-fifths of the variance was attributable to two causal factors—degree of heterogeneity of the population in terms of nationality and race, and in- and out-migration of the population. It was also found that the residual, unexplained variance in integration was much greater for some cities than for others. It was presumed that other causal factors were working strongly in the cities whose integration scores could be predicted least accurately from their population composition and mobility scores.

The article discusses the first of the two papers that are concerned with the political and informal sides of the government of Leeds, England in contrast with its officials and legal sides. The material for the two papers on Leeds local government has been gathered by the author during the nine year's membership of the Leeds City Council. The author of the papers has been a member of the majority group and of its Advisory Committee, as well as a Deputy Chairman of the Education Committee. The first part of the discussion is about the role of the Labour Group as the majority group on the Council.

This paper gives a model in which two urban emergency service units (such as fire engines or ambulances) cooperate in responding to alarms or calls from the public in a specified region of a city. Given the home locations of the units and the spatial distribution of alarm rates, it is possible to specify which unit should respond to each alarm by defining a response area for each unit. The average response time to alarms and the workload of each unit are calculated as functions of the boundary that separates their response areas. The boundaries that minimize average response time and the ones that equalize workload are determined. Some boundaries can be dominated, in the sense that another boundary improves both workload balance and response time. The set of undominated boundaries is found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a survey of housing conditions in the urban areas of England and Wales. The survey aimed to assess the general need for urban rehabilitation, to define the areas of worst incidence and to relate the problem to the varying resources of the local authorities concerned. Unfortunately, no comprehensive evidence on the condition of industrial and commercial property exists so that the paper must perforce concentrate on housing alone. However, housing does comprise in area nearly half the urban land use and accounts for a high proportion of the fixed capital investment in the country, 42 per cent in 1953 compared with 31 per cent for other buildings and works. Besides this it has the most immediate impact on human welfare. Since 1801, the stock of housing accommodation has approximately doubled every fifty years. It has been estimated that of the 12.4 million dwellings existing at the time of the 1951 census, nearly 4.7 million, or 38 per cent, were over 60 years old. Of these about 3.25 million were at least 75 years old.

In this research article based on material gathered during the course of a study of extra-familial kinship in the County Borough of Swansea, the authors draw attention to the importance of a detailed consideration of affinal roles and relationships in studies of kinship and marriage in Great Britain. The obvious neglect of this subject in the few previous studies that have been made in both rural and urban situations appears to arise from two sources. Firstly, this is an area of research in which the use of adequate statistical techniques is essential for the discernment of regularities in behaviour. Secondly and more importantly, there has been a tendency to use a conceptual approach which emphasizes consanguinity to the nearly complete exclusion of relationships through marriage. In this paper the author is primarily concerned with affinal roles and relationships. It seems essential to their argument to state that the particular conceptual approach discussed above which tends to treat husband and wife as a composite Ego, as "one flesh" socially, or the household as an undifferentiated unit in kin relations, is methodologically inaccurate and must of necessity obscure the analysis of these important relationships.

The paper develops and tests the thesis that differential commitment to the scholarly perspective explains differences in involvement in traditional Judaeo-Christian religion. Utilizing data from a probability sample of full-time faculty in rank at all accredited colleges in a midwestern urban area, the study developed a scale to measure differential commitment to the scholarly perspective. Correlations between scholarly perspective score and religiosity scores supported the thesis. These relationships were stable when controlling for sectarian and nonsectarian types of school milieux. Quality of respondent' educational background did not explain the relationships between scholarly commitment and religiosity. Rather commitment to the scholarly perspective accounted for some of the relationship between quality of education and religious involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a response article regarding the invalidity of the author's prediction equations. Validity of modified model; Removal of hypothesis on suburbanism-Conservative vote causal link; Establishmenf of functional relationships.

The article, through the example of Nashville, Tennessee, convinces that progress in urban geography will be made only by a comparative study of a large number of urban centers. The study in this article is concerned with the commercial district or business area but more particularly with the retail section of the commercial area. The quality of buildings and business in general is the highest from Fifth to Seventh. Most of the buildings are new and are the largest in the retail business sections of the city.

This paper reports a study which developed and empirically tested a simulation model of the process by which zoning ordinances are altered to adapt to the changing needs and conditions of a city. The perceived decision rules of the participants are reported in the form of flow charts which utilize language similar to that used by the participants. The body of the paper indicates methods which were used to translate these judgmental rules into a form suitable for a computer. The model was tested by allowing the computer to decide the one hundred twenty-five proposed changes in the zoning map of the City of Pittsburgh during the period 1963 to 1965 inclusive. The results were good in the sense that the computer model decided most of the cases in the same way as did the human participants. Additional tests and managerial implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the author's comments on the article "The Rural-Urban Variable: An Urbanite's Perspective," by Leo F. Schnore. Schnore asserts that the central thesis of this article is that rural-urban divergences in the U.S. are still substantial and worth studying. The author says that this proposition is not new. It is avowed openly by many rural sociologists and, at least tacitly, by most through the kinds of research they pursue and the action programs they often supplement. Schnore's thesis is somewhat unorthodox, for it is the author's impression that Richard Dewey's article "The Rural-Urban Continuum: Real But Relatively Unimportant," more nearly states the typical urbanite's evaluation. Although Schnore's claim may be more congenial to rural sociology as a profession. appraising its validity requires heavy lending of ideas from the position which underlies Dewey's evaluation. Without attempting to classify Schnore's indices in Dewey's schema, the author suspects that sociologists like Dewey might be willing to subsume all of them as only specific aspects of one or another of the five structural qualities Dewey is willing to admit as invariant concomitants of size and density.

A variety of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics is known to vary consistently along the rural-urban continuum in highly developed nations such as the United States. Relatively little is known, however, about such variations in underdeveloped countries. In an effort to throw further light on this subject, the present paper examines the relationship of selected socio-demographic variables defining "urbanism" to a rural-urban continuum constructed for Taiwan. The results of the analysis suggest (1) that the theoretical applicability of the continuum concept is just as valid for under-developed areas as it is for countries such as the United States, and (2) that from a methodological point of view, a more realistic approach to the construction of a rural-urban continuum is one that utilizes both population size and administrative type in the classification of communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the impact of disguised and overt unemployment in underdeveloped economies. The concept of disguised unemployment has been a recurring one in the literature on underdeveloped countries. The apparent existence of excess labor, particularly in agricultural areas, has promoted the view that one of the keys to development lies in a removal of these laborers from the farm scene to urban areas where their efforts will be to greater avail. Such a sharp difference of opinion between those who consider disguised unemployment to be an important factor in underdeveloped economies and those who deny that there is evidence of its existence is by no means a unique phenomenon in economic literature. If a country is so poor that an increase in consumption will increase the working vigor of the labor force, entrepreneurs will find that the quality of the thing they are purchasing, labor hours, is not independent of its price, the wage rate. In the present paper, the reason for the simplifying assumption that there is a constant relationship between the ability to work and actual work effort lies in the difficulty of confining the concept of disguised unemployment to underdeveloped countries if this assumption is not made.

The article reports on the development of a model that uses existing data and theory to determine commercial structure in depressed urban neighborhoods. The model, which is based on the problems of neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio, and other cities with populations of at least 50,000, offers assistance for marketing-related dilemmas. The author proposes that the development of large retail chains and other service stores in depressed urban neighborhoods is dependent on short and long-term consumer demand. Government enterprise programs that are used to stimulate small businesses in the U.S. are also discussed.

This article focuses on Wharton School of Finance and Commerce of University of Pennsylvania. The major research project in the Department of Industry is the "Racial Policies of American Industry" study, a three-year program sponsored by the Ford Foundation. It is directed by Herbert R. Northrup, chairman of the Department, and will continue through 1969. The first major study, "The Negro in the Automobile Industry" by Northrup, has been published by the Industrial Research Unit and is available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Northrup is also working on studies in the aerospace, pulp and paper, and air transport industries, and is directing student studies in the petroleum refining, trucking, coal mining, and tobacco industries. In addition, he is supervising an in-depth investigation of coalition bargaining. Armand J. Thiebolt, Jr., instructor in industry, is making an investigation of the Negro and other minority groups in the banking industry. Charles R. Perry, assistant professor of industry, is engaged in a study of racial employment policies and practices in department stores in seventeen major urban areas, also a part of the Ford-sponsored research program.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Personal Rapid Transit (P.R.T.), with access points within walking distance from the home, is often put forward as the principal alternative transport mode to the private car in urban areas. This paper examines the aesthetic, accessibility and constructional implications of developing such a system in existing residential areas and concludes that serious problems would be encountered along most existing residential roads which would seriously limit its extensive implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from three national surveys, this paper focuses on two questions pivotal to the issue of rural-urban differences. First, defining rurality in terms of residence, do attitudinal differences remain among the rural and urban residents independent of differences generated by other potent variables? Second, will any increase in the predictive utility of rurality be generated by use of a composite definition (residence plus lifestyle)? On the bases of the close and consistent behavorial and symbolic association of abstinence with rural life and consumption with urban life, drinking of alcoholic beverages was selected as the indicator of rural-urban lifestyles. Rural-metropolitan residence held its own in the company of other established predictors in explaining differences in attitudes. Further, the addition of a lifestyle indicator clearly increased the predictive utility of the rural-urban variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we briefly review relevant research on the culture of poverty and set our findings within the general context of culture of poverty arguments. Data from a community survey in a Southwestern city are analyzed using Oscar Lewis' four major culture of poverty dimensions: 1) the individual, 2) the family. 3) the slum community, and 4) the community's relation to society. In our study a sample of 271 black respondents was divided into two groups, here termed the "poor" and the "non-poor." In noting all the broad traits studied in all dimensions taken together, some support for Lewis' culture of poverty was found in less than half of the cases; and in several cases our findings were in direct opposition to culture of poverty predictions. In addition, we have suggested that the majority of those traits that did lend support to Lewis' argument might be better classified as situational conditions of poverty rather than as a part of a bonafide "culture" of poverty. The findings of this paper may call into question the use of the "culture of poverty" perspective as a basis for policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about the conference of the Regional Association which took place in the Easter Vacation, being organized in conjunction with the Outlook Tower in Edinburgh, Scotland. The association has for aim the promotion of the study of regions and their communities and the civic and educational application of the results of such study. Its conferences invites attention from the sociologist, as an endeavor to correlate the particular interests and researches of many students and workers by applying them to the study of one region after another, each region in which the conference is held being taken as the social unit for observation and study. That increasing numbers are seeking in these regional methods a way out of the growing complexity, multitude and confusion of educational and social problems, is clear from the nature and diversity-in-unity of the papers and lectures which in this Edinburgh meeting were successfully arranged, to quote the aims of the association, to yield a concrete and unified view of the interplay between man and his environment, as exemplified in a capital city, at once historic and modern.

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia Ruralis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is concerned with the consequences of urbanization, industrialization and increasing societal complexity upon the social relations and social roles of certain community members (Winch and Blumberg, 1968). The generalizations are based on primary and secondary analyses of the life styles of widows aged 65 and over, who are located in different types of communities in various societies. The assumption is made that sociological understanding of life styles of widows in rapidly urbanizing countries will contribute to knowledge of the changes occurring not only in family roles, but in other social relations as well. The shortage of data about widows all over the world necessitates the positing of these generalizations as exploratory rather than as final statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is not offered, even by implication, as an explanation for urban riots and confrontations. It is an exposition of a point of view, a methodology, and a body of evidence which hopefully may shed some light on this complex and pressing social problem. Within the social sciences several levels of analysis exist, each appropriate to the study of a certain type of problem (Devereaux, 1963; Bendix, 1963). Experimental approaches to social psychology have been particularly valuable in the analysis of individual behavior in a social context; emphasis has been on finding both the social determinants and the social implications of the behavior of an individual. While we believe that part of the explanation of collective phenomena, such as urban revolts, lies in the analysis of the behavior of individuals (cf. Brown, 1965), we do not advocate naive reductionism. We propose only to use data from the laboratory to form some operational definitions and hypotheses to guide further study and interpretation of collective events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of public apprehension about crime indicate that people hold conflicting orientations regarding the nature and extent of the problem (McIntyre, 1967). On the one hand, they feel that throughout the country as a whole and even elsewhere in their own communities, the threat of crime, especially violent crime, is severe and increasingly so. On the other hand, however, they feel that people and property in their own neighborhoods remain relatively safe, this being the case even among residents of high crime risk areas. The issue of crime deterrence, particularly in residential areas, involves a number of dimensions, depending partly on threatened and partly on actual apprehension of offenders by actions of residents and police. The threat of apprehension exercised through informal channels has been demonstrated in the work of Maetoby et al. (1958) which shows that the crucial factor differentiating high from low delinquency areas of the same lower socio-economic level is the shared expectations among neighbors that residents would intervene to prevent the commission of offenses. More recently in a study of ghetto riots, Warren (1969) has demonstrated the importance of actual informal intervention in crime deterrence, finding that the more cohesive the neighborhood, the more likely that residents attempted to prevent looting, burning, and disorder. The significance of formal controls as deterrents to crime is somewhat more problematic. Even though crime prevention is a major manifest function of police (Banton, 1964; Bittner, 1967; Wilson, 1968), one is left to assume the degree to which formal controls do deter crime, and as Blumstein (1967), for one, has stated, "although the question (of what people are deterred from eommitring what crime by what actions of the criminal justice system) is central to much of the operation of the criminal justice system, and especially to police operation, there has been no systematic attempt to answer it." Some light is shed on this issue in studies of police response to citizen complaints which show the mutual dependence of formal and informal structures for the control of crime. Black and Reiss (1970) report that the majority (72 percent) of police encounters (at least with juveniles) stem from citizen calls rather than from police-initiated action, yet the results of victimization studies reveal that this still represents only a limited proportion of all offenses reported by citizens to police (Biderman, This paper is concerned with the issue of how people view the nature and extent of crime in their own neighborhoods, and whether they attribute their area's safety (or dangerousness) to the exercise of formal or informal controls, comparing rural, suburban, and central city residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of occupational status and income for suicide is not clear. One study indicates a positive relationship; five reveal a negative relationship; two show a higher suicide rate for very high- and very low-status occupations than for middle-status occupations; and the combined results of a study of three English cities are inconsistent. Although evidence is strongest for a negative relationship, no definitive conclusion can be made. Very likely, the relationship varies depending upon other conditions. In particular, it may vary with employment status; income may be directly related to suicide under conditions of unemployment, but inversely related under conditions of employment, or vice versa. In this paper an attempt will be made to determine whether and in what way employment status may influence the effects of income. In addition, effort will be made to determine whether unemployment is related to suicide at all income levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the ubiquitous trends in social behavior is the formation of comprehensive systems of interaction known as communities. Everywhere in the world and throughout man's existence on earth, the formation of communities has been evident, from the primitive tribe to the contemporary nation-state. Among the exciting developments within the more complex communities of mankind, such as cities and nations, is the emergence of subcommunity forms which both complement and contest the arrangements of the larger society. Status communities and ethnic communities of many sorts belong among the contemporary sub-communities. It is instructive to apply this concept of sub-community formation to areas of behavior such as the worlds of art and jazz, when that behavior can be shown to approach closure and completeness with respect to a distinctive way of life. This paper deals with two major tasks: (1) the development of a special theory of the jazz community as an unique form of status community, and (2) a judgment as to the validity of referring to the social world of the jazz musician as a community. It should be mentioned that while this formulation is conceived in terms of the jazz subculture, it also has widespread application elsewhere in the area of social deviance. Since the concept of status group has its roots in the general theory of community, we shall briefly outline that concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]