Sociology & You

Chapter 16: Population and Urbanization

Chapter Overviews

The Dynamics of Demography Demography is the scientific study of population. Demographers look at many factors when studying population, including size of a population, distribution, age structure, fertility, mortality, and migration. Sociologists study population because it affects social structure, especially in crowded areas.

World Population Rapid world population growth is a relatively recent phenomenon, but concern about population is not new. English economist Thomas Malthus published essays on population growth in relation to economic development in the late 1700s. Some countries in the world have even experimented with voluntary as well as compulsory population control. The rate of world population growth is slowing, but because of population momentum, it will continue to increase for many years.

The Urban Transition The world has been greatly changed by urbanization, beginning with the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the United States, however, suburbanization has become the dominant trend, enabled by technological and transportation developments and fueled by a scarcity of land in cities.

Urban Ecology Urban ecology is the study of the relationships between humans and their city environments. Urban ecologists have developed four major theories of city growth—concentric zone theory, sector theory, multiple nuclei theory, and peripheral theory. Combining elements from each theory is useful in understanding how humans relate to city environments.