ABSTRACT
THIS book takes as its starting-point Louis Wirth's classic article, 'Urbanism as a Way of Life', which first appeared in 1938.1 It was written towards the end of the heyday of the 'Chicago School' in American sociology, and aimed to present a relatively concise theory of city life which would incorporate that School's main research find ings over the preceding twenty years. In Wirth's theory, three concepts -size, density and heterogeneity-were taken to be the key features of the city. These key features were then related to each other by a set of propositions, setting out the conditions under which a large, dense, heterogeneous aggregate of people might be expected to cooperate enough to maintain the complex organization of the city. In this manner, the various aspects of city life, as Wirth saw them, could be systematically related to its three key features; and as his propositions were tested, the theory could be confirmed, modified or refuted
This opening chapter presents Wirth's theory, and examines some of the criticisms which have since been levelled against it. There are four sections. The first gives a brief account of the main propositions which Wirth advanced; the second relates some of the warnings which he attached to his analysis of the city; the third section reviews some of the criticisms which have been voiced against his theory. The fourth and longest section considers two omissions in his theory, by discus sing some of the classifications of cities, and of the social areas which comprise them.
