ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the contribution of sociology to the interrogation of "urban phenomena". For nineteenth-century scholars, the sociological need to unravel the "urban" was not as much a dreamy intellectual pursuit as it was—like so much good scholarship—driven by a pressing need to describe and interpret a changing world. Organic solidarity is based upon social differences and the interdependence that develops due to the specialization of roles in society's division of labor. The organic approach of the Chicago School is today charged with overlooking other characteristics that would be of extreme importance to subsequent theorists. The sociological approaches to studying the city are hardly unique to sociology. Ethnography is the one of the oldest—and perhaps the most popular—sociological approaches to studying cities. Of course, such a framework is hardly the proprietary bailiwick of sociology, but it is an emphasis of the contribution of urban sociology. This contribution has spanned three centuries and has contributed significantly to urban studies.
