ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which urban environments can influence demographic behavior. Although we refer to empirical findings, our main purpose is to provide a map of concepts, with emphasis on the features that give the urban socioeconomic landscape its distinctive character. The discussion begins at the micro level, examining how neighborhoods might affect individual and family demographic decisions. It then moves to successively higher levels of aggregation, surveying the linkages that cross neighborhoods, taking in the broader urban economy, exploring connections among cities, and finally examining the structures of government that are overlaid upon this varied terrain. The themes developed here have international extensions, but this chapter remains within national boundaries. In closing, the concepts that have entered the discussion are reviewed, and a few of the major features that distinguish urban from rural landscapes are identified.
