Populations and Urbanization. - Basics of Sociology - Lecture Notes, Study notes of Introduction to Sociology

Download Populations and Urbanization. - Basics of Sociology - Lecture Notes and more Study notes Introduction to Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! 1 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n POPULATIONS AND URBANIZATION Learning Outcomes At the end of this chapter you will be able to do the following:  Define demography.  Calculate population change.  Define the variety of rates used by demographers.  Relate the Demographic Transition Theory to specific eras in history.  Evaluate the usefulness of Pronatalist and Antinatalist theories.  Define and list push and pull factors.  Define urbanization.  Define megalopolis and micropolis.  Evaluate the attractiveness of cities to gang members.  Contrast theories of urban development.  Evaluate the pros and cons of gentrification. WHAT IS DEMOGRAPHY? Demography is the scientific study of population growth and change. Demography is mostly concerned with three factors: birth, death, and migration. Demographers might also study rates of change, such as divorce rates in the U.S. over a period of time. Size, distribution, composition, age structure, and change in population are all measured using demographic methods. Everything in society influences demography and demography conversely influences everything in society. For example, after World War II, the United States began to recover from the long-term negative effects of the war. Families had been separated, relatives died or were injured, and women who had gone to the factories returned home. It was an era of social and cultural upheaval. The year 1946 reflected the impact of that change in its very atypical demographic statistics. Starting in 1946 people married younger, had more children per woman, divorced then remarried again, and had more than the previous average number of children. From 1946 to 1956 the birth rate rose and peaked, then began to decline again. By 1964 the national high birth rate was finally back to the level it was before 1946. The millions of children born between 1946 and 1964 were called the Baby Boom Generation (there are about 78 million of them alive today). The Baby Boomers affected society in every conceivable way from schools to the workplace, and from the housing market to Social Security. Docsity.com 2 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n Demographic research can be divided into two subcategories: formal and social. Formal demography deals with collecting, analyzing, and reporting population data. Social demography is the study of population patterns within a social context. THE FORMULA The core of demographic studies has three components: births, deaths, and migration. (Births-Deaths) + ((In-Migration)-(Out-Migration))=Population Change The first part of the formula, (Births-Deaths) is called natural increase, or all the births minus all the deaths in a given population over a given time period. The other part of the formula, ((In-Migration)-(Out-Migration)) is called net migration which is all the in- migration minus all the out-migration in a given population over a given time period. In this formula, in-migration is the number of migrants moving into a territory, and out-migration is the number of migrants moving out. (However, the term in-migration may also be used to refer to movement within a geographic location.) Population change is then added to a previous year’s population to yield a new population estimate. Most official population counts really are estimates. There are mistakes in counting that render results that are close, but never perfectly accurate. Let’s consider this formula by first looking at the US population in 1990. Census enumeration is the formal counting of a population by its government. Based on the U.S. Census, the U.S. population was 248,709,000 in 1990.1 We can calculate the population change for 1990-1999 to come up with the population estimate for 1999 (see Table 1). Add the population change of 26,729,000 to the 1990 population of 248,709,000 to get a population estimate for 1999 of 275,438,000. This is very close to the actual July 1st, 1999 U.S. Census estimate.2 Table 1. Numbers of Births, Deaths, and Net Migration3 for the United States between 1990- 1999.4 Births - Deaths +In-Migration -Out-Migration = Population Change 39,860,000 22,711,000 9,800,000 220,000 +26,729,000 Table 2 shows that the U.S. ranks third among the ten most populated countries of the world in 2008. It is estimated to continue to rank third in 2050 (see Table 3). Interestingly, in 2050, it is projected that India and China will swap rankings and India will rank first and China second. UNITED STATES POPULATION AND KEY RATES Figure 1 shows the US population for selected years between 1790 (the first U.S. Census) and 2009 (estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau). At its first official Census, the U.S. had more than four million inhabitants, but it failed to count Native Americans, Blacks, and Docsity.com 5 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n there is a principle which states that it requires a minimum TFR of 2.1 for the population to replace the man and woman who made the children and a TFR of 2.3 to begin to expand the population. Thus you can see from Table 4 that the less-developed regions of the world (especially Africa) are expected to grow, while the more developed (especially Japan) should not grow. Based on these projections, Japan’s population should decrease by 25% between 2008 and 2050. Figure 2. Estimated Crude Birth Rates per 1,000 Population of the United States, Utah, and Vermont, 1991-2006.8 Table 4. Crude Birth Rates and Total Fertility Rates for Selected Regions and Countries.9 Country or Region Crude Birth Rates (CBR) Total Fertility Rates (TFR) More developed 12 1.6 Less Developed 23 2.8 Africa 37 4.9 Latin America/Caribbean 21 2.5 Asia (excluding China) 23 2.4 China 12 1.6 Liberia 50 6.8 Canada 11 1.6 Mexico 20 2.3 United States 14 2.1 Italy 9 1.3 Japan 9 1.0 World 21 2.6 Docsity.com 6 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES Doubling time is the time required for a population to double if the current growth rate continues. Table 5 shows the growth rates and estimated doubling times for selected countries based on 2008 estimates. The world’s population should double in 58 years. Liberia, on the other hand, should double its population in only 23 years. In fact, most of the world’s population now lives in the less developed regions of the world and they will double in about 47 years. There are approximately 68% of the 6.7 billion peoples of this world who now live in less developed countries (roughly 4.56 billion people). In the year 2055 (the year 2008 + 47 years=2055) there should be 9.12 billion people living in the less developed regions of the world. The more developed regions of the world will not double in any of our lifetimes (it would be the year 2358 according to these data). Zero population growth occurs when a population neither shrinks nor expands from year to year. To understand why some countries have higher or lower rates, you must first understand some theoretical backgrounds. Table 5. Growth Rates and Doubling Times for Selected Countries 2008.10 Country or Region Growth Rate Doubling Time in Years More developed 0.2 350 Less Developed 1.5 47 Africa 2.4 29 Latin America/Caribbean 1.5 47 Asia (excluding China) 1.5 47 China 0.5 140 Liberia 3.1 23 Canada 0.3 233 Mexico 1.6 44 United States 0.6 116 Italy 0.0 can’t calculate Japan 0.0 can’t calculate World totals 1.2 58 There are two distinct perspectives that relate to births in a population. Antinatalist is a perspective which opposes childbearing and pronatalist is a perspective which promotes birth and increased population. Antinatalists oppose birth and support contraception, abortions, and sterilization, along with the education of women. Educating a woman is the Docsity.com 7 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n most effective way of lowering her fertility. Pronatalists support birth, large families, extended families, and governmental support of childbearing. Malthusian Theory The first Antinatalist was Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), an important demographer. He was a Reverend and English scholar who took a strong stance against the unprepared parents of his day. To him prepared parents had established their education and livelihood, their household, and their marriage before they considered getting pregnant. Keep in mind that there were very few effective methods of birth control at this time, so Malthus came across as a hardliner against parenting. He published half a dozen editions of his work, An Essay on the Principles of Population (1798-1830), which were extremely controversial, yet carefully read by many influential people of his day. For Malthusian Theory the problem was that populations grew more rapidly than the production of food, which to him was the cause of many social ills in the new industrial societies of Europe. He declared that abstinence before marriage, forced sterilization, and criminal treatment of unprepared parents would be the new conservative norm. Indeed history has shown that famines, wars, plagues, and other terrible conditions do occur. The antinatalists blame too many babies and people, destruction of the natural environment, the existence of the traditional family, and capitalistic profit-seeking for the decline of global well-being. The pronatalists point out that there is plenty of food in the world and there always has been. They blame political and social mismanagement for the social ills, not the high birth rates. Look at Figure 3 to see the estimated world population from 10,000 BC to 2009 AD (these are only estimates since there were very few government statistics prior to the Industrial Revolution). You can clearly see that there were millions of people on the earth throughout the history of the world. Pronatalists argue that for the most part, civilizations ate, lived, and thrived, and still do today. When they starved it was typically some political or natural disaster, not a Malthusian shortage, that explained it. Besides, they argue, Malthus underestimated the enormous gains in medical, agricultural, environmental, political, and other sciences that have given this world the highest standard of living it has ever known. The bottom line is that the World Health Organization, World Bank, United Nations, United States, and all of the other more developed nations of the world are Neo-Malthusian/Antinatalistic to some degree or another, while the people of the less developed regions of the world live a pronatalist’s lifestyle and thereby are mainly responsible for the rapidly increasing growth of births into the world population. Look at Table 6 to see how fast the U.S. and world are growing by seconds, minutes, hours, etc. In the U.S., every hour 432 babies are born, totaling up to about 3,784,320 in a year (please note that this estimate tends to be lower than the actual number reported by the U.S.’s Vital Statistics at 4.2 million births, because estimates are calculated based on previous years’ rates, whereas the vital statistics are actual counts made two years after the actual data has been collected and tabulated). In the world, every hour 15,834 babies are born adding up to 138,715,000 per year. How do you suppose Anti- and Pronatalists might respond to these data? Docsity.com 10 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n having universal medical care. To summarize: 1) more babies are born in developing nations of the world than in the developed ones, 2) more infants and other people die sooner in the less developed regions of the world than in the developed ones, and 3) most of the world’s future population growth will come from the less developed regions of the world. Table 7. Crude Death Rates and Infant Mortality Rates for Selected Regions and Countries.17 Country or Region Crude Death Rate (CDR) Infant Mortality Rates (IMR) More developed 10 6.0 Less Developed 8 54.0 Africa 14 82.0 Sierra Leone 22 155.0 Latin America/Caribbean 6 23.0 Asia (excluding China) 7 45.0 China 7 23.0 Liberia 18 133.0 Canada 7 5.5 Mexico 5 19.0 United States 14 2.1 Italy 10 4.2 Japan 9 2.8 World total 8 49 Demographic Transition Theory Why is the world’s population growing so rapidly in regions that have the fewest resources? Part of the answer to this question is found in the Demographic Transition Theory which claims that populations go through three distinct stages that correspond to the onset of the Industrial Revolution with regard to changes in birth and death rates. Look at Figure 5 to see the three stages of this theory. Stage 1, the Pre-Industrial Revolution Stage, encompassed the world’s population up until about 1700 AD. Much of the world’s population grew very slowly up to that point. That’s all it could do because the high birth rates were offset by the high death rates (lots of people were born and they died soon). Stage 2, the Industrial Revolution Stage, saw a decline in death rates while birth rates remained high. This is the perfect demographic storm for population growth and this coincides with the rapid growth of populations in Western Civilizations (lots of people were born and they died later in life). Stage 3, the Post-Industrial Revolution Stage, came with the technical and computer chip revolution that raised the standard of living so much Docsity.com 11 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n that death rates remained low while birth rates dropped (fewer people being born and they die even later in life). The Demographic Transition Theory describes what happened in the more developed nations but it does not fit so neatly in the less developed countries of the world. They never really had an Industrial Revolution, they only benefited from the European one. They never really moved fully into the technological and computer chip revolution. It just spills over to them gradually. Due to post World War II medical delivery systems and international aid, the less developed countries of the world have had their death rates decline and their lives have been extended. But their birth rates remain relatively high (as you’ve already read above). This is why so much of the world’s future population growth will come from Africa, Latin America, Parts of Asia, and the island nations. Figure 5. Diagram of the Demographic Transition Theory.18 Concerted Antinatalistic efforts have been implemented in the less developed countries of the world over the last 40 years and scientists can measure a gradual lowering of the birth rates as a direct result from it. But keep in mind that however they got there, the people of the less developed regions of the world are still in Stage 2 and have explosive population trends that will continue for the next 40-50 years. POPULATION STRUCTURES Before we discuss migration, let’s talk about the population from an age-sex structural point of view. Every population/society can be compared by an age-sex structural approach called the population pyramid, or the graphic representation of specified 5-year age groups within a population by sex. Look at the 1990 US population pyramid in Figure 6.19 Please notice that on this pyramid blue represents males (on the left side) and green Docsity.com 12 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n represents females (on the right side). Up the left side are markers of five-year intervals. Across the bottom is percent of males or females. A population pyramid for 1990 can tell you some interesting things about the age-sex structure of the U.S. at that time. For one thing, even though there are slightly more females than males, their relative proportions appear about even here. It also shows you the bulge of the Baby Boomers. By 1990, the Baby Boomers would have been between ages 26-44. The high fertility rates of the years 1946-1964 are apparent in the bulge of the pyramid. Also there is an interesting sex difference among the older U.S. population; there are far more females than males in the later years. Figure 6. United State’s Population Pyramid: 1990.20 Now look at Figure 7. It shows you smaller pyramids that let you watch the disappearance of the Baby Boomers gradually over the years 1990-2050. By the year 2050 the oldest Baby Boomer would have to be 104 years old to still be alive. The youngest Baby Boomer would be 86. These pyramids also show that there will be a similar proportion of males and females. Because birth rates are low and are remaining that way, you see a widening look as the pyramid portrays the population more as a column than a pyramid. Population pyramids can actually take on any number of shapes, but the true pyramid shape comes only when there are high birth rates (a wider pyramid in the younger ages) and people die soon (a narrower pyramid in the older years at the top of the pyramid) as in Stage 1 of the Demographic Transition Theory. Docsity.com 15 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n nation-wide road development. Prior to these acts many roads were impassable, or very poorly maintained. A nationally coordinated numbering system was put into place after 1956 and billions of dollars were earmarked to fund the asphalt and concrete paving of a new highway system. Today we have over four million miles of roads that require billions per year in construction and maintenance costs. You can also see that car ownership increased dramatically once the roads were built. The number of cars owned tripled between 1960 and 2000 and these cars facilitated the trend of moving into the suburbs. The availability of the internet facilitated working from home and telecommuting. By the 1980s, many empty warehouses and abandoned apartment buildings scarred certain sections of the city. Wealthy young couples began a trend called gentrification, or the purchase of rundown buildings in the city center which were remodeled for upper class apartments and lofts. Inevitably, gentrification forced poor inner city dwellers out of their neighborhoods because city officials were persuaded to rezone these gentrified neighborhoods to keep the “undesirable elements” away. Around 1990 another trend emerged called exurbanization, where upper class city dwellers move out of the city to the rural areas beyond the suburbs. Table 1. Population Densities for Select Countries and Regions.27 Territory Density/Square Mile World 117 United States 74 More Developed 60 Less Developed 153 Africa 68 Latin America 65 Caribbean 401 Asia 300 Europe 82 Western Europe 429 Eastern Europe 42 Oceania 9 MIGRATION TO THE CITY AND BACK The modern U.S. urban experience has followed a semi-circular pattern in the last 150 years: Rural-Urban-Suburban-Gentrification-Exurbanization. Figure 1 summarizes some of the key historical factors that brought current U.S. urbanization to the point of over 7 out of Docsity.com 16 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n 10 people in the U.S. living in urban areas. The pattern of the Industrial Revolution to World War II to the transportation expansion to the technological revolution brought about this phenomenon. Figure 1. Percentage of United States Population Urban and Rural.28 Why live in a city in the first place? One explanation is push and pull factors. Push factors the country might include too many people and not enough jobs or food, too few opportunities, almost everyone is poor in rural areas, and there are often severe taxes in rural areas. Pull factors toward the city typically include hope of better jobs, opportunities, reunion with family members, and lifestyles. In general over the last 100 years the rural economy provided fewer and fewer opportunities, services, and culturally-desirable experiences in comparison to the urban one. People are literally pulled to the urban and suburban areas because the city offers more of these unmet needs. The Industrial Revolution brought many workers to live in and around the urban areas. Factories and inner-city concentrated housing units were very common up until World War II. By the end of the war people wanted their own homes, independence, and a daily reprieve from the grind of the big city. They didn’t want to move too far away, just far enough to Docsity.com 17 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n allow them a less hectic daily life with a more affordable cost of living. The suburbs came at a perfect time. Suburban refers to smaller cities located on the edges of the larger city which often include residential neighborhoods for those working in the area. The suburbs in the U.S. grew dramatically after World War II when the superhighways and freeways combined with the somewhat modest cost of automobiles. Rural areas typically have high levels of homogeneous people (they are very similar), self- dependence, mechanical solidarity, and similarity in work. Urban areas have heterogeneous people (very diverse people), inter-dependence (the doctor needs the butcher, the butcher needs the accountant, the accountant needs the electrician, etc.), organic solidarity, diversity in work, higher cost of living, formalized rules, organizational complexity, numbers of people, and anomie (normlessness). Suburban areas have a relative mix of all of these traits, some more and some less depending on other structural, cultural, SES, and historical factors. WORLD TRENDS The Population Reference Bureau states, “The world will pass a milestone in 2008: One-half of the world’s residents will live in urban areas. This event is impressive when we consider that less than 30 percent lived in urban areas in 1950.”29 In Figure 3 you can see NASA’s night time photograph of the Americas, Western Europe, and Western Africa. From this satellite photograph you can see the population concentrations throughout the U.S., South America, and Western Europe in contrast to the relatively sparsely lit Western Africa. This not only represents fewer numbers, but also less utilization of rather expensive electrical lights in the urban areas. You can barely distinguish Canada from the U.S. This is because most Canadians live in the lower portion of the country where the climate is more conducive to human existence. In Figure 4 you can see the NASA night photo of the rest of the world. On the left side of the photograph it becomes obvious that most of Africa is not as lit up as are the other regions of the world. There are nearly 800 million people currently living in Africa. Electricity and city lights are very expensive based on the standard of living there. Notice the lights of Europe, Russia, The Middle East, India, Eastern China, and Asia, the Island nations and the outer boundary of Australia. These light concentrations are in and near major cities and photographically distinguish the differences in socio-economic status between these regions of the world. They also identify the world’s urban areas in a clear way. Look again at the United States in Figure 3. You can see a massive cluster in the North- eastern region. The clusters represent what sociologists call a megalopolis, which is an overspill of one urban area into another often where many small towns grow into one huge urban area connected by a major transportation corridor. Some of the larger megalopolises today include Boston-Washington, Chicago-Pittsburgh, and New York-New Jersey. A megalopolis often has 10 million or more people living there. They are found in Europe, Docsity.com 20 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n plan that attempted to balance urban and rural traits. Many of these plans were utilized in the development of suburbs. Urbanites are drawn to the city for a number of reasons including the energy, diversity of people, dining and entertainment, and cultural and sporting events. Those not attracted by the city are repulsed by fear of crime, large numbers of people, expensive costs, congestion, and crowding. Herbert Gans published an important work about the types of people who live in cities. In many ways his ideas still apply today.36 Gans focused on the lifestyle of the city dweller as much as on the demographic background and described four types of city dwellers. Cosmopolites are intellectuals, professionals, and artists who are attracted to the city because of opportunities and community that are found there. Unmarried singles in their 20s and 30s typically enjoy the singles scene and often move out of the city when they get older or marry. Ethnic villagers are city dwellers who group together with others of the same ethnic background and set up miniature enclaves. The deprived and trapped are the very poor, disabled, or emotionally disturbed who are often victims of other city dwellers. Certainly Gans’ descriptions have merit in our day. We might add a few other categories because over 40 years have passed since his work was published: opportunists who see the big city as providing their big break in life; business entrepreneurs who want to capitalize in the concentrated marketplace of the modern city; and criminals. Since we have an entire chapter on crime we’ll limit the discussion here to gangs. GANG TROUBLES Street gangs have been around in the U.S. in one form or another since the early 1800s. Today, street gangs represent a major threat to personal safety and national security. In some communities they account for 80 percent of all crime.37 The FBI indicates that Gang members are migrating from urban to suburban and rural areas, expanding the gangs’ influence in most regions. They are doing so for a variety of reasons, including expanding drug distribution territories, increasing illicit revenue, recruiting new members, hiding from law enforcement, and escaping from other gangs. Many suburban and rural communities are experiencing increasing gang- Docsity.com 21 | P o p u l a t i o n s a n d U r b a n i z a t i o n related crime and violence because of expanding gang influence. Typical gang-related crimes include alien smuggling, armed robbery, assault, auto theft, drug trafficking, extortion, fraud, home invasions, identity theft, murder, and weapons trafficking. Gang members are the primary retail- level distributors of most illicit drugs. They also are increasingly distributing wholesale-level quantities of marijuana and cocaine in most urban and suburban communities…Many gangs actively use the Internet to recruit new members and to communicate with members in other areas of the U.S. and in foreign countries.38 In another recent FBI report, the FBI also reported that modern gangs tend to be local and community-based. There are approximately 20,000-30,000 gangs today with about 800,000-1 million members which negatively impact 2,500 communities. Approximately 58% of all U.S. law enforcement officers report active gangs in their jurisdiction. It is estimated that there are 11 national-level street gangs, five regional-level gangs, and most of the 20,000-30,000 US gangs are local.39 Use caution in drawing hasty conclusions about cities causing gangs. Cities don’t cause or breed gangs. They just facilitate a high concentration of people so that gangs can flourish. Besides, many of today’s worst gangs originated in prisons, not the city streets. Other gangs came in with migrants. Still, some have been around long enough to move from the urban to rural areas. For the most part, gang membership is an urban lifestyle of young men, although female gang membership at a lower level of participation is common. The burden of managing gangs falls mainly on law enforcement officials who curb or eliminate gang problems in the community; these curbing efforts become more complicated when local elected officials deem it unprofitable to acknowledge a gang presence in their community. Gang members recruit and migrate to other communities. Fundamentally, gang activities are related to illegal money-making activities. The same is true for organized and white-collar crime, but gangs and white-collar crime differ in their sophistication of methods and use of violence. Docsity.com