CHAPTER 15

• Why should we worry about the rapid rate of global population increase?

• What makes city and rural living different?

• How is the state of the natural environment a social issue?

Demography: The Study of Population

• Demography– The study of human population

• Fertility– The incidence of childbearing in a country’s

population

• Crude Birth Rate– The number of live births in a given year for

every 1,000 people in a population

• Mortality– The incidence of death in a country’s population

• Crude Death Rate– The number of death’s in a given year for every

1,000 people in a population

• Infant Mortality Rate– The number of deaths among infants under one

year of age for each 1,000 live births in a given year

• Life Expectancy– The average life span of a country’s population

• Migration– The movement of people into and out of a

specified territory– Immigration

• In-migration rate– Number of people entering an area for every 1,000 people in

the population

– Emigration• Out-migration rate

– The number of people leaving for every 1,000 people

– Both types usually happen at once• Push-Pull factors

Population Growth

• Affected by fertility, mortality, and migration

• Population growth of US and other high-income nations is well-below world average

• Highest growth region is Africa– Troubling because these countries can

barely support existing populations

Population Composition

• Sex Ratio– The number of males for every 100

females in a nation’s population

• Age-sex Pyramid– A graphic representation of the age and

sex of a population• Lower-income nations are wide at the bottom

History and Theory of Population Growth

• Malthusian Theory– Rapid population increase would lead to social

chaos– Geometric Progression of population

• Doubling of population (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.)

– Arithmetic Progression of food production• Limited farmland (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.)

– Reproduction beyond what the planet could feed– Birth control and sex abstention may change

prediction

• CRITICAL REVIEW

• Prediction flawed– Birth rate began to drop with industrialization– Underestimated human ingenuity

• Ignored the role of social inequality in world abundance and famine

• Lesson:– Habitable land, clean water, fresh air are

limited resources

• Demographic Transition Theory– A thesis that links population patterns to a

society’s level of technological development– Stage 1 – Pre-industrial Agrarian societies

• High birth rate; High death rate

– Stage 2 – Industrialization• Death rate falls; Birth rates remain high

– Stage 3 – Mature Industrial Economy• Birth rate drops; Death rate drops

– Stage 4 – Postindustrial Economy• Demographic transition complete• Low-birth rate; steady death rate• Japan, Europe, and US

• CRITICAL REVIEW– Linked to Modernization Theory

• Optimism that poor countries will solve their population problems as they industrialize

– Dependency Theorists• Unless there is redistribution of global resources• Division into affluent enjoying low population

growth• Poor struggling in vain to feed more and more

people

Global Population Today: A Brief Survey

• The Low-Growth North– Zero Population Growth

• The level of reproduction that maintains population at a steady level

– Factors that hold down population• High proportion of men and women in labor force• Rising costs of raising children• Trends toward later marriage• Singlehood• Wide use of contraceptives

– Concern for under-population

• High-Growth South– Population is critical problem in poor nations

of Southern Hemisphere– Advanced medical technology provided by

rich nations has lowered death rate• Poor societies account for 2/3 of world’s

population• To limit population increase

– Must control births as successful as fending off death

Urbanization: The Growth of Cities

• Urbanization– The concentration of population into cities– The First Cities

• First urban revolution

– Preindustrial European Cities– Industrial European Cities

• Second urban revolution

The Growth of US Cities

• Colonial Settlements, 1565-1800

• Urban Expansion, 1800-1860

• The Metropolitan Era, 1860-1950– Metropolis

• A large city that socially and economically dominates an urban area

• Urban Decentralization, 1950-Present– Occurred as people left downtown areas for

outlying Suburbs• Urban areas beyond the political boundaries of a city

Suburbs and Urban Decline

• Loss of higher-income taxpayers to suburbs– Left cities struggling to pay for expensive

social programs for the poor

• Cities fell into crisis leading to inner-city decay

• Decline in the importance of public space

• Spread of TV, Internet, and other media people can use without leaving home

Postindustrial Sun Belt Cities and Sprawl

• 60% of US population live in sunbelt cities– LA, Houston

• Argument– Growth follows no plan– Traffic congestion– Poorly planned housing developments– Overcrowded schools

Megalopolis: The Regional City

• Megalopolis– A vast urban region containing a number of

cities and their surrounding suburbs– Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s)

• One city with 50,000 or more people

– Micropolitan Statistical Areas • Urban areas with at least one city with 10,000 to

50,000 people

– Core-based Statistical Areas (CBSA’s)• Include metropolitan and micropolitan areas• New York and adjacent urban areas

• Edge Cities– Business centers some distance from the old

downtowns– No clear physical boundaries

• The Rural Rebound– 3/4 of rural communities across the US gained

population– Scenic and recreational attractions– Companies relocating to rural communities

• Increased economic opportunities for rural populations

Urbanism as a Way of Life

• Gemeinschaft– A type of social organization in which people

are closely tied by kinship and tradition

• Gesellschaft– A type of social organization in which people

come together only on the basis of individual self-interest

– Motivated by own needs rather than desire to help improve the well-being of everyone

Mechanical and Organic Solidarity

• Emile Durkheim

• Mechanical Solidarity– Social bonds based on common sentiments and

shared moral values– Similar to Gemeinschaft

• Organic Solidarity– Social bonds based on specialization and

interdependence– Similar to Gesellschaft

The Blasé Urbanite

• Georg Simmel

• Tuning out much of what goes on around one

• City dwellers keep distance as a survival strategy

The Chicago School: Robert Park and Louis Wirth

• City is a living organism – a human kaleidoscope

• Define the city as a setting with a large, dense, and socially diverse population– City dwellers know others not in terms of

• Who they are but what they do

• Impersonal nature of urban relationships with greater diversity makes city dwellers more tolerant than rural villagers

• CRITICAL REVIEW– Overlook the effects of class, race, and

gender– Many kinds of urbanites

Urban Ecology• The study of the link between they physical

and social dimensions of cities• Concentric Zones• Wedge-shaped Sectors• Multicentered Model• Social Area Analysis

– Households with fewer children cluster towards city’s center

– Social class differences are responsible for sector-shaped districts

– Racial and ethnic neighborhoods consistent with muticentered model

Urban Political Economy

• Urban political-economy model– Applies Marx’s analysis of conflict in the

workplace to conflict in the city

• Political economists reject ecological approach of city as a natural organism– See city life as defined by people with power

• CRITICAL REVIEW– Focus on US cities during a limited period of

history– Unlikely any single model can account for full

range of urban diversity

Urbanization in Poor Nations

• Two revolutionary expansion of cities in world history– 1st began about 8000 B.C.E.– 2nd began in 1750 and lasted two centuries

• 3rd urban revolution is under way– Result of many poor nations entering high-

growth stage 2 of demographic transitions theory– Cities offer more opportunities than rural areas

• Provide no quick fix for problems of escalating population and grinding poverty

• ECOLOGY– The study of the interaction of living organisms

and the natural environment

• NATURAL ENVIRONMENT– Earth’s surface and atmosphere, including living

organisms, air, water, soil, and other resources necessary to sustain life

The Global Dimension

• Ecosystem– A system composed of the interaction of all

living organisms and their natural environment

• Change in any part of the natural environments sends ripples through the entire global ecosystem– The Ecological Viewpoint of the Hamburger

Technology and the Environmental Deficit

• I=PAT– Environmental impact (I) reflects a society’s

population (P), its level of affluence (A), and its level of technology (T).

• Societies at intermediate stages of sociocultural evolution have somewhat greater capacity to affect the environment

• Environmental impact of industrial technology goes beyond energy consumption

• Environmental Deficit– Profound long-term harm to the natural

environment caused by humanity’s focus on short-term material affluence

• Environmental concerns are sociological

• Environmental damage to air, land, or water is unintended

• Environmental deficit is reversible– Societies create environmental problems– Societies can undo many of them

Culture: Growth and Limits• The logic of growth

– Material comfort, Progress, Science

• Holds that more powerful technology has improved lives and new discoveries will continue to do so in the future

• Progress can lead to unexpected problems– Strain on the environment

• Environmentalists– Logic of growth flawed– Assumes natural resources will always be

plentiful

• The limits of Growth– Cannot invent our way out of the problems

created by the logic of growth– Growth must have limits

• Humanity must put into place policies to control population increase, pollution, and use of resources to avoid environmental collapse

• Shares Malthus’s pessimism about the future

Solid Waste: The Disposable Society

• US is a disposable society– Consume more products than virtually any other

nation on earth– Countless items are designed to be disposable– Rich society consumes hundreds of times more

energy, plastics, lumber, and other resources– 80% never goes away

• Ends up in landfills• Can pollute groundwater under Earth’s surface

– Recycling – reuse of resources

• Water and Air– Hydrologic Cycle

• Planet naturally recycles water and refreshes the land

– Two major concerns• Supply and pollution

• Water Supply– 1% of Earth’s water is suitable for drinking– Water rights prominent in laws around the world– Rising population and development greatly

increased world’s needs for water– Face the reality that water is a valuable and

finite resource

• Water Pollution– In large cities, people have no choice but to

drink contaminated water– Quality in US good by global standards– Special problem is Acid Rain

• Rain made acidic by air pollution which destroys plant and animal life

– Global phenomenon• Regions that suffer may be thousands of miles

from source of the pollution

• Air Pollution– People in US more aware of air pollution

than contaminated water– Air quality improved in the final decades of

the 20th century– Rich nations passed laws banning high-

pollution heating– Problem serious in poor nations

• Reliance on coal, wood, peat, or other “dirty” fuels for heating

Rain Forests• Regions of dense forestation, most of

which circle the globe close to the equator– Largest in South America, West-Central Africa,

and Southeast Asia– 7% of Earth’s total land surface

• Losing rainforests to hardwood trade– People in rich nations

• Love parquet floors, fine furniture, fancy paneling, weekend yachts, and high-grade coffins

– No rainforests – no protection of Earth’s biodiversity and climate

Global Warming

• A rise in Earth’s average temperature due to an increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere– Carbon dioxide increasing while amount of

plant life on Earth is shrinking– Rainforests being destroyed by burning

• Global warming is a problem that threatens the future for all

Declining Biodiversity• Clearing rainforests reduces Earth’s

biodiversity• Rainforests home to almost half of planet’s

living species• Four reasons for concern:

– Earth’s biodiversity provides a varied source of human food

– Earth’s biodiversity is a vital genetic resource used by medical and pharmaceutical researchers

– Beauty and complexity of natural environment are diminished

– Extinction of any species is irreversible and final

Environmental Racism

• Patterns that make environmental hazards greatest for poor people, especially minorities

• Factories that spew pollution stood near neighborhoods housing poor and people of color– Poor drawn to factories for work– Low incomes led to affordable housing in

undesirable neighborhoods

Toward a Sustainable Society and World

• Ecologically Sustainable Culture– A way of life that meets the needs of the present

generation without threatening the environmental legacy of future generations

• Three strategies– Bring population growth under control– Conserve finite resources– Reduce waste

• Dinosaurs dominated for 160 million years

• Humanity is far younger– 250,000 years

• Compared to dimwitted dinosaurs, humans have the great gift of intelligence

• What are the chances that humans will continue to flourish 160 million years or even 1,000 years from now?

• Answer depends on the choices made by one of the 30 million species living on Earth– HUMAN BEINGS