The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 6, 1969 Page: 4 of 10
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Before postindustrial era
Urbanization process includes three settlement phases
By LEE HORSTMAN
"Reflecting the current ex-
plosion in science and technology,
employment is shifting from the
production of goods and services;
increasing ease of transportation
and communication is dissolving
the spatial barriers to social in-
tercourse; and Americans are
forming social communities com-
prised of spatially dispersed mem-
bers. A netv l(ind of large-scale
urban society is emerging . . ."
—Melvin Webber
Urbanization has tradition-
ally been connected with rigid
spatial terms—as the crowding
together of many types of spe-
cially skilled people into an
elaborate fixed settlement on a
relatively small area of land.
Today, urbanization is simp-
ly an escalating interaction of
ideas. The motive for urbaniza-
tion has always been to fa-
cilitate exchange, and now, be-
cause of breakthroughs in
transportation and communica-
tions technology, people need
not live close together to create
a community of interaction.
Speaking generally, three lev-
els of human settlement have
figured in man's progress tow-
ards the nearly total urbaniza-
tion of modern times. We may
contrast them in terms of their
primary function, maximum
population, social structure, and
spatial characteristics.
Food gathering settlements
"Food-gathering" settlements
originated in meso- and neo-
lithic times. Their function was
twofold: that of banding to-
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gether in a common search for
food in one locale, and that of
self-protection against hostile
animals or other people.
Most of its members had to
engage in food-gathering,
whether by hunting, fishing,
tending a few animals or farm-
ing nearby lands. With only
simple tools in use, low food
yields restricted its population
to little more than the members
of a few extended families. Its
^social structure was homogen-
ous and based mainly on kin-
ship. As a community it was
self-sufficient.
Its spatial organization was
as simple as its buildings—
thatch huts bordering a common
clearing.
The defining function of the
trading settlement or preindus-
trial city was trade with neigh-
boring peoples, although some
craft-level manufacturing was
also in evidence. It seems likely
that "cities" as such, which
freed many persons from
food-gathering chores to de-
velop other skills, first appear-
ed in Mesopotamia about 3500
B.C.
More effective ways of se-
curing food—animal husbandry,
grain cultivation, and irriga-
tion — combined with better
travel links to other resource
areas—animal carts and roads,
and better navigation—to al-
low its population to reach into
the hundreds of thousands.
However, contagious diseases
quickly became the major re-
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striction on further growth.
Trading settlements
The social structure common
to these cities was rigidly based
o n occupational specialties,
which included among others a
food-producing peasantry and
a literate elite. Autocratic gov-
ernment prevailed, from the
first Near Eastern theocracies
to Europe's feudal kingdoms.
Whenever these cities were the
strongholds of an empire, they
grew to their greatest size and
splendor. A gradual accumula-
tion of culture resulted, despite
political disruptions that often
sent these cities into swift de-
cline.
The early cities would not
endure as harsh an environment
as the smaller food-gathering
settlements. These cities needed
easy access to plentiful farm-
ing land and fresh water. They
also needed ready access to
trade centers, and so usually
were doubly obliged to locate in
a river valley or near the sea.
The finer homes were closest
to the major market area, the
poorer ones located on the peri-
phery—a spatial reflection of
the class structure in the early
cities. The homes were com-
pact, and jammed together
asymetrically. Although the
buildings were more durable
than those of food-gathering
settlements, they displayed just
as much uniformity of style,
with the exception of one or
a few large buildings serving
either as religious centers or
as palaces. These settlements
often contained the remnants
of fortifications from earlier
times. They were larger than
agricultural settlements found
within the same culture.
Manufacturing settlement
The industrial city or manu-
facturing settlement first ap-
peared in England and Europe
in the late 1700s, and preindus-
trial cities throughout the world
continue to progress to this
level of development. The dis-
tinguishing function of the in-
dustrial city is the mechanized
production of goods, although
production is closely linked to
an escalation of trading activi-
ty to worldwide levels.
Manufacturing settlements
rapidly gained vast populations
thanks mainly to improved pub-
lic sanitation, exemplified by
water supply and sewer im-
provements.
These large groups of people
were initially drawn by factory
jobjp that transferred newly-
discovered energy sources such
as coal and oil into efficient
mechanical strength far in ex-
cess of human or animal mus-
cle.
However, a new restraint on
total size soon presented it-
self: the glutting of transpor-
tation networks. High-strength
steel and the invention of the
elevator lent a new spatial di-
mension to cities: the skyscrap-
er. However, horizontal street
grids became jammed with pri-
vate cars from these new vert-
ical densities of individuals —
traffic congestion is now a
spreading problem in every in-
dustrial city.
Industrial society
The social structure of in-
dustrial cities is at once more
heterogeneous and more flex-
ible. Improved techniques cre-
ated more job specialization,
while government became more
meritocratic and bureaucratic.
At the same time, nuclear fam-
ilies replaced extended ones, and
flexible class barriers admitted
a large middle class as well as
a new capitalist elite.
This flexibility was essential,
since industrial cities sought to
assimilate large rural work-
forces rapidly! (In the U.S., this
was facilitated by a system of
political machines.) More com-
plex jobs also required mass
education; this was accelerated
through improved techniques of
mass communication.
Nearly all industrial cities
contain a central business dis-
trict. This built-up high-rent
area catei-s to businesses that
can get by with limited floor-
space, but which need to
be physically accessible to peo-
ple from throughout the region.
Banks, brokerage houses, insur-
ance firms, communications me-
dia, and most classes of mer-
chants fit these criteria. Of the
few residents in these areas,
most are well-to-do middle-
aged with no small children,
who lease high-rise apartments
—the higher the floor the higer
the price.
Typically surrounding the busi-
ness district, as a "transition
zone," are most of the city's
wholesale and manufacturing
facilities, intermixed with high-
density slum and ghetto neigh-
borhoods.
Industrial spatiality
Radiating from the business/
slum transition zone are semi-
autonomous residential town-
ships of decreasing density and
increasing prosperity, ranging
from working class apartment
areas with some commercial ac-
tivity, to upper-class semi-rural
towns with only a few local
stores. It has been a general
rule that the larger the indus-
trial city, the further out its
wealthiest suburbs— a reversal
of preindustrial city patterns—
and the more dense the popula-
tion in its business district and
transition zone.
While much of the world is
still industrializing (and under-
going the stress of urban mi-
gration), America, whose settle-
ments are the most thoroughly
industrialized, is now on the
verge of a "postindustrial" or
integral type of settlement.
Just as there are more similari-
ties between trading and man-
ufacturing cities than between
either of them and the primitive
settlements, it may well be that
integral settlements have more
in common with primitive ones,
than with, any other type. We
seem in our development to
have come full circle.
The primary function of in-
tegral settlements may be said
to be the exchange of services,
and the primary services in-
volved are those relating to ed-
ucation. Integral settlements
must be large, just as primitive
ones had to be small, whereas
for industrial and preindustrial
cities size was a desirable but
often unattainable goal.
Size is needed because of fur-
ther occupational specialization,
as every member of the settle-
ment comes to rely on more and
more contacts with other spe-
cialists. Size is guaranteed by
improved communications,
which short-cuts the problem of
transporting people about.
Integral society
When fully developed, the so-
cial structure of integral settle-
ments may well depart from the
occupational hierarchies so typi-
cal of preindustrial and industri-
al cities. Daniel Bell has pre-
dicted a "learning society" for
the future, and our increasing
understanding of the learning
process suggests that there is
little educational usefulness to
segregating people according to
their vocational prestige. In-
deed, many professions are seek-
ing the "fresh approach" of a
person migrating from a field
only remotely related.
Longer lifespans make a per-
son's pursuing two or more
careers a possibility; our accele-
rating rates of change may
make this phenomenon a neces-
sity. Perhaps increasing realistic
assess ments of personality,
based on criteria such as ma-
turity and intelligence, will re-
place occupation as the primary
reliable determinant of social
status.
The spatial form of integral
settlements is likely to be as
radical a departure from in-
dustrial and preindustrial cities
as the social structure. In con-
trast to the fairly uniform
structures found in cities, our
new technologies can—and per-
haps must—liberate us drama-
tically and flexibly from envir-
onmental monotony. Integral
settlements are all ultimately
parts of one world settlement,
by virtue of improving trans-
portation and communications.
They may link across America
as a series of urban "belts" con-
taining specialized "city" nu-
clei which interconnect with
major public and private transit
lines. Open spaces are likely to
be preserved in favor of high-
rise apartments rather than end-
less horizontal suburbia.
Special city functions
Of course, many cities—usual-
ly of small or medium size—
have much of their work force
involved in a special primary
function different from the gen-
eral ones of trade or manufac-
turing; of these functions the
three most common are political
"centers, cultural or educational
centers, and health or recrea-
tional centers. The core sec-
tions of many industrial cities
may be gradually taken over by
such new special-function cities.
All settlements, however, share
certain basic functions — the
search for diverse experiences,
material comforts, and simple
companionship.
Although we have defined
four types of human settle-
ments, . they are simply phases
in a continuous spectrum of
development. This becomes clear
when we examine some basic as-
pects of the continuum stretch-
ing between agricultural settle-
ments and postindustrial' urban
complexes:
The individual becomes in-
creasingly mobile as _communi-
ties get larger; time becomes a
scarce commodity as scientific,
technological, and social change
increase exponentially; govern-
ment becomes centralized and
multi-functional as scfciety be-
comes more complex; processes
of economic and intellectual ex-
change become more precise,
rapid, and impersonal; settle-
ments become more heterogen-
eous in terms of occupational
specialties and sub-communities;
literacy becomes nearly uni-
versal as levels of general ed-
ucation continue to rise; econo-
mies become globally interde-
pendent, and cultures more
alike.
Furthermore, technology has
been enhancing our bodily ca-
pabilities through mechanical
extensions. Man has supple-
mented his muscle power, and
the reach of his senses, and he
is currently pursuing ways to
supplement his memory and de-
cision-making abilities as well.
All of these aids help to extend
the dimensions of our corporeal
identity.
the rice thresher, march 6, 1969—page 4
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Bahler, Dennis. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 6, 1969, newspaper, March 6, 1969; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245052/m1/4/: accessed June 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.