Urban sociology is the sociological study of life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, environmental processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing so provide inputs for urban planning and policy making. In other words, it is the sociological study of cities and their role in the development of society. Like most areas of sociology, urban sociologists use statistical analysis, observation, social theory, interviews, and other methods to study a range of topics, including migration and demographic trends, economics, poverty, race relations and economic trends. Urban sociology is one of the oldest sub-disciplines of sociology dating back to the mid-nineteenth century.
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist. He is a professor at Harvard University and author of works on urban sociology, race and class issues. Laureate of the National Medal of Science, he served as the 80th President of the American Sociological Association, was a member of numerous national boards and commissions. He identified the importance of neighborhood effects and demonstrated how limited employment opportunities and weakened institutional resources exacerbated poverty within American inner-city neighborhoods.
Socioeconomics is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local or regional economy, or the global economy.
Within a capitalist economic system, commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities. A commodity at its most basic, according to Arjun Appadurai, is "anything intended for exchange," or any object of economic value.
Urban studies is based on the study of the urban development of cities. This includes studying the history of city development from an architectural point of view, to the impact of urban design on community development efforts. The core theoretical and methodological concerns of the urban studies field come from the social science disciplines of history, economics, sociology, geography, political science, anthropology, and the professional fields of urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Urban studies helps with the understanding of human values, development, and the interactions they have with their physical environment.
Lifestyle enclave is a sociological term first used by Robert N. Bellah et al. in their 1985 book, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. In the glossary of the book, they provide the following definition: "A lifestyle enclave is formed by people who share some feature of private life. Members of a lifestyle enclave express their identity through shared patterns of appearance, consumption, and leisure activities, which often serve to differentiate them sharply from those with other lifestyles." This term is contrasted with community, which Bellah et al. claim is characterized by social interdependence, shared history, and shared participation in politics.
Nations and Nationalism is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research on nationalism and related issues. It is published quarterly on behalf of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism by Wiley-Blackwell. Anthony D. Smith was the founding editor and the editor until his death in 2016.
Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod was an American sociologist who made major contributions to world-systems theory and urban sociology.
Xavier de Souza Briggs is an American educator, social scientist, and policy expert, known for his work on economic opportunity, social capital, democratic governance, and leading social change. He has influenced housing and urban policy in the United States, contributing to the concept of the "geography of opportunity," which examines the consequences of housing segregation, by race or economic status, for the well-being and life prospects of children and families. He is a former member of the Harvard and MIT faculties, currently a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Robert J. Sampson is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Director of the Social Sciences Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. From 2005 through 2010, Sampson served as the Chair of the Department of Sociology at Harvard. In 2011–2012, he was elected as the President of the American Society of Criminology.
Xiangming Chen served as the founding dean and director of urban and global studies and director of the Center for Urban and Global Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, from 2007 to 2019. He is currently the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Global Urban Studies and Sociology at Trinity College. Prior to this, Chen served as assistant to full professor of sociology and adjunct professor of political science and urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The Journal of Social Issues is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues along with Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy and Social Issues and Policy Review. The journal was established in 1945. The editor-in-chief is Carey S. Ryan. The journal covers human and social issues such as poverty, privacy, youth violence, social class, and education.
Patrick Sharkey is an American urban sociologist and criminologist. He has been Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University since 2019. He was formerly Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at New York University, with an affiliation at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Scandinavian Political Studies is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering political science in the Nordic countries published by Wiley-Blackwell. The current joint editors-in-chief are Åse Gornitzka and Carl Henrik Knutsen.
Mario Luis Small is a sociologist and Quetelet Professor of Social Science at Columbia University. Small's research interests include urban poverty, inequality, personal networks, and qualitative and mixed methods. Small was previously a faculty member at Harvard University, University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
Camille Z. Charles is an American sociologist. She serves as Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology, Africana Studies & Education and Director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She served as the first chair of Penn's Africana Studies Department, founded in 2012.
A concentrated disadvantage is a sociological term for neighborhoods with high percentages of residents of low socioeconomic status. It is expressed as the percent of households located in census tracts with high levels of concentrated disadvantage.
Malene Freudendal-Pedersen is professor of urban planning at Aalborg University and has an interdisciplinary background linking sociology, geography, urban planning and the sociology of technology. Her research has been strongly inspired by the mobilities turn.
Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown is a 2008 book by sociologist Javier Auyero and anthropologist Débora Swistun. Its subject is the impact of pollution and toxicity on the residents of Flammable, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The book is a contribution to the field of collective action and mobilization regarding environmental suffering. It was first published in Spanish as Inflamable. Estudio de sufrimiento ambiental and translated to English in 2009. It won the Charles Tilly Award for Best Book in 2010.
The sociology of death explores and examines the relationships between society and death.
