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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 8, No. 4
Publication Date: April 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/assrj.84.10057.
Gerardi, S. (2021). The Origins of Urban Rational Behavior. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(4). 412-414.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
The Origins of Urban Rational Behavior
Steven Gerardi
Ph. D, Professor Emeritus for Sociology
New York City College of Technology (CUNY)
ABSTRACT
This effort will examine the roots of Urban Rationalization based on Georg Simmel,
Max Weber, Burgess and Park’s urban Classical Sociological Theories.
Georg Simmel in “Metropolis and Mental Life” Simmel argued that individuals in modern urban
life are always adjust themselves to external forces, creating a psychological formation based
in the intensification of the nervous stimulation. The City is always producing "onrushing"
forcing the individual to act with rational thought, and not with emotion. Hence, fostering the
predominance of intelligence. Moreover, the money economy and the dominance of the
intellect, spawning a "matter-of-fact" behavior/attitude toward others, and social interaction.
Simmel also argued that the modern urban mind transforms social interaction into a math
formula. In fact, the money economy has become the common denominator of all values
"coloring or rather discoloring" social interaction (Gerardi, 2010).
Max Weber’s “Principle of Rationality” suggests the degree to which society displaces or
replaces irrational (without the purely measured economic acts), with Rational thought
discharging the economy in a “precise, unambiguous, and continuous manner without
emotional ties.
A significant component found in the Principle of Rationality is “Disenchantment”, or the
impersonal and objective human behavior found in modern (urban centers) Society. Weber
argued that Disenchantment accounts for the rise and fall of all social institutions, structures,
classes, and parties changing human thought and emotions. Hence, this “World Image” seeks
the “meaning of inner-worldly occurrences” through empirical and scientific thought, reducing
human relations to an objective and impersonal stance (Gerardi, 2012).
Ernest Burgess and Robert Park’s (Chicago School) urban development pattern modeled in
ethic/class/race competition over desirable resource such as housing, employment, education,
careers, health facilities.
The result is the Chicago Concentric Zone Model, an ever-widening form of development
around the central business district (core of the city) based in objective and rational human
competition.
The CONCENTRIC Zone MODEL is consisting of five zones, Zone MODE one: central business
district consisting of retail shops, department stores, banks, federal, state, and local
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Gerardi, S. (2021). The Origins of Urban Rational Behavior. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(4). 412-414.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.84.10057
governments. The residence tend to be the upper socio-economic class. Zone Model two: outer
fringes of the central business district (the transition area), with tenement homes, older
factories, inexpensive housing, and immigrant residence.
Zone Model Three: working-class blue-collar zone in which there are two and three family
housing.
Zone Model Four: middle-class zone with one-family homes, Residents tend to be
professional, white-collar, and small business owners.
Zone Model Five: commuter or suburban zone with upper-middle class influence. The housing
is expense with large private property. Commuter railroads and automobiles are needed to
commute into Zone 1.
As was mentioned earlier Zone transformation is based in competition among ethnic and class
identity groups for desirable resource such as housing: employment, education, careers, health
facilities resources and money, “coloring or rather discoloring” all human relationships
(Gerardi, 2010).
CONCLUSION
Max Weber and Georg Simmel (1858-1918 two German Sociologists, brothers-in-laws,
concerned with the negative effects of rational modern capitalism on the human social
condition (Gerardi, 2012). Hence, in the Metropolis and Mental Life Simmel argued that the
modern/urban individual must adjust to impersonal/objective external forces, behaving in a
“Matter of fact” manner without emotion, largely due to the “money Economy”. Indeed, at the
root of this “Matter-of-fact behavior is Simmel’s analytical concept known as the “Stranger”.
Although Simmel suggested that as Humans, we all have a unity of nearness and remoteness,
indifference, and involvement until there is Social tension centered around the “Stranger”
(diverse race, religion, city vs. country dweller, etc.). Simmel supports this point by identifying
the social position of the Jew in Europe and the discriminatory Beede Tax. Under the Beede tax
Jews had to pay a fixed tax per single person. On the other hand, Christian’s paid only on their
changing economic fortunes.
Although Humans all share both nearness and farness, but when we display social differences,
we become the “Stranger”, hence treated in an impersonalize, rationalize, objectified indeed
“coloring or rather discoloring” our humanity.
By contrast Weber argued that The Principle of Rationality, and disenchantment pushes back
human emotion into the realm of the irrational, spawning human objective and impersonal
behavior. Indeed, disenchantment is the quintessential impersonal and objective human
culture (rejecting and condemning the irrational acts of world adjustment and world flight).
Furthermore, disenchanted demands world mastery through objective empirical facts (Gerardi,
2012). Hence, “coloring or rather discoloring" all social human interaction.
Finally, Burgess and Park argued that Urban growth is based in competition among Social
groups (i.e., Racal groups, Ethic Groups: Socio-economic groups, highly educated vs poorly
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 8, Issue 4, April-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
educational groups) over housing, careers, education, health care and transportation hence,
"coloring or rather discoloring" all social human interaction.
References:
A Brief Survey of the Sociological Imagination 3rd Edition, by Gerardi, Steven 2010 Kendall Hunt
The Dialectical relationship between Region and Science, Sociology Mind, 2012, Vol 2 No1
The Metropolis and Mental Life”) by David A. Karp, Gregory P. Stone, William C. Yoels.
The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, Max Weber
Urban Structure: The Social and Spatial Character of Cities by
Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers, Sally Engle Merry.
The City, Park & Burgress,1984, McKenzie, University of Chicago Press.