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Robin Hong Short response #1 SOC 430 Winter Session The Effect of Urbanism Urbanism is defined as the lifestyle of city dwellers, the way of life of individuals who live in a large city. Urbanite is defined as a person who lives in a city or a town. These two definitions are of great interest when the topic of social networking is being discussed. In Claude S. Fischers book To Dwell among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City, Fischer emphasizes a thesis in the first chapter that suggests urbanism in actually detrimental in regard to personal relations in ones social network, The key aspect of community with respect to consequences for personal relations, according to both popular opinion and scholarly theory is urbanism (Fischer). Fischers interpretation suggests in short that urbanism not only effects personal relations such as kinship but is also a key aspect of community and how people come to choose who they are surrounded by. It is important to also understand that the thesis above was established many years ago, and that Fischers book was written sometime in the 1980s. However after reading short excerpts of his book, it is not hard to relate some of the references discussed 30 years ago tomany aspects of our daily lives. For example, in my daily routine, I would have never thought that urban life could destroy, or at least distort personal relations, or realize that myself, an urbanite, would be estranged from kin. Fischer goes even further to state that urban life, in sum is socially, mentally and morally unhealthy. It seems like a stretch when Fischer summed up the idea of urban life, but looking into my personal life, it is somewhat difficult to narrow down personal relations that truly affect the personal community within my life. It seems as if urbanism is dictating the way we live, the way society is being formed because of our perception

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of social networking. Fischer falls in line with this idea when he notes that the society in which we live turns out to be a moral order in which the individuals position by the attitudes of other individuals and by the standards which the group upholds. This supports the idea that individuals are influenced by the people they are surrounded by, which in this case the urban areas many of us face. Fischer also feels that in regard to building networks, we are constrained by the pool of people available to us constrained by societys rules and social pressure. Certain constraints allow this idea to be plausible, and if we are constrained by urbanism, there will be no growth of personal community in our social network due to these constraints. So how can we call urbanism part of society if we are controlled by certain constraints? This ties in with the idea Freeman presents in this book The Development of Social Network Analysis and the way society is defined within it. Freeman notes that Georg Simmel, a 20th century social thinker defined society as only when one individual has an effect, immediate or mediate upon another (Freeman).If urbanism is constrained by the rules and pressure of the people, according to Simmel, we are not a society because of the lack of personal relation defined by kinship in Fischers theory of urbanism. If we do not have these close personal relations, we are not affecting one another. However, we do have a choice of choosing our own networks, but it is hard to believe it when we are constrained by the social contexts in which we normally participate in. Now that urbanism is established in a sense, it is a perfect segue into aspects of social life. Do individuals tend to choose their social groups based on personal preferences or do individuals acquire their personal preferences from their social groups? Paraphrased from above, Fischer admits that individuals construct their own networks, but at the same time they are constrained in building networks. Fischers theory would fall in line with the idea that

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individuals acquire their personal preferences from their social group. Individuals build their own networks by deciding to see people or avoid them, however, they are constrained by a pool of people available to them (Fischer). In addition, after reading excerpts from the Deep South written by Allison Davis, it appears that he would also agree with the statement that individuals acquire personal preferences from their social group. He tested the hypothesis that people have range of social characteristics within their friends and associates must fall; it is possible to describe this range and for people in similar social positions it tends to be identical, and found out that this clique phenomenon was not an isolated incident, rather it occurred over 60 cliques (Davis). Davis found this clique phenomenon not only in one social class, but rather three: upper-class, middle-class, and lower-class cliques. His theory even applies in the way many of us choose and develop our personal preference. For example, I come from an Asian background, and the majority of my close relationships are built around the same race. At the same time I do have friends of other races but typically the relationships are under the influence of the same social class. It does not sound appealing but I do feel that we choose preferences in the social context we are placed in. Not only does this showcase Fischers idea that we choose from what is placed in front of us, but also the way Davis explain how cliques are formed through the different level of social classes that surround us. In short, the ideas of the authors listed above seem to have the same general sense of social networking in todays society. Although it is a very broad topic to discuss, I strongly feel that Fischers theory on urbanism is a way we dictate where our personal preferences are derived from. We have the ability to choose, however we are constrained by the social groups that surrounds each and every one of us.

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