Adjusting to City Life

For many city dwellers, the move from a major city to the suburbs occurs at some point throughout life be it to find work, start a family, or to settle in a quieter location. For others, the move from the suburbs to the city is a life-changing decision. With the rise of industrialization and the growth of cities, many people uprooted and adapted to city life in the hope to gain wealth in a booming industry. Unfortunately, these workers faced terrible working and living conditions and had to struggle to survive. Defined as the urban proletariat, or people who had only their labor to sell, these people faced many hardships in their adjustment to urban life. Georg Simmel describes this adjustment to modernity through Hans, a farmer who had to transition from his rural existence to that of an urban one. Though Simmel’s description of the life changes Hans experienced were from many years ago, I find that most of Simmel’s eight characteristics of urban life still hold astoundingly true to an individual’s current transition to a city. 

            While reading about Hans I was struck but how identical his adjustment to city life was to that of my friend who had recently moved to Chicago by herself. Hans experienced isolation and alienation, developing a “blasé” attitude to the surrounding environment. This desensitized attitude and apparent isolation was evident in my friend as well. She was alone often because creating a sense of community in the city is difficult. Like Hans, my friend has to work daily to exchange her labor for a wage to make ends meet. As Simmel and Marx describe, there is no personal connection to an employer who deals in a capitalist world of pure monetary exchange. Furthermore, the idea that rational calculation is at the heart of daily life is also evident. When searching for apartments my friend had to weigh the pros and cons of the space she would move into. She had to make sure she would be able to pay the rent with her monthly earnings while having enough left over to feed and clothe herself. With this rational calculation and life as a wage laborer, often compromises must be made. My friend moved into an apartment directly above a loud nightclub, a space that is not very conducive to sleep or relaxation at night, but an affordable option in a relatively convenient location. However, this led to what Simmel describes as an adjustment to a second nature. She is able to plan around the hectic nature of her apartment while using her newly developed blasé desensitization to block out the seemingly endless noise that would drive most people mad.  Consequently, like Hans, my friend is free from the restrictions of traditional society, which in this case would be life in her parents’ house. Through this adjustment to urban living, she is able to escape parental limitations and requirements of parental expectations. I found it intriguing that although Simmel described Han’s adjustments to urban life during the rise of modernity, many of the transitional characteristics hold true today.   

            Also interesting and relatable are Tonnies’ ideas of the shift from community where individuals are interdependent on each other, to society, where individual interactions are much more impersonal. Because in the city individuals are exposed to a variety of people outside of their family, different sorts of social bonds are created. When a person needs groceries, they do not expect to get their food by milking their family’s cow and baking their own bread. City life entails going to stores and interacting with strangers to acquire goods. One might go entire days without seeing a familiar face which is just one way that urban life changes an individual’s consciousness. Urbansim, the study of urban life found within an urban community, emphasizes how much behavior and thinking change when entering a city. While walking in the small, familiar suburb where I grew up, I would expect to see people whom I know thus my behavior would be open and friendly. However, walking in a city, especially in unfamiliar or potentially dangerous areas, my behavior is very different. I maintain a more defensive outlook and behavior and present a less approachable appearance. What I find most interesting is not only how the urban space shapes behavior, as in the case of Hans and my friend, but how one’s behavior can shape the urban space. For example, putting graffiti on walls is a behavior that often changes the overall appearance of a neighborhood space. Conversely, behaviors like social movements to clean up the space or add appealing parks are other ways to influence one’s space. Evidently, many of the theories and concepts discussed in The New Urban Sociology can not only help one understand the historical implications of cities but they can be related to everyday urban life.        

 http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/society/10-major-differences-between-rural-and-urban-societies/23390/