What attracts a person to a city. Urban lifestyle in the context of globalization

Lifestyle concept. Lifestyle is a general sociological category used to characterize: 1) a set of specific forms of human life in all spheres of social life, developing into a qualitatively defined, ordered way of life; 2) a set of social conditions and ways of realizing people’s needs.

Isolating the urban lifestyle as a special concept is associated with the specifics of the urban living environment and allows us to capture the social characteristics of interaction at an average theoretical level in the sense of R. Merton. This concept reflects the idea of determining people’s behavior by the features of their environment: from its geographical to mental characteristics.

Lifestyle can be analyzed from quantitative and qualitative aspects. The first side is described by the concepts and characteristics of “way of life” and “standard of living”; the second – the concepts of “quality of life” and “lifestyle”.

Way of life- a socio-economic category used to characterize the main features of work and life of representatives of a certain social group, society or ethno-geographical group. This concept captures, first of all, the production characteristics of life activity. The urban lifestyle in this regard is characterized as industrial.

Standard of living– a set of quantitatively measured lifestyle parameters. Analyzing the standard of living, we can distinguish two aspects: 1) psychophysiological - pace, rhythm, intensity, etc., 2) economic - standard of living, expressing the degree of satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of people in the sense of provision of consumer goods: wages, income , volume of consumption of goods and services, level of consumption of goods, length of working and free time, living conditions, level of education, health care, etc. There are various indicators of the standard of living and methods for calculating them.

The quality of life- this is a measure of interaction between the environment and its use, a measure of assessing the degree of satisfaction of material and spiritual needs that cannot be directly quantified (the content of work, leisure, level of recreation, level of social comfort, level of personal self-realization, etc.). A number of authors include here the quality of housing, the quality of functioning of social institutions, personal physical safety, social security, etc., etc. The list is huge, right down to the aesthetics of the environment. This is practically a list of everything that is needed. The concept is used for comparative analysis of lifestyles.

Life style - a socio-psychological category to characterize the everyday behavior of people and social groups. This concept focuses attention on the subjective side of everyday life: the specifics of motivation, methods and forms of justifying actions, forms of behavior habitual for certain groups, methods of self-realization and self-presentation. The stylistic features of life are local and individual in nature.

Essential characteristics of urban lifestyle:

· high level of social differentiation: types of activities, territory and space;

· sociocultural heterogeneity;

· high level of sociocultural mobility;

· high level of sociocultural dynamics;

· high level of variability and alternativeness of consciousness and behavior;

· intensity of sociospatial mobility - interaction with a large number of different social groups;

· wide possibilities for choosing behavior models;

· high level of innovative activity;

· information richness of the urban environment (territories and space);

· personal localization of city life; personal choice of reasons and strategies for behavior.

The first systematic description of the urban lifestyle and its influence on the consciousness and behavior of a city dweller was undertaken by L. Wirth in Urbanism as a Way of Life (1938). A number of his ideas have now undergone significant adjustments, but his systematic methodology and breadth of review of urban phenomena are still instructive. Its main provisions can be presented in the form of a diagram:

L. Wirth's concept was developed in the works S. Milgram. He believed that the characteristic features of city life, which Wirth, and even earlier Simmel, identified, could not fully explain the behavior of city residents. Large numbers, density, heterogeneity and abundance of contacts are not direct factors of behavior. These quantitative characteristics of urban life are refracted by individual consciousness and experience. In relation to the individual, this is external information. What is needed is an idea that connects individual experiences with the characteristics of urban life. One way of such a connection, according to Milgram, is given by the concept "overload". We can say that the observed behavior of a city dweller in a wide range of situations is largely determined by the processes of adaptation to overload. He develops this concept in the form of the following judgments:

· Citizens tend to neglect information that is not a priority.

· During certain social operations, responsibilities are redistributed so that an overloaded system can shift part of the load to the second participant in the interaction.

· The information protection system for citizens blocks access to information at the very entrance. Social means of protection and selection are placed between the individual and information coming from the external environment. Special organizations are created to receive incoming information that would otherwise overwhelm the individual. The mediation of organizations between the individual and the social world, which is characteristic of the entire modern society and is especially pronounced in large cities, also has its negative side. It deprives the individual of a sense of direct contact and spontaneous integration with the life around him. It simultaneously protects and alienates the individual from his social environment.

Overload typically distorts daily life on multiple levels, affecting role performance, the evolution of social norms, cognitive functioning, and the nature of social responsibility.

Differences in the behavior of residents of a big city and a small town are:

· Differences in role order: the tendency of the inhabitants of a metropolis to enter into strictly segmented, functional relationships with each other.

· The evolution of urban norms that differ from the traditional provincial way of life: indifference, impersonality, alienation of metropolis residents.

· Adaptation of a city dweller’s cognitive abilities: his tendency is not to recognize the people he sees every day; sorting sensory impulses; satiety, a tendency to perversion and eccentricity; selectivity in responding to human requests.

· Limited moral and social involvement of individuals in his life. Limitation of such involvement takes a variety of forms, from a refusal to show concern for the needs of another individual (even if that person is in dire need of help) to an unwillingness to provide a favor or refusal to show simple politeness (reluctance to give up a seat to a woman or failure to apologize when a passerby collides). The extreme case of adaptation to an overloaded social environment is complete disregard for the needs, interests and demands of those people whom a person does not consider directly related to the satisfaction of his personal needs.

· Lack of social responsibility in a big city. In the city, the need for assistance arises so often that non-participation becomes the norm. The lower level of willingness to help among residents of a large city seems to be, to some extent, explained by the awareness of the dangers associated with life.

In big cities, traditional rules of politeness are not simply being violated; rather, new norms are being formed that dictate non-interference, the desire to remain on the sidelines. Anonymity can be thought of as a continuum with complete anonymity at one end and intimate familiarity at the other end, and it is possible that quantifying the exact degrees of anonymity in cities and towns will help explain important differences between the quality of life in them. For example, in conditions of close acquaintance, a feeling of security appears and friendly relationships are formed, but these conditions can also create an oppressive atmosphere, since the person is constantly being watched by people who know him. Conversely, in conditions of complete anonymity, a person is freed from formal social ties, but he may also experience feelings of alienation and isolation from people.

Milgram's final conclusion is as follows: “I believe that the behavioral differences between the inhabitants of large and small cities are due more to the reactions of similar people to very different living conditions, and not to any specific personal characteristics of the inhabitants of metropolises or provincial towns. A big city is a situation to which a person is forced to adapt.”

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution

higher education

"Vladimir State University named after

Alexander Grigorievich and Nikolai Grigorievich Stoletov"

In the discipline "Sociology of Urban Planning"

On the topic “Image and lifestyle in urban areas”

Vladimir 2016

Introduction

Urban Sociology is a branch of sociology where scientists study the social structure and stratification of the urban population, the forms and routes of its migration, the problems of employment and unemployment in the city, poverty and inequality, the image and lifestyle of citizens, types of cities and the formation territorial communities, urban subcultures, the role of public transport in the social life of the city, the problem of migrants from rural areas, deviant behavior in the city, the behavior of people in the house and neighborhood, urbanization as a global historical process and urbanism as a set of value orientations and the mentality of citizens, the influence of the urban environment on the behavior and relationships of people, pathological processes caused by urbanization, urban ecology, the role of megacities and metropolises in modern society, planning of the urban environment and the work of city services, quality of life of citizens, etc.

The modern city is a complex system. It has many different aspects: spatial, urban planning, architectural, socio-demographic. All of them are in mutual connection and interaction through the activities of the people inhabiting a given city. The systematic nature of urban settlements, the rapid growth of old cities and the massive emergence of new cities, especially in the 20th century, necessitated a scientific analysis of this phenomenon. A comprehensive study of the urban human environment can only be fully carried out by sociology. Revealing the patterns, trends, and features of the activities of the city’s population in all its spheres, sociology gives a complete picture of the life of a modern city, its place and role in society.

1. Urban lifestyle theory

According to the German sociologist Georg Simmel 1, the intense and fast rhythm of urban life forces city residents to certain “defensive” reactions. This is an impersonal and closed way of life: a person seeks support only in himself. Friendships and warm human relationships are replaced by calculation. The urban way of life is characterized by the fact that “all people are equal, but not because each of them is valuable, but because no one has value, and only money is valuable.” Every change of place of residence, work, or study breaks certain human connections, forcing you to make new ones. As a result, a person begins to look at his relationships with other people as temporary and conditional. A person begins to build his connections with others on a functional basis. In the system of business functional relationships, the principle “there are no irreplaceable people” applies. But regarding personal relationships, such a phrase sounds like blasphemy.

A person suddenly finds out that someone whom he considered a friend was, it turns out, seriously ill, or divorced from his wife, and he did not even suspect it. Or friends only notice his absence when they need something from him. A specific personality thus turns into an abstract category, devoid of individuality. The realization that your loved ones can do without you relatively easily, that you are, in principle, replaceable, causes a painful feeling of your own insignificance. The feeling of alienation leads to the emergence of such social problems as alcoholism, drug addiction, crime, and suicide.

However, according to Simmel, there is also a positive side to city life. The city gives a person greater personal freedom, choice of activities and lifestyle. As the number of groups grows, their members become less and less similar to each other, individuality increases due to the loss of individuals' social characteristics.

American sociologist Lewis Wirth draws attention to the characteristic features of the urban way of life: the traditional foundations of social life are lost, family and neighborly ties are weakened (in the village people work together, go to church, know each other since childhood, etc.). But new types of human relationships are emerging; they are predominantly short-lived, temporary, impersonal in nature, and formal types of social control begin to predominate. Competition prevails over cooperation. City residents communicate more actively and more often, but interpersonal relationships in the city, as a rule, are impersonal, not as close as in the village. A city dweller is not able to react emotionally to every person with whom he comes into contact. The urban lifestyle, in contrast to the rural one, provides for much wider, but less deep contacts between people; a feeling of loneliness in the group appears.

Lewis Wirth writes: "It is characteristic that city dwellers meet each other in an extremely limited role. Their dependence on another person is limited to only one aspect of the latter's activity." Instead of accepting each individual we meet as a whole person, we maintain only superficial contacts with most, he explained.

We are only interested in how well the clothing salesman satisfies our needs, and we do not care if his wife suffers from alcoholism.

Manuel Castells proposed to consider the city not only as a place of residence, but also as a place of collective consumption. Facilities, schools, transport services, entertainment - these are the ways in which people take advantage of the benefits of modern industry. Manuel Castells emphasizes the importance of the struggle of underprivileged groups in changing their living conditions. Urban problems give rise to a number of social movements, based on the struggle to improve living conditions, against air pollution or to defend racial, cultural and other rights. That is, the theory of the city, as a place of collective consumption, does not focus on “natural” spatial processes, but on the way the artificial environment reflects the socio-economic system of power. This is a significant shift in emphasis.

Personal ties (family, neighbors, friendships) in the urban environment are disintegrating, social cohesion and social control are weakening. Hence the inevitable consequence - the growth of social disorganization, on the one hand, and the segmentation of the individual, on the other. Since then, the concept of urban lifestyle continues to be one of the most authoritative in Western sociology. city social style agglomeration

Lifestyle is a combination of various aspects of people’s life, their behavior in everyday practice. Ultimately, the way of life is determined by the specific socio-economic conditions of a given society, the level of development of the productive forces and the nature of social relations. Therefore, the way of life in different historical eras is not the same. In addition, the way of life reflects national traditions, customs of a given people, their mentality, spiritual culture in general, as well as a person’s property status and economic status. In this regard, the lifestyle of social classes, nations, individual social strata and groups is different in content. The way of life of people living in different territories and different types of settlements differs in significant features.

These features are determined by the nature of labor, its technical and technological content, and the territorial parameters of the life of the population. In this case, we are interested in the urban lifestyle. It is based on the content of industrial labor, the territorial-spatial nature of the urban environment, population density and other factors inherent in the city as a type of settlement (infrastructure development, concentration of government bodies, etc.). All this is reflected in the content of the urban lifestyle, all its aspects: work, everyday life of the population, forms of using free time, satisfaction of material and spiritual needs, participation in political and social life, norms and rules of behavior. Every phenomenon is cognized more deeply and systematically in comparison with other phenomena of the same order as it, through the disclosure of their general and special features.

2. Lifestyle of the population of a big city

What is characteristic of the lifestyle of the population of a big city today?

Firstly, the separation of the place of employment and place of residence. In rural areas, a person lives and works in the same small space, within the boundaries of the fields belonging to a given village. This is especially true today for farms: the farmer's land is located, as a rule, around his house. The separation of place of work and place of residence is not so strongly felt in small towns. The distances between them are small, people often do not use public transport, and it is poorly developed in such cities. In a large city this problem is very acute. For example, in Moscow, travel time to work and back is often two to three hours.

This situation has a negative impact on the life of a working person; Traveling in a crowded vehicle exhausts one's strength; unpleasant situations that sometimes arise in vehicle interiors injure the nervous system. When a person arrives home, he no longer has the energy or time to do housework or keep the apartment clean, not to mention reading, watching television, or spending time with children. In general, transport in Moscow works well compared to other cities, but it cannot cope with the increasing demands placed on it. The opening of new surface routes and metro lines lags behind the increase in the city's population. Transport problems are common in large cities around the world. Thus, a day for a working person in a big city is divided into three parts: work, being in transport and sleep. There is almost no time left for other types of life activities. Free time is only on weekends.

Secondly, the urban lifestyle is largely characterized by the individual-family orientation of the population’s life. In Russia, from time immemorial, collectivism has been an essential feature of people's behavior and their entire lives. The collectivist psychology of the Russian people came from peasant life, based on communal land use and periodic, fairly fair, distribution of land between peasant households (per capita). With the collectivization of agriculture in the USSR, the collectivist psychology of the peasant was supported by joint, socialized labor on the collective farm fields. Collectivism in agricultural production also extended to interfamily, interpersonal relationships, and to the entire lifestyle of a village resident. This feature of the rural way of life has not been lost today.

The life activity of city residents is different. On the one hand, industrial work is collective in nature. Even more collective than agricultural labor, because in large plants and factories thousands of workers are gathered into single labor collectives. But each worker knows only a few immediate neighbors at his workplace, where he works individually. On the village field, work is carried out, as a rule, by an “artel” 1 .

Individuality as a feature of the urban lifestyle is fully manifested in its family and everyday aspects. Here, unlike in the village, a person withdraws into his family after work. He often does not know his neighbor who lives next door to the apartment. And in general, in the city, neighborhood as an aspect of family and personal relationships plays a very insignificant role. People meet with work colleagues more often (they go to visit each other, relax together). The rooting of the individual orientation of the urban lifestyle is facilitated, not least, by the presence in cities of so-called “dormitory areas”. These are new buildings on the outskirts of the city, where there are no industrial or other enterprises. Working in the city center, people come here only to “sleep”. Here their life activities hardly go beyond the scope of family life. Because of this, in the city social control is significantly weakened, while in the village it is at a high level: people know each other thoroughly, they know their parents, grandparents, and everyone living in a given village. Everyone's behavior is under the control of all village residents.

Thirdly, the urban lifestyle is characterized by the predominance of social forms of satisfying people’s everyday needs and a decrease in family forms! In this regard, it is qualitatively different from the rural way of life. In the village, from time immemorial, a person's everyday needs were satisfied in the family. Family members, as a rule, knew how to sew their own clothes, repair shoes, and make simple tools. And, of course, grow bread, vegetables, meat and other food products for your own consumption. Therefore, from an early age, a villager is accustomed to work on the family farm, and then in the field. In the city, due to objective conditions, the economic and household function of the family is narrowed. A city dweller cannot grow food - he buys it in a store. He most often does not know how to repair his clothes and shoes. A city apartment, unlike a village house, does not require the preparation of fuel and animal feed.

In recent years, the service sector in cities has expanded significantly. This is caused by technological progress - an increase in the number of personal cars, televisions, computers, and mobile phones. They require maintenance and repair. The expansion of the network of service enterprises is also associated with their transition to private ownership. They provide considerable income to their owners, so their number is growing. If in the recent past, say, in Moscow there was an acute shortage of urban service enterprises, now another problem for the population is their high cost. Not every working Muscovite, especially a pensioner, can use consumer services enterprises.

Fourthly, the urban lifestyle develops away from nature, in an artificial socio-cultural environment. No matter how rich a particular city is in green spaces and water spaces, they cannot replace living nature. Meanwhile, man as a socio-biological being needs to communicate with the natural environment from which he grew and in which he was historically formed. The biological principle in a person does not disappear when he moves to the city, with the title “city dweller”. A deficiency in the satisfaction of this principle negatively affects a person’s physical health, his psyche and, ultimately, his social behavior.

Naturally, a person, born in urban conditions, adapts to them; his body adapts to a polluted atmosphere and far from clean environmentally friendly water and food. However, the adaptive capabilities of the human body are not unlimited; today they clearly lag behind the growth of components of the artificial environment, especially in a big city. This increase intensifies under market conditions. Business owners care little about developing the city's infrastructure, creating a favorable city-wide environment for residents, and landscaping the streets. They shift the care and costs of this onto the local budget, being interested only in the short-term profit of their enterprises.

The feeling of distance from nature among city dwellers is enhanced by the monotony of the typical development of residential outskirts of modern cities. Houses, like Siamese twins, are similar to each other in different cities. It is not difficult for a person to confuse them, like the hero of the famous film who, having accidentally ended up in Leningrad, could not distinguish the house there from his house in Moscow, where he lived.

For small towns, the problem of remoteness from nature is not as acute as in large and super-large cities. The residents there are closely connected with the village, communicate more often with the villagers, and buy food from them for the winter. The lifestyle of small towns is acquiring the character of a rural-urban lifestyle. Currently, the remoteness of city residents from nature is somewhat compensated by the massive acquisition by city residents of garden plots, where they spend weekends, vacations, work on the land, and communicate with nature. These are some of the characteristic features of the urban way of life, in their totality, distinguishing it as a special type of way of life as a social phenomenon.

It is known that a person as a personality is formed depending on the objective conditions in which he lives. They determine his value orientations, worldview, system of views on the surrounding reality and his place in it. The urban environment is no exception in this regard. With all its aspects, it has a daily influence on the development of the personality of a city resident from his very birth. Urban living standards in which a person finds himself in adulthood (he moves to the city for permanent residence) determine his desocialization 1 and resocialization 2, adaptation to their characteristics. With good reason we can talk about “the education of man by the city.” On what aspects of the personality of a city dweller does the city exert its educational influence? First of all, on his mentality. A city dweller thinks in broader categories than, say, a resident of a village or small town. This is facilitated by a number of reasons: the breadth of urban space, being in large work teams, multinational population, a system of cooperative ties between enterprises, etc. It is also important, of course, that the city population has the opportunity to receive a higher education than a village resident. Therefore, he no longer thinks only in concrete, but also in abstract theoretical categories, and is predisposed to generalizing the facts of life. A worker, an ordinary employee of a city enterprise or institution, communicates more often than a resident of other settlements with the intelligentsia, which is concentrated mainly in cities. This communication contributes to the growth of the general cultural level of the urban population as a whole.

The urban environment fosters in a person a heightened sense of internationalism and equal treatment of people of other nationalities and religions. Without this, social stability in a big city and the normal functioning of work collectives consisting of representatives of many nations and social groups are impossible today. For example, representatives of almost all nations and religious movements that exist in the Russian Federation live in Moscow. Friendly, equal relations between them are the key to calm life in the city.

Transience and the constant change of rhythms in the development of urban life make people want to know urban processes, since they affect everyday life, the well-being of residents, and the social status of workers. The desire to know everything about one’s hometown and real knowledge about it contribute to instilling in its residents a sense of urban patriotism and a desire to contribute to its well-being. City authorities must systematically provide information to the population about news in the life of the city and answer citizens' questions. In Moscow, such information is regularly broadcast on television and radio channels, especially in the television programs: “Events. Moscow Time” and “Facing the City.”

Urban conditions naturally favor the general cultural and professional growth of residents, especially young people. Young people can prepare and enter a university, improve their specialty, both at the enterprise and in the postgraduate education system. The city has libraries, theaters, and museums, a visit to which helps enrich the spiritual world of a person.

3. Social problems of the city-forming and city-servicing spheres of the city

In the early stages of history, the most important city-forming factor was the geographical factor. Cities most often arose along the banks of navigable rivers, which were the main transport arteries at that time. Even the names of cities came from the names of rivers (Moscow, Tver, Vyatka, Kashin). Later, during the formation of centralized states, the military factor became an important city-forming factor. This can be seen in the example of our country. Rus', Russia throughout its history was forced to defend itself from the encroachments of its warlike neighbors. To strengthen the borders, fortresses were erected and military settlements were created. Over time, large settlements formed around them, which then became cities. In this way, Tula, Ryazan, Kolomna, Grozny and other Russian cities arose.

At various periods of history, the formation of individual cities was based on the administrative and managerial factor. The city was built with a predetermined goal - to become the administrative center of a region or the capital of a state. This is how, for example, St. Petersburg was built (early 18th century). By the will of Peter I, the city was created not only as a stronghold military point of Russia on the shores of the Baltic, but also with the aim of moving the capital of the Russian state there from Moscow. Washington, founded in 1791, became the capital of the United States just 9 years later (in 1800). Apparently, it was originally intended to serve as the capital. There were other similar examples in New and Contemporary history.

In the 19th-20th centuries, the industrial factor began to play an important role in the formation of new cities. Its essence is that some cities are formed initially as residential areas around large industrial facilities. Then they create enterprises to serve the population, open educational institutions for training, based on the needs of this industrial facility. Such cities are growing very quickly. For example, the city of Tolyatti (until 1964 Stavropol) in 1959 had 72 thousand inhabitants. Due to the labor needs of the Volzhsky Automobile Plant, the city quickly expanded, and in 1989 it was already home to 630 thousand people. The population of Naberezhnye Chelny increased more than 13 times from 1970 to 1989. In the 30s of the last century, the city of Magnitogorsk grew rapidly. It arose in connection with the construction of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works in 1929-1934. In recent decades, based on the industrial factor, “oil” and “gas” cities have emerged in Western Siberia and the North of our country.

A modern city, especially a large one, is a complex system. Its main components are: geographical, production-economic and socio-demographic spheres of city life. “Within” these spheres, city-forming and city-serving factors are distinguished (with a certain degree of convention). City-forming factors include industrial enterprises, transport, communications, other enterprises and institutions that produce material things or spiritual and cultural products (scientific, educational, research institutions). Thanks to these enterprises and institutions, the city functions and supplies products not only to the inner city, but also to the external and even international market. The city-forming sphere provides the working population with jobs, and thereby creates conditions for the normal functioning of the city.

What social problems can arise here and often actually exist?

First of all, these problems arise when there is a disproportion between the labor needs of newly built manufacturing enterprises and the labor resources of a given city. Sometimes, when designing and constructing an industrial enterprise, one or another department does not always take into account the actual availability of local labor and the level of its qualifications specifically for a given branch of production, apparently hoping for an influx of qualified workers and engineering personnel from other regions. But then, on the one hand, the problem of housing for migrants arises, and on the other, part of the local population experiences unemployment; they need to be trained in new specialties required by the established enterprise.

An acute social problem occurs in some regions of our country that focus on certain types of production. Thus, in cities that have developed in recent decades around large deposits of oil, gas, and non-ferrous metals, “male” labor predominates. Many young unmarried men from other regions of the country go there. Due to the lack of female population, many guys cannot start a family and are forced to leave these places. There is a high turnover of personnel at enterprises, which does not contribute to increasing productivity and quality of work. In other areas, a similar social problem is associated with an excess of “female” labor. This is typical for regions with weaving production. For example, the largest “textile region” is the Ivanovo region. Here, numerous weaving factories are located not only in cities, but also in rural areas. They were built by manufacturers back in the 19th century and are working now. Weaving requires women's hands. But there are not enough of them among the local population. For example, in the regional city of Shuya there are 7 weaving factories. Therefore, many young girls who graduated from textile vocational schools in other places in the country come here. There is an excess of female population and a shortage of male population in the region. This socio-demographic problem manifests itself in male selfishness, frequent divorces, fatherlessness, etc.

The solution to these problems lies in the ways of strictly balancing purely production tasks and the availability of local labor resources, their gender and age structure, and the demographic situation of the region as a whole.

To ensure the normal functioning of the city, the functioning of its service sector is necessary. This includes that aspect of the functioning of urban transport, communications, the activities of educational institutions, healthcare, and research institutions that is aimed at meeting the needs of city residents. The service sector also includes consumer services, utilities, cultural institutions, and intracity trade. These aspects of the urban service sector are extremely important in large cities, especially in megacities. If in small and even medium-sized cities the problem of intra-city transport (short distances), public utilities (many private houses, especially on the outskirts), and consumer services is less acute, then in large and super-large cities, without the clear functioning of the service sector, the normal life of the population is impossible.

Let's take Moscow - the country's largest metropolis. It operates on a huge scale in providing life support to the population. And in every direction of this area there are complex problems that negatively affect city residents. Let's start with transport. The rapid growth of the vehicle fleet is an indicator of the increase in the welfare of Muscovites, but on the other hand, this has created a difficult situation on the city streets: traffic jams not only during rush hours, but throughout the day, an increase in road accidents, often resulting in death and injury participants. The problem, at first glance, is technical, but it is also an acute social problem, since it is connected with the life and safety of people.

In recent years, due to the expansion of market relations in Moscow, the housing problem has worsened. The city is building a lot of apartments. But if in the old days they were distributed among residents free of charge (on a first-come, first-served basis), now apartments are mostly sold to everyone at fabulous prices, inaccessible to a person who receives income only in the form of a salary. Only a small proportion of housing is allocated for waiting lists (queues last 10-15 years).

The next problem is prices for essential goods and services. Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Yes, we now have an abundance of goods and services. You can’t compare it to how it was 15-20 years ago, when the stores were empty and everything was sold using coupons or through huge queues. Now you can buy everything freely. But not all Muscovites have the money for this. It is morally very difficult for a poor person to see the abundance of goods and realize his inability to buy the most necessary food products and simple clothing.

The social, deeply vital problems of the population of Moscow, as well as other Russian cities, can be listed and listed. We can only hope that in the near future they will be gradually resolved as the productive forces of our society and the economic growth of Russia develop. The current stage of urbanization is characterized by qualitative changes in the structural and territorial aspect of urban settlement.

There is a process of transition from a quantitative increase in population in a limited urban area to the “spreading” of large cities into suburban areas, the formation of urban agglomerations - the unification of a large city with small towns located around it (satellite cities). This process occurs mainly on a production basis, through the cooperation of industrial enterprises of the core city with peripheral enterprises. There is another factor underlying agglomeration processes - a change in the connection between the place of work and the place of residence of people. Today, a significant part of the population of the suburbs works in the main city of the agglomeration. The unified transport system ensures “pendulum” or “shuttle” migration (daily travel from home to work and back).

The largest agglomerations are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk and others. For example, Moscow is connected with thousands of threads - industrial, scientific, educational - with cities and towns in the immediate and distant periphery. Every day, about a million people come to work and study in Moscow from the Moscow region, tens of thousands of Muscovites go to work in the Moscow region.

Thus, the formation of urban agglomerations is an objective process. It occurs in all industrialized countries of the world. Its positive significance lies in the fact that the excessive growth of large cities is stopped, their population density is “thinned out” due to the fact that people will flock less to the central city of the agglomeration, because living conditions become the same throughout the agglomeration complex. And in small towns, life is calmer and the environmental situation is more favorable.

The city, as a special type of settlement, is characterized not only by enclosed space and a high concentration of population, industrial and cultural facilities, it is also a special environment that determines a specific way of life for people. In urban society, one can observe the presence of specific connections and interactions that determine the characteristics of the urban lifestyle. In modern society, individualistic values become the essence of morality and ethical behavior. It is they who determine the degree of involvement of a city resident in the rhythm of city life, social events and phenomena.

The study of the socio-economic situation of a village presupposes a holistic description of not only the territorial-spatial structure and social production of the village, but also the life activity of the population and its way of life. And, indeed, there are no such social problems of the village, both production and non-production, that would not manifest themselves through a person and would not affect any aspects of his life.

4. Urban lifestyle as an object of sociological analysis

As shown by a pilot study conducted by the Department of Sociology of Tolyatti State University, among the main objective factors of the urban lifestyle that determine the specific leisure of citizens and their values are territorial-demographic, economic and sociocultural grounds, as well as the professional activity of the individual. Subjective factors include attitude towards the city, life and family values, free time.

By way of life, as follows from the results of the study, many (59%) understand values and life goals, as well as manners and habits of behavior, and family rules. In our opinion, the urban lifestyle is characterized by special forms of professional self-expression and leisure activities, which differ markedly from similar manifestations in rural areas. Just like in the countryside, city dwellers prefer a family lifestyle. However, as the survey showed, the dominant lifestyle of respondents is still work, in connection with which we can say that the lifestyle of city residents is work. As it turned out, in a large industrial city like Tolyatti, not everyone, but only half of the respondents, have two days off each week. Fortunately, those who answered the questionnaire relax during their vacation.

In the city, an important role is played by corporate culture, the culture of professional self-organization, which is not adequate to the public, prosocial 1. In addition, characteristic features of the urban lifestyle are also an orientation toward hedonism and entertainment commensurate with one’s professional role. Forms of leisure are typically urban, one might say instrumental. In urban conditions, interpersonal relationships are often narrowed down to the size of a nuclear family, while professional connections can expand widely. Many of the people surveyed (53%) try to attend corporate events whenever possible, which is explained by the tendency of management to shape corporate culture in this way. At the same time, for the majority (69%) an important part of their lifestyle is the celebration of family events. Free time is most often spent with relatives, among friends, and in nature. Among the characteristics that determine the lifestyle of Russians in general, respondents name the following traits: permissiveness, careerism, “beautiful life,” raising children. The most interesting type of people, in the opinion of respondents, are “family-oriented” and “optimistic” people, family life, individualism, education. The latter recalls the recent years of general crisis and indicates that the entire society needs positive reinforcement in the process of moving forward towards a better future. Among the values of life, many highlighted the love and support of loved ones (68%), as well as the health of themselves and family members (80%). Only 34% noted material success, which once again proves: for a modern city dweller, money is not the main value, but only a means of ensuring existence.

As it turned out, it was important for respondents to live in the city, which reinforces the hypothesis that the feeling of being a city dweller is one of the features of the urban lifestyle. Few people want to leave the city by moving to it from the village or being born in it. People are attracted by both the economic prospects and the socio-cultural opportunities of the city.

There is another advantage of the urban lifestyle: living in the city is interesting due to the presence of a sense of community. At the time of the 2002 census, just over 700 thousand people lived in Tolyatti. Among those surveyed, the majority (71%) try, whenever possible, to attend citywide events that are held in each of the three administrative districts. In such events, the need for involvement in a common cause, for making joint significant decisions, and for positive experiences is realized.

Conclusion

1) The city has been and is the object of study of many scientific disciplines, because all spheres of human life are focused in it: a person lives in it, works, he develops himself as an individual in psychological and social terms. The city is ecology, economy, everyday life, macro-social processes and much more. Therefore, to describe and study the city, knowledge of various sciences is used: social, humanitarian, and natural sciences.

2) The city, by virtue of its essence, “forces” us to deal with a variety of issues and integrate diverse knowledge into a single concept. And these concepts are increasingly acquiring a sociological character: the city has recently been understood not so much as a form of settlement and production, but as a form of community, as a type of sociality, the essential feature of which is the integration of various types of life activity into a single self-developing system with its own mechanisms for maintaining stability and order .

3) The problems of the city need to be deeply and seriously studied, searched for and found ways to solve them. At the moment, this task is one of the most important tasks facing social science and which it can and should solve.

The most important condition for balanced urban development is the existence of agreement between various urban communities and the management system on priority areas of development. To do this, it is necessary that the governing bodies be open and as close as possible to the population. This can be achieved by using a project approach in municipal management.

For any developed country, a stable socio-economic situation is a very important point in the overall development of the state. This also applies to rural areas, as well as other areas of life. But no matter how ideal the state is, there are always those aspects that require detailed study and control. These include socio-economic processes in rural areas.

Thus, the urban way of life, being a variety of the way of life of a given society, retains the basic, essential features of the latter. At the same time, it represents an independent type of lifestyle as a social phenomenon. It is characterized by such features that qualitatively distinguish it from, say, a rural way of life. In the future, both of these basic ways of life will apparently come closer together on the basis of the gradual overcoming of social differences between city and countryside, between people of industrial and agricultural work. The differences are precisely social, natural differences will persist for a long time.

List of used literature

1. Georg Simmel “Big cities and spiritual life.” Logos 2002 Chapter No. 3-4

2. Sztompka P. Sociology of social changes. Translated from English, ed. V.A. Yadova. - Moscow: Aspect Press, 1996. - 416 p.

3. Orlova E.A. Modern urban culture and people. Moscow: Nauka, 1987. -- 191 p.

4. Big cities, their social, political and economic significance / Author: K. Bucher, G. Mayer, G. Simmel and others. St. Petersburg: (Library of "Enlightenment"), 1905. - 204 p.

5. Student library online - http://studbooks.net.

6. Max Weber Favorites. The image of society. Moscow: Publishing house: “Yurist” 1994. - 704 p.

7. Louis Wirth. “Urbanism as a way of life” / Trans. from English - M.: Strelka Press, 2016. - 108 p.

8. “Bibliofond” electronic student library http://bibliofond.ru.

9. Database of scientific reports http://docus.me.

10. Architect's Library http://archspeech.com.

Posted on Allbest.ru

Advantages and attractiveness of city life.

The modern city provides the majority of people living here and in its suburbs with extensive and varied opportunities for employment and thereby obtaining a livelihood.

The city has a developed system of supply and trade of food and goods necessary for the population. Residents of rural areas deliver their surplus products to the city, where the total purchasing power of the population is incomparably higher than in their places of residence.

The city provides the necessary level of medical care, and especially emergency care, both in outpatient care and in hospitals.

The city provides quite a variety of opportunities for education and retraining, and the larger the city’s population, the larger the number of educational institutions of various profiles and levels it has, as a rule.

The city's housing stock for the most part is distinguished by a high level of improvement. Most residential buildings and public institutions have centralized heat, water and gas supplies. City residents themselves practically do not have to worry about waste disposal.

Public transport networks have been developed in cities.

A multifunctional public service system makes it easier for citizens to solve many problems of everyday life.

The system of organization and division of labor, comfortable housing stock, and developed infrastructure help free up a certain reserve of free time for city residents, which can be used to improve their educational, professional and cultural level. The city provides quite ample opportunities for this. A large library collection of both fiction and technical literature is concentrated here. The comparative accessibility of libraries helps to increase the intellectual development and professional knowledge of city residents.

Theatres, clubs, concert halls and other entertainment venues provide citizens with leisure of a high cultural level. Museums located in the city are a valuable, and in many cases a unique source of satisfying the aesthetic and educational needs of people.

In a number of cities, historical, cultural and architectural monuments have been preserved; excavations of ancient settlements are underway, which attract the attention of tourists.

The city provides its residents with good opportunities for sports, creativity and other forms of personal expression.

Recreation areas and recreational facilities create the prerequisites for healthy leisure time and informal communication among city residents.

Thus, ample opportunities for the application of labor, better living conditions, comfortable housing, the availability of free time and the opportunity to use it not only for recreation, but also to improve one’s intellectual level make life in the city more attractive than in rural areas, which is also true causes the continued growth of the urban population.

Most people are children of a metropolis, and to understand whether this is good or bad, you need to understand what life in a big city is.

Even at the dawn of capitalism, many people flocked to big cities to earn money. This was especially true in winter for peasants, since agricultural work came to a standstill during this time. Some, having tasted such a life, subsequently became city residents.

What are the advantages of cities?

Most often, in big cities, people are attracted by several things:

the opportunity to find a well-paid job;
obtaining education (higher and vocational secondary);
opportunity for professional development and growth;
developed infrastructure with theaters and museums, transport and catering, libraries and stadiums, hospitals and clinics;
availability of conditions for own implementation;
the opportunity to organize and develop your own business.

As you can see, there are plenty of advantages. Moreover, they are something that villages and small towns have never even dreamed of.

But, as you know in life, for all good things you have to pay, and the pros are usually followed by the cons, just as a black streak follows a white one. And city life is no exception to this.

Disadvantages of living in a big city

So what do you have to pay for living in the city? Let's try to list what a city dweller constantly faces:

environmental problems in which all the “charms” of life are concentrated - polluted air, saturated with exhaust gases and industrial emissions into the atmosphere. Factories and gas stations, nuclear power plants and industrial waste, landfills and dirt on the streets;
lack of quality products, eating dry food, on the run and in fast foods;
significant psychological stress, causing a feeling of chronic fatigue or prolonged depression. Headaches associated with lack of sleep are much less common among rural residents;
a constant lack of free time caused by the high pace of life and the time it takes to travel to work;
high cost of living associated with high prices for housing, food, goods and services;
radiomagnetic waves also do not bypass the human body, having a harmful effect on it;
cities gradually turned into sources of noise and not very pleasant odors;
the presence of criminals, beggars and homeless people;
high crowding of people contributes to the emergence and rapid spread of all kinds of infections and epidemics.

As you can see, the number of pros and cons of living in a big city is far from equal.

There are many more disadvantages than advantages, but people continue to be attracted to megacities.

Maybe this is because the pros are more obvious than the cons?

Or do they simply try not to think about the disadvantages once again when choosing where to live?

When wanting to decide on a place of residence, it is apparently still worth carefully weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of large cities. It is possible that it makes sense to settle in smaller and quieter ones?

If your work is connected to a large city, then it makes sense to decide to arrange your life in the suburbs. Or choose a larger city that is safer and cleaner from an environmental point of view.

The most difficult thing can be to understand what is most suitable in your particular case. Maybe it makes sense to drop everything and leave the metropolis, moving to a small one in a timely manner?

Moreover, everything always has its own price, and the cost of living in a big city may accidentally turn out to be too high for a person and you should not forget about it.

When I studied at the university, there were several people from villages in my group. I always heard that they want to stay in the city, that there are no prospects in the village. I agree with them, I think, basically, all young people are trying to move to the city and take advantage of all the opportunities.

How is rural life different from urban life?

I only came to the village to visit my grandmother during the summer holidays. Of course, their life is completely different. I have lived in the city since birth, but so far the most that attracts me is the acquisition of a summer cottage. There is a river in our city, and having a small house next to it is quite a good idea.

First of all, in a village or village, the absence of large industrial enterprises is striking. Nowhere will you find a factory in the middle of the village. Sometimes such objects are built outside the city, but, all the same, settlements near them are considered at least an urban-type settlement. Of course, all villagers keep livestock. But one should not think that people in villages and villages still live without any amenities. It all depends on finances; you can build a comfortable house in any village.

One of the biggest differences is the people. The rural population is much friendlier and more sociable. For example, I don’t even know all the neighbors in my building, but there people know each other personally.

Pros and cons of living in the city

Each person chooses a place to his liking. But, whatever one may say, living in the city has many advantages:

developed infrastructure;
convenient transport system;
more vacancies and higher wages;
many educational institutions;
developed medicine.

But not all city residents are satisfied with their lives, and many even seriously think about moving to some village. The reasons are as follows:

bad ecology;
high crime rate;
heavy workload;
deterioration of physical and mental condition.

As a rule, the desire to lead a more relaxed lifestyle among city residents arises with age; I think this is due to fatigue from the too fast pace of life.

Also on topic

How to open a non-cash current account for individual entrepreneurs

Opportunity costs Lost profits opportunity costs arise

Rules for admission to the Saratov Military Institute of Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation

St. Petersburg State University: specialties and areas of training, passing scores Is it possible to enter St. Petersburg State University

Non-state educational institution: participant in legal relations in the field of education Licensing, certification and accreditation of an educational institution