More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and far more people depend on cities for their subsistence. Many see social problems as particular ‘urban’ problems, related to the nature of the city and urban life. The urban world has long stimulated sociologists and scholars from related disciplines to think about a large number of issues that constitute urban life or are constituted by urban settings. Some of these issues are typically ‘urban’, some of them merely highly visible in exaggerated forms in the city. Early sociologists saw cities as the ultimate expression of the anonymous industrial society where Gemeinschaft lost its meaning. So from the start, urban sociologists have linked capitalism, urbanism and modernity. Course language will be German.
Literatur: - Harding, Alan & Blokland, Talja (2014): Urban Theory. A Critical Introduction to Power, Cities and Urbanism in the 21st Century. Chapter 1. London: Sage.
