- published: 04 Nov 2012
- views: 6279
Urbanism is the study of how dwellers in towns and cities interact with their environment. Urbanism focuses on the geography, economy, politics and social characteristics of the urban environment, as well as the effects on, and caused by, the built environment.
Currently many architects, planners, and sociologists (like Louis Wirth) investigate the way people live in densely populated urban areas from many perspectives including a sociological perspective. To arrive to an adequate conception of 'urbanism as a mode of life' Wirth says it is necessary to stop 'identify[ing] urbanism with the physical entity of the city' , go 'beyond an arbitrary boundary line' and consider how 'technological developments in transportation and communication have enormously extended the urban mode of living beyond the confines of the city itself.'
Witold Rybczynski, an architect, professor, author and critic supports Wirth’s ideas of the urban way of life as freed from the boundaries of city limits. Urban habits and mindsets, for example, leak out from cities, urban centers, and urbanized areas into more suburban and rural areas due in part to the ease of cultural diffusion in the twenty first century.