Ecological Theory of the City by Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Watson Burgess Cover Image

Ekološka teorija grada Roberta Ezre Parka i Ernesta Watsona Burgessa
Ecological Theory of the City by Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Watson Burgess

Author(s): Marko Dokić
Subject(s): History and theory of sociology, Social Theory, Human Ecology, Rural and urban sociology
Published by: Hrvatsko Filozofsko Društvo
Keywords: Robert Ezra Park; Ernest Watson Burgess; Chicago School; ecological theory of the city; organicism; urban sociology;

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses an approach within the framework of urban sociology, characteristic to Chicago School. This approach combined certain biological premises in understanding the city with the typical sociological approach, seeing the city as a superorganism and a product of nature, which is why it is called the ecological theory of the city. In this regard, the connection between biology and sociology, as well as the theory of Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Watson Burgess, as typical representatives of this sociological trend, will be the subject of special analysis, aiming to bring the reader closer to the ecological approach in urban sociology. The topic of particular interest is Park’s idea of the city as a product of nature, with symbiotic substructure and cultural superstructure, as well as Burgess’s idea of city growth and the theory of the concentric zones of city structure. Other issues of the ecological theory of the city (dominance and succession, social delinquency, the problem of the marginal man) were also analysed.

  • Issue Year: 41/2021
  • Issue No: 01/161
  • Page Range: 151-171
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Croatian