An Essay About Life In The City Text

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Many people seem to think city life is too fast paced or too fake for them to enjoy a city life. Hearing all of the hustle and bustle going on out side of my house, seems to give me a since, that i am not alone in this world. There are many reasons i love the city life, but there are three main reasons and they are entertainment, convenience, and people. For instance, being able to go out and have a good time at any bar within walking distance from my house is one of the greatest pluses to living in the city.

Six flags amusement park, although is not located in the city is less than thirty minutes, driving distance away. The amusement park offers a variety of fun from kid rides to twisting and turning roller coasters. Within five miles of my house i have everything from a simple grocery store to a mall. I also, have a variety of video stores and around five movie theaters, which makes it very convenient to watch a movie. Another perk to living in the city is, i do not have to go very far to shop for groceries. For instance, there is a grocery store within one mile in any direction of my house. Although, traffic may be terrible in the city, everything that i want to do is fairly close so it does not matter how bad the traffic may be.

Finally, the people in a city can kind of be rude at times, but a person can expect to experience a rude person just about anywhere they live. People in a city are not before industrial civilization the tendency was to look upon city life as a sort of privilege which men of great luck only could enjoy. It was after industrial revolution that the cities were looked upon with an aversion and disgust. One of the most searching and revealing criticisms of the big city is given by robert sinclair. The big city to him is an illusion it gives people a false belief in its cultural and its leadership values. He calls london a field of adventure, child of wren, mother of nations liar, oppressor, gaudy, pauper and provincial minded humbug.

Morgan points out how the american city draws to itself the cream of the population of all america and then extinguishes the family life of those it attracts. In his opinion the city develops through the following stages each of which is given its appropriate name: eopolis or early city, polis or normal city, metropolis or ruling city, megalopolis or speculative city, tyrannopolis or tyrannical city, and necropolis or dying city. To mumford lewis the large scale urban community contains cataclysmic potentialities. It destroys the solidarity of the kin, the family, the blood, the nation, and with its competitive stress fosters the disintegrating attitudes. The wheel of destiny rolls on to its end the birth of the city entails its death.

Briefly put, the disadvantages of urban life are: absence of primary relationships, predominance of individualism, lack of community feeling, absence of family life, low morality development of one sided personality, social disorganisation and mechanical life. It quickens social movements and enlarges social contacts amongst inhabitants through various specialized agencies. It provides ample opportunities to ambitious and energetic men to display their talents. The city gives increasing status to its inhabitants and offers superior educational advantages. stressing the benefits of the city on sociologies grounds, maciver writes: where the village community is all community, its exclusiveness rests on ignorance and narrowness of thought, its emotional strength is accompanied by intellectual weakness. Its members become the slave of its traditions, the prisoner of its own affections without the widening of gates nay, without the breaking down of walls there is no progress. Here is the service of the wider community, not only a completer civilization, but also the freedom of a broader culture.

Peoples, states, politics, all arts and all sciences rest upon one prime phenomenon of human being, the town. It may also be emphasized that the social effects of the city are wider than the city itself. The physical distances between the urban and rural areas having been narrowed the social influence of cities has extended to the villages. The type of city or village we study about and the period of history we refer to should be first ascertained before there can be any scientific study of the question because the problems created by them change with changing circumstances. The city of industrial age is quite different in character from the city of early or medieval age. The cities have grown and are changing with such rapidity that men and women are still far from being adjusted to the new industrial urban life. Further, the full effects of city life cannot be measured by rural urban differences in contemporary society, because both sides of the comparison reflect city influence.

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Generally, what we attribute to the city may not be attributed to the city at all. The social effects attributed to the city may in reality be the function of other factors. What is needed today is not to depopulate the city but to make the new urban environment more adjusted to the needs of the immigrants from the village.

In coming years, population pressure on the cities will continue to mount because they are the beehive of development of activities providing jobs to millions. Everywhere the urban population is growing faster than the rural everywhere the city is setting the pattern of life and becoming the chief diffusion centre. The large concentration of people in the industrial city, the housing shortage, the dangers of city life created by scientific war discoveries and rapid growth of means of transport, environmental pollution, slums, loose sex relations, family instability, crime, violence and the unhealthy atmosphere all these are problems that the modern city dweller has to face with great caution and ingenuity than his forefathers.

The haphazard and steep increase in urban population has strained every basic infrastructure. To prevent road accidents on account of crowded vehicular traffic, facilities for underground travel may be started. In spite of the evils and difficulties of city life people continue to move to and live in cities. Cities can still be prevented from degenerating into what rousseau once described as the sinks of civilisation. What is needed, therefore, to solve the material and social problems of city and transform it into an ally and complement of the rural community is city planning and intelligent administration.

In india the need is all the more urgent in view of the rapid environmental degradation and increasing criminalisation. The world is becoming ever more urbanized as regards both locality and social point of view. More and more people are entering the cities and the city life is influencing the attitudes and ways of life of those who still live in the villages.

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With the rapid growth of urbanization in the modern world two questions stand out before us, first, to what extent can the entire world become urbanised? second, what will be the effect of increasing urbanization on human society? it seems unlikely that the growth of cities will continue indefinitely. In some of the big cities the growth of population is in general coming to a halt. If the growth of existing cities does not stop rather soon, the villages will be emptied of the population and we shall come to a point when we all shall be living only in one large city alone. The world is still overwhelmingly rural and so it will continue to move towards urbanization. When will the saturation point be reached beyond which urbanization will come to a halt is hard to say it is, however, within the bounds of possibility that the entire world will eventually reach the degree of urbanization now attained by only a few advanced industrial nations.

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Consequently, it is possible that eventually 75 per cent of the worlds population will come to live in cities. As regards the effect of urbanization on human society when 75 per cent of the worlds population begins to live in cities the answer is not clear. Will that society be more stable or will it fall apart? what will be the effect of anonymity, impersonality, specialization and sophistication, the peculiar features of urban life, on the future urbanized human society? will the people highly literate, scientifically trained, individualistically oriented feel still bound by a common system of values and a common set of mores? probably they would. But in any case a completely urbanized world will be greatly different in its social structure from anything we yet know. Where is the most ideal living?  if you have two choices: living in city or in country, which one will you choose?  i think the most important decision to a happy life is where you choose to spend the rest of your life and  how you want to live.