Urban Social Differentiation and the Allocation of Resources

Abstract

Urbanization alters the social organization of human communities not only in size but in their very nature. The urbanization of a society, then, means not only an increase in the scale of its social organization but also an alteration in the spatial organization of its activities, with a concentration of the functions of co-ordination and control in cities, and the development of a whole network of urban sites. These latter two factors in the process of urbanization produce systems of differentiation, which in turn provide channels for distributing goods and services. To understand the allocation of resources, it is useful, then, to examine three differentiation systems: the occupational, the ethnic and migrant, and the familial or life- style system of differentiation. Allocation of resources through each of these systems has consequences ranging from a tendency to perpetuate or ascribe positions in an urban society to an encouragement and acceptance of heterogeneity in cultural values and human behavior.