The paper draws together historical and sociological literatures on sport with the purpose of more firmly introducing the role of sport into scholarly dialogue about city life. A central thesis of the paper is that there was a mutually transformative relationship between sport and the growth and development of American cities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Discussed in this regard is the role of sport and games in socializing and controlling immigrants. On a more social psychological level, the significance of sport in providing urbanites with a subjective sense of community identification is examined. The last section of the paper considers how participation in urban playground sports may provide a forum for the expression of self, identity, and individualism in an otherwise anonymous urban world.
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