Life in a big city with its pluses and minuses. Life in a big city with its pros and cons What attracts people to the urban lifestyle

What is urbanization? Urbanization is a systemic increase in the role of cities in the socio-economic development of society.

In a narrow sense, urbanization means an increase in the urban population. The main prerequisites for urbanization are the growth of industry in cities, as well as the deepening of the territorial distribution of labor.

The urbanization process is characterized by the influx of the rural population into the cities.

The urbanization process and its manifestations

The urbanization process occurs due to the following factors:

the transformation of villages into cities, which may be caused by the construction of industrial facilities on the territory of the village, or other facilities, for example, a railway;

The formation of wide suburban areas, due to which the city limits are expanded;

Migration of people from rural areas.

The urbanization process often depends on political environment in the state. Many political analysts consider the growth of urbanization to be the main indicator of the strengthening of the state.

In the history of mankind, there have been several large-scale leaps in urbanization. One of them occurred in the 19th century, when the world was experiencing an industrial boom.

People from the countryside, in order to provide for their families, got a job in city factories and plants. Many of them remained in the city.

The quality of urban life

The quality of urban life directly depends on whether the level of urbanization is justified. With a sharp increase in the level of urbanization, the quality of urban life falls significantly due to the lack of jobs in the city.

The quality of urban life is determined by the following basic indicators: single and general indicators. General indicators include: the state of the city's infrastructure and the level of trade.

Individual indicators represent the level of income of urban residents, the provision of housing to the population. Also, one of the main factors in the quality of urban life is the level of environmental safety in the city.

Pros and cons of city life

Living in the city contains several pros and cons, which we will now consider. The main disadvantage of urban life is environmental problems. Direct living near industrial centers, highways and gas stations causes enormous damage to the health of citizens.

Another disadvantage of living in the city is the wrong diet. The fast pace of life forces many townspeople to eat in a hurry.

Moreover, the quality of food in urban supermarkets remains very low. The disadvantages of living in the city include chronic fatigue caused by constant psychological stress at work.

The main advantages of living in the city include the possibility of realizing oneself and one's capabilities. Another inalienable advantage of city life is a well-developed infrastructure, which greatly simplifies the life of an urban person.

Most people are the children of a metropolis, and in order to understand whether this is good or bad, you need to figure out what life in a big city is.

Even at the dawn of the formation of capitalism, many rushed to big cities to earn money. This was especially typical in winter for the peasants, since agricultural work at this time froze. Some, having tasted such a life, later became city dwellers.

What are the advantages of cities?

Most often in big cities, people are attracted by several points:

  • the opportunity to find a well-paid job;
  • education (higher and vocational secondary);
  • the opportunity for professional development and growth;
  • developed infrastructure with theaters and museums, with transport and catering, libraries and stadiums, hospitals and clinics;
  • the availability of conditions for their own implementation;
  • the opportunity to organize and develop your own business.

As you can see, there are enough advantages. Moreover, they are the kind that even villages and small towns never dreamed of.

But, as you know from life, all good things come at a price, and pluses are usually followed by minuses, just as a black stripe follows a white one. And city life is no exception.

Cons of living in a big city

So what do you have to pay for living in the city? Let's try to list what a city dweller constantly faces:

  • environmental problems, in which all the "delights" of life are concentrated - polluted air, saturated with exhaust gases and industrial emissions into the atmosphere. Factories and gas stations, nuclear power plants and industrial waste, landfills and dirt on the streets;
  • lack of quality products, dry food, on the run and in fast foods;
  • significant psychological stress, causing a feeling of chronic fatigue or prolonged depression. Headache with lack of sleep in rural residents is much less common;
  • a constant lack of free time, caused by the high pace of life and the time spent traveling to work;
  • the high cost of living associated with the high cost of housing, food, goods and services;
  • radio magnetic waves also do not bypass the human body, exerting a harmful effect on it;
  • cities gradually turned into sources of noise and not very pleasant smells;
  • the presence of criminals, beggars and homeless people;
  • high crowding of people contribute to the emergence and rapid spread of all kinds of infections and epidemics.

As you can see, the number of pros and cons of living in a big city is far from equal.

There are many more minuses than pluses, but megalopolises continue to attract people.

Maybe this is because the pros are more obvious than the cons?

Or are they just trying not to think about the minuses when choosing where to live?

Wanting to decide on a place of residence, apparently, it is still worth carefully weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of large cities. Is it possible that it makes sense to settle in smaller and quieter ones?

If you are tied to a large city for work, then it makes sense to decide to arrange your life in the suburbs. Or choose to live in a large city that is safer and cleaner from the point of view of ecology.

The hardest part is figuring out what will work best in your particular case. Maybe it makes sense to give up everything and leave the metropolis, timely moving to a small one?

Moreover, everything always has its own price, and the cost of living in a big city may accidentally turn out to be too high for a person and you should not forget about it.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution

higher education

"Vladimir State University named after

Alexander Grigorievich and Nikolai Grigorievich Stoletovs "

In the discipline "Sociology of Urban Development"

On the topic "Lifestyle and lifestyle in urban development"

Vladimir 2016

Introduction

Sociology of the city (Urban Sociology) - is a branch of sociology, where scientists study the social structure and stratification of the urban population, the forms and ways of its migration, the problems of employment and unemployment in the city, poverty and inequality, the way and lifestyle of citizens, types of cities and formation territorial communities, urban subcultures, the role of public transport in social life cities, the problem of migrants from rural areas, deviant behavior in the city, the behavior of people in the house and in the neighborhood, urbanization as a global historical process and urbanism as a set of value orientations and mentality of citizens, the influence of the urban environment on the behavior and relationships of people, pathological processes caused by urbanization, urban ecology, the role of megacities and metropolises in modern society, urban environment planning and the work of city services, the quality of life of citizens, etc.

The modern city is a complex system. It has many different aspects: spatial, urban planning, architectural, socio-demographic. All of them are in mutual connection and interaction through the activities of the people inhabiting a given city. The systematic nature of the urban settlement, the rapid growth of old and the massive emergence of new cities, especially in the 20th century, necessitated a scientific analysis of this phenomenon. A comprehensive study of the urban human environment can only be fully carried out by sociology. Revealing the patterns, trends, features of the activity of the population of the city in all its spheres, sociology gives a complete picture of the life of a modern city, its place and role in society.

1. The theory of urban lifestyle

According to the German sociologist Georg Simmel 1, the tense and fast rhythm of urban life forces the inhabitants of cities to certain "defensive" reactions. This is an impersonal and closed way of life: a person seeks support only in himself. Friendship, warm human relations are replaced by calculation. It is characteristic of the urban way of life that "all people are equal, but not because each of them is valuable, but because no one has value, and only money is valuable." Each change of place of residence, work, study also breaks certain human ties, forcing them to conclude new ones. As a result, a person begins to look at his relationships with other people as temporary and conditional. A person begins to build his connections with others on a functional basis. In the system of business functional relationships, the principle "there are no irreplaceable people" operates. But with regard to personal relationships, such a phrase sounds like blasphemy.

The man suddenly finds out that the one whom he considered a friend was, it turns out, seriously ill, or divorced his wife, and he did not even know about it. Or friends only notice his absence when they need something from him. The concrete personality thus turns into an abstract category devoid of individuality. The knowledge that your loved ones can relatively easily do without you, that you are, in principle, replaceable, causes painful sensation own insignificance. The feeling of alienation leads to the emergence of social problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction, criminality, and suicide.

However, according to Simmel, there is also a positive side of city life. The city gives a person great personal freedom, choice of occupation and lifestyle. With an increase in the number of groups, their members become less and less similar to each other, individuality is enhanced due to the loss of individuals of their social characteristics.

American sociologist Lewis Wirth draws attention to the characteristic features of the urban way of life: the traditional foundations of social life are lost, family and neighbor ties are weakening (in the village people work together, go to church, know each other from childhood, etc.). But new types of human relations appear, they are predominantly, short-lived, are temporary, impersonal, formal types of social control begin to prevail. Competition prevails over cooperation. City dwellers communicate more actively and more often, but interpersonal relations in the city, as a rule, are impersonal, not as close as in the countryside. A citizen is not able to emotionally react to every person with whom he comes in contact. The urban lifestyle, in contrast to the rural one, provides for much broader, but less deep contacts between people, there is a feeling of loneliness in the group.

Lewis Wirth writes: "It is characteristic that city dwellers meet with each other, acting in an extremely limited role. Their dependence on another person is limited to only one aspect of the latter's activities." Instead of accepting every individual we meet as a whole person, we maintain only superficial contact with the majority, he explained.

We are only interested in how well the salesperson is meeting our needs, and we don’t care if his wife is suffering from alcoholism.

Manuel Castells suggested considering the city not only as a place of residence, but also as a place of collective consumption. Premises, schools, transportation services, entertainment are the ways in which people are using the benefits of today's industry. Manuel Castells stresses the importance of the struggle of underprivileged groups when their living conditions change. Urban problems cause a number of social movements based on the struggle to improve living conditions, against air pollution or for the defense of racial, cultural and other rights. That is, the theory of the city, as a place of collective consumption, notes not in "natural" spatial processes, but in the way the artificial environment reflects the socio-economic system of power. This is a significant shift in emphasis.

Personal ties (family, neighborhood, friendships) in the urban environment disintegrate, social cohesion and social control are weakened. Hence the unavoidable consequence - the growth of social disorganization, on the one hand, and the segmentation of the personality, on the other. Since then, the concept of an urban lifestyle has continued to be one of the most authoritative in Western sociology. city ​​social style agglomeration

A way of life is a combination of various aspects of people's life, their behavior in everyday practice. Ultimately, the way of life is determined by the specific socio-economic conditions of a given society, the level of development of the productive forces and the nature of social relations. Therefore, the way of life in different historical periods is not the same. In addition, the way of life reflects national traditions, customs of a given people, its mentality, spiritual culture in general, as well as a person's property status, his economic status. In this regard, the way of life of social classes, nations, individual social strata and groups is different in its content. The way of life of people living in different territories and different types of settlements differs from each other in essential features.

These features are due to the nature of labor, its technical and technological content, territorial parameters of the population's life. In this case, we are interested in the urban way of life. It is based on the content of industrial labor, the territorial-spatial nature of the urban environment, population density and other factors inherent in the city as a type of settlement (infrastructure development, concentration of government bodies, etc.). All this is reflected in the content of the urban way of life, all its aspects: labor, everyday life of the population, forms of using free time, meeting material and spiritual needs, participation in political and social life, norms and rules of behavior. Any phenomenon is more deeply, more systematically cognized in comparison with other phenomena of the same order with it, through the disclosure of their general and special.

2. Lifestyle of the population of a big city

What is typical for the lifestyle of the population of a big city today?

First, the separation of the place of employment and place of residence. In rural areas, a person both lives and works in the same small space, within the boundaries of the fields belonging to a given village. This is especially true today for farms: the farmer's land is located, as a rule, around his house. The separation of place of work and place of residence is not so strongly felt in small towns. The distances between them are small, people often do not use public transport, and it is poorly developed in such cities. In a large city, this problem is very acute. For example, in Moscow, the travel time to and from work is often two to three hours.

This situation negatively affects the life of the working person; The road in a crowded transport exhausts his strength, unpleasant situations, sometimes developing in the salons of vehicles, injure the nervous system. After arriving home, a person no longer has either the energy or the time for housework, keeping the apartment clean, not to mention reading, watching television, or taking classes with children. In general, transport in Moscow works well compared to other cities, but it does not cope with the increasing demands on it. The opening of new surface routes and metro lines lags behind the increase in the city's population. Transport problems are inherent in major cities around the world. Thus, the day for a working person in a big city breaks up into three parts: work, being in transport and sleeping. There is almost no time left for other types of vital activity. Free time is only weekends.

Secondly, the urban way of life is largely characterized by the individual-family orientation of the population's life. In Russia, from time immemorial, collectivism has been an essential feature of people's behavior, their entire life. The collectivist psychology of the Russian people came from a peasant life based on communal land use and periodic, fairly fair, distribution of land between peasant households (heart to heart). With the collectivization of agriculture in the USSR, the collectivist psychology of the peasant was supported by joint, socialized labor on collective farm fields. Collectivism in agricultural production extended to interfamilial, interpersonal relations, to the whole way of life of a villager. This feature of the rural lifestyle has not been lost today.

The life of the townspeople is different. On the one hand, industrial labor is collective in nature. It is even more collective than agricultural labor, for at large factories and factories thousands of workers are gathered into single labor collectives. But each worker knows only a few immediate neighbors in his workplace, where he works individually. On the village field, work is carried out, as a rule, by an "artel" 1.

Individuality as a feature of the urban lifestyle is fully manifested in its family and everyday life. Here, unlike in the countryside, a person closes himself in his family after work. He often does not know his neighbor, who lives behind the wall of the apartment. And in general, in the city, neighborhood as a side of family and personal relations plays a very insignificant role. People are more likely to meet with colleagues at work (go to visit each other, relax together). The rooting of the individual orientation of the urban way of life is facilitated, not least of all, by the presence in the cities of the so-called "sleeping areas". These are new buildings on the outskirts of the city, where there are no industrial and other enterprises. Working in the city center, people come here only to "sleep". Here, their livelihoods almost do not go beyond the family life. As a result, social control in the city has been significantly weakened, while in the village it is at a high level: people know each other thoroughly, know their parents, grandparents, everyone living in a given village. Everyone's behavior is under the control of all villagers.

Thirdly, the urban way of life is characterized by the predominance of social forms of satisfying the everyday needs of people and a decrease in the forms of family ones! In this regard, it is qualitatively different from the rural way of life. In the village, from ancient times, the household needs of a person were satisfied in the family. Family members, as a rule, knew how to sew clothes themselves, repair shoes, and make simple tools. And, of course, grow bread, vegetables, meat and other food products for your consumption. Therefore, a villager with early years learns to work in the family economy, and then in the field. In the city, due to objective conditions, the household function of the family is narrowed. A citizen cannot grow food - he buys it in a store. He most often does not know how to repair his clothes and shoes. A city apartment does not require, unlike a country house, the preparation of fuel and animal feed.

V last years the service sector in cities has expanded significantly. This is due to technical progress - an increase in the number of personal cars, televisions, computers, mobile phones... They require maintenance, repair. The expansion of the network of service enterprises is also associated with their transfer to private ownership. They provide considerable income to their owners, so their number is growing. If in the recent past, for example, in Moscow there was an acute shortage of enterprises in the urban sphere, now another problem for the population is their high cost. Not every working Muscovite, especially a pensioner, can use consumer services enterprises.

Fourthly, the urban way of life develops away from nature, in an artificial socio-cultural environment. No matter how rich this or that city is in green spaces, water spaces, they cannot replace living nature. Meanwhile, a person as a socio-biological being needs to communicate with the natural environment from which he grew up and in which he was historically formed. The biological principle in a person does not disappear when he moves to the city, with the title of "city dweller". The lack of satisfaction for this beginning negatively affects physical health a person, his psyche and, ultimately, his social behavior.

Naturally, a person, born in an urban environment, adapts to them, his body adapts to a polluted atmosphere and far from clean ecologically clean water and food. However, the adaptive capabilities of the human body are not unlimited; today they clearly lag behind the growth of the components of the artificial environment, especially in a big city. This growth is intensifying in the conditions of market relations. Business owners care little about the development of the city's infrastructure, creating a city-wide environment favorable for residents, and greening the streets. They shift the care and expenses for this to the local budget, being interested only in the momentary profit of their enterprises.

The sense of remoteness from the nature of the townspeople is enhanced by the monotony of the typical development of residential outskirts of modern cities. Houses, like Siamese twins, are similar to each other in different cities. It is not difficult for a person to confuse them, as to the hero of a famous film who, accidentally arriving in Leningrad, could not distinguish between his house and his house in Moscow, where he lived.

For small cities, the problem of remoteness from nature is not as acute as in large and super-large cities. The residents there are closely connected with the village, they often communicate with the villagers, buy food from them for the winter. The way of life in small towns takes on the character of a rural-urban way of life. At present, the remoteness of the city's residents from nature is somewhat compensated by the massive acquisition of garden plots by the townspeople, where they spend weekends, vacations, work on the land, and communicate with nature. These are some of the characteristic features of the urban lifestyle, in their totality, distinguishing it into a special type of lifestyle as social phenomenon.

It is known that a person as a person is formed depending on the objective conditions in which he lives. They determine his value orientations, world outlook, system of views on the surrounding reality and his place in it. The urban environment is no exception in this regard. In all its aspects, it has a daily influence on the formation of the personality of a city dweller from his very birth. Urban living standards, in which a person finds himself in adulthood (moves to the city for permanent residence), determine his desocialization 1 and resocialization 2, adaptation to their characteristics. There is good reason to talk about "educating a person by the city." On what aspects of the personality of a city dweller does the city have its educational influence? First of all, on his mentality. A citizen thinks in broader categories than, say, a resident of a village or small village. This is facilitated by a number of reasons: the breadth of urban space, being in large work collectives, the multinationality of the population, the system of cooperative ties between enterprises, etc. It is, of course, also important that the population of the city has the opportunity to receive a higher education than the inhabitant of the village. Therefore, he thinks not only in concrete, but also in abstract theoretical categories, is predisposed to generalization of facts of life. A worker, an ordinary employee of a city enterprise, institution, more often than a resident of other settlements, communicates with the intelligentsia, which is concentrated mainly in cities. This communication contributes to the growth of the general cultural level of the urban population as a whole.

The urban environment fosters in a person a heightened sense of internationalism, equal treatment of people of other nationalities and religions. Without this, social stability in a big city, the normal functioning of labor collectives, consisting of representatives of many nations and social groups, is impossible today. For example, representatives of almost all nations and religious trends that exist in the Russian Federation live in Moscow. Friendly, equal relations between them are the guarantee of the tranquility of the city's life.

The transience, the constant change of rhythms in the development of urban life cause people to strive to know urban processes, since they affect everyday life, the well-being of residents, and the social status of workers. Striving to know everything about hometown and real knowledge about it contributes to fostering in its residents a sense of urban patriotism, a desire to contribute to its well-being. City authorities should systematically provide information to the population about news in the life of the city, answer citizens' questions. In Moscow, such information is regularly broadcast on television and radio channels, especially in television programs: "Events. Moscow Time" and "Face the City."

Urban conditions, naturally, favor the general cultural and professional growth of residents, especially young people. Young people can prepare and enter a university, improve their specialty, both at the enterprise and in the system of postgraduate education. There are libraries, theaters, museums in the city, visiting which contributes to the enrichment of the spiritual world of a person.

3. Social problems of the city-forming and city-serving spheres of the city

In the early stages of history, the geographical factor was the most important city-forming factor. Cities most often arose along the banks of navigable rivers, which were at that time the main transport arteries. Even the names of the cities came from the names of the rivers (Moscow, Tver, Vyatka, Kashin). Later, in the course of the formation of centralized states, the military factor becomes an important city-forming factor. This can be seen in the example of our country. Russia, Russia throughout its history has been forced to defend itself against the encroachments of its warlike neighbors. To strengthen the borders, fortresses were erected, military settlements were created. Over time, large settlements were formed around them, which later became cities. In this way, Tula, Ryazan, Kolomna, Grozny and other Russian cities arose.

In different periods of history, the formation of individual cities was based on the administrative and managerial factor. The city was built with a predetermined goal - to become the administrative center of a region or the capital of a state. This is how, for example, St. Petersburg was built ( early XVIII century). By the will of Peter I, the city was created not only as a stronghold of the military post of Russia on the shores of the Baltic, but also with the aim of transferring the capital of the Russian state there from Moscow. Washington, founded in 1791, becomes the capital of the United States just 9 years later (in 1800). Apparently, it was originally intended to fulfill the functions of the capital. There were other similar examples in Modern and Contemporary history.

In the 19th-20th centuries, the industrial factor began to play an important role in the formation of new cities. Its essence is that some cities are formed initially as residential areas around large industrial facilities. Then they create enterprises to serve the population, open educational institutions for training, based on the needs of this industrial facility. Such cities are growing very quickly. So, for example, the city of Togliatti (until 1964 Stavropol) in 1959 had 72 thousand inhabitants. Due to the demand for the workforce of the Volga Automobile Plant, the city expanded rapidly, and in 1989 it was already home to 630 thousand people. The population of Naberezhnye Chelny from 1970 to 1989 increased more than 13 times. In the 30s of the last century, the city of Magnitogorsk grew rapidly. It arose in connection with the construction in 1929-1934 of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine. In recent decades, on the basis of the industrial factor, "oil" and "gas" cities have emerged in Western Siberia and in the North of our country.

A modern city, especially a large one, is a complex system. Its main components are: geographic, production-economic and socio-demographic spheres of city life. "Within" these spheres, the city-forming and city-serving factors are distinguished (with a certain degree of convention). The city-forming factors include industrial enterprises, transport, communications, other enterprises and institutions that produce material things or spiritual and cultural products (scientific, educational, research institutions). Thanks to these enterprises and institutions, the city functions, supplies products not only to the inner city, but also to the external and even international market. The city-forming sphere provides the able-bodied population with jobs, and thereby creates conditions for the normal life of the city.

What social problems can arise here and often do exist?

First of all, these problems arise when there is a disproportion between the labor requirements of newly built manufacturing enterprises and the labor resources of a given city. Sometimes, when designing and building an industrial enterprise, one or another department does not always take into account the real availability of local labor and the level of its qualifications in this particular industry, apparently hoping for an influx of skilled workers and engineering and technical personnel from other regions. But then, on the one hand, the problem of housing for migrants arises, and on the other hand, part of the local population experiences unemployment, it must be trained in new specialties necessary for the established enterprise.

An acute social problem takes place in some regions of our country that focus on certain types of production. So, in cities that have developed in recent decades around large deposits oil, gas, non-ferrous metals dominated by "male" labor. Many young unmarried men from other regions of the country go there. Due to the lack of female population, many guys cannot start a family, and are forced to leave these places. The result is a high turnover of personnel at enterprises, which does not contribute to an increase in productivity and quality of labor. In other localities, a similar social problem is associated with an excess of "female" labor. This is typical for regions with weaving production. For example, the largest "textile region" is the Ivanovo region. Here, numerous weaving factories are located not only in cities, but also in rural areas. They were built by manufacturers back in the 19th century and are still in operation. Weaving requires female hands. But they are not enough from among the local population. For example, in the district town of Shuya there are 7 weaving factories. Therefore, many young girls who graduated from textile vocational schools in other parts of the country come here. There is an excess of the female population and a shortage of the male population in the region. This socio-demographic problem manifests itself in male egoism, frequent divorces, fatherlessness, etc.

The solution to these problems lies in the ways of strict balancing of purely production tasks and the availability of local labor resources, their gender and age structure, and the demographic situation of the region as a whole.

To ensure the normal life of the city, the functioning of its service sector is necessary. It includes that side of the functioning of urban transport, communications, activities educational institutions, health care, research institutions, which is aimed at meeting the needs of city residents. The city of the service sector also includes consumer services, utilities, cultural institutions, and intracity trade. These aspects of the urban service sector are extremely important in large cities, especially in metropolitan areas. If in small and even medium-sized cities the problem of intracity transport (short distances), utilities (many private houses, especially in the outskirts), and consumer services is less acute, then in large and super-large cities without a well-functioning service sector, normal life of the population is impossible.

Take Moscow, the country's largest metropolis. The sphere of life support of the population operates in it on a huge scale. And in every direction of this sphere, there are complex problems that negatively affect the inhabitants of the city. Let's start with transport. The rapid growth in the fleet of vehicles is an indicator of an increase in the well-being of Muscovites, but on the other hand, this has created a difficult situation on the city streets: traffic jams not only during rush hours, but throughout the day, an increase in traffic accidents, often with death and injury participants. At first glance, a technical problem is also an acute social problem, since it is related to the life and safety of people.

In recent years, due to the expansion of market relations in Moscow, the housing problem... The city is building many apartments. But if in the old days they were distributed among residents free of charge (on a first come, first served basis), now apartments are mainly sold to everyone at fabulous prices, inaccessible to a person who receives income only in the form of a salary. Only a small proportion of housing is allocated to people on the waiting list (queues last 10-15 years).

The next problem is the prices for goods and services of basic necessities. Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Yes, we now have an abundance of goods and services. You cannot compare it with what it was 15-20 years ago, when the shops were empty and everything was sold with coupons or long queues. Now you can buy everything for free. But not all Muscovites have the money for this. It is morally very difficult for a poor person to see the abundance of goods and to realize that it is impossible to buy the most essential foodstuffs and simple clothes.

Social, deeply vital problems of the population of Moscow, as well as of other Russian cities, can be enumerated and enumerated. It remains to be hoped that in the near future they will be gradually resolved as the productive forces of our society develop, and Russia's economic growth. The modern stage of urbanization is characterized by qualitative changes in the structural and territorial aspect of urban settlement.

There is a process of transition from a quantitative increase in the population in a limited urban area to the "sprawl" of large cities into suburban areas, the formation of urban agglomerations - unification big city with small towns (satellite towns) located around it. This process takes place mainly on a production basis, through the cooperation of industrial enterprises of the core city with peripheral enterprises. There is another factor underlying agglomeration processes - a change in the relationship between the place of work and the place of residence of people. Today, a significant part of the suburban population works in the main city of the metropolitan area. The unified transport system provides for "pendulum" or "shuttle" migration (daily commute from home to work and back).

The largest agglomerations are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk and others. For example, Moscow by thousands of threads - industrial, scientific, educational and educational - is connected with cities and towns of the nearest and distant periphery. Every day about a million people come to work and study in Moscow from the Moscow region, tens of thousands of Muscovites go to work in the Moscow region.

Thus, the folding of urban agglomerations is an objective process. It occurs in all industrialized countries of the world. Its positive significance lies in the fact that the excessive growth of large cities stops, the density of their population is "thinned out" due to the fact that people will less tend to the central city of the agglomeration, because living conditions are becoming the same throughout the agglomeration complex. And in small towns life is calmer, the ecological situation is more favorable.

The city as a special type of settlement is characterized not only by the closedness of space and a high concentration of the population, industrial and cultural facilities, it is also a special environment that determines the specific way of life of people. In the urban society, one can observe the presence of specific connections and interactions that determine the characteristics of the urban lifestyle. In modern society, individualistic values ​​become the essence of morality and ethics of behavior. It is they who determine the degree of involvement of a city dweller in the rhythm of city life, social events and phenomena.

The study of the socio-economic situation of the village presupposes a holistic description of not only the territorial-spatial structure and social production of the village, but also the vital activity of the population, its way of life. And, indeed, there are no social problems of the village, both production and non-production, that would not manifest themselves through a person, would not affect any aspects of his life.

4. Urban lifestyle as an object of sociological analysis

As shown by the pilot study carried out by the Department of Sociology of Togliatti State University, among the main objective factors of the urban lifestyle, which determines the specifics of the leisure of citizens, their values, are the territorial-demographic, economic and socio-cultural foundations, as well as professional activity the individual. Subjective factors include attitude to the city, life and family values, free time.

By the way of life, as follows from the results of the study, many (59%) understand values ​​and life goals, as well as manners and habits of behavior, family rules. In our opinion, the urban way of life is characterized by special forms of professional self-expression and leisure activities, which differ markedly from similar manifestations in rural areas. As in the countryside, the townspeople prefer the family lifestyle. However, as the survey has shown, the dominant lifestyle of the respondents is still work, in connection with which we can say that the lifestyle of the townspeople is working. As it turned out, in a large industrial city like Togliatti, not everyone has two days off each week, but only half of the respondents. Fortunately, during the holidays, those who answered the questionnaire have a rest.

In the city, an important role is played by the corporate culture, the culture of professional self-organization, which is not adequate to the public, pro-social 1. In addition, the characteristic features of the urban lifestyle are also an orientation towards hedonism, entertainment, proportionate to the professional role. Leisure forms are typically urban, one might say instrumental. In urban settings, interpersonal relationships are often narrowed down to the size of a nuclear family, while professional ties can grow widely. Many of the people surveyed (53%) try to attend corporate evenings whenever possible, which is explained by the tendency of management to form corporate culture in this way. At the same time, for the majority (69%), celebrating family events is an important part of their lifestyle. Free time is most often spent with relatives, with friends, in nature. Among the characteristics that determine the lifestyle of Russians as a whole, the respondents named the following features: permissiveness, careerism, “a beautiful life,” raising children. Most sexual freedom, family life, individualism, education, an interesting type of people, in the opinion of the respondents, are people "family" and "optimists". The latter reminds of the recent years of the general crisis and testifies to the fact that the whole society needs positive reinforcement of the process of moving forward towards a better future. Among the values ​​of life, many singled out love and support of loved ones (68%), as well as their own health and family members (80%). Material success was noted only by 34%, which once again proves: for a modern city dweller, money is not main value, but only a means to ensure existence.

As it turned out, it is important for respondents to live in a city, which supports the hypothesis that the feeling of a city dweller is one of the features of an urban lifestyle. Few people want to leave the city, having moved to it from the village or were born in it. They are attracted by both economic prospects and socio-cultural opportunities of the city.

There is another advantage of the urban lifestyle: living in the city is interesting due to the presence of a sense of community. At the time of the 2002 census, Togliatti had a population of just over 700 thousand people. Among the respondents, the majority (71%) try, whenever possible, to attend citywide events that are held in each of the three administrative districts. In such events, the need for involvement in a common cause, in making joint significant decisions, in positive experiences is realized.

Conclusion

1) The city was and is the object of study of many scientific disciplines, because all spheres of human life are focused in it: a person lives in it, works, he self-develops as a person in psychological and social terms. The city is both ecology, and economy, and everyday life, and macrosocial processes and much more. Therefore, to describe and study the city, knowledge of various sciences is used: social and humanitarian, naturally scientific.

2) The city, by virtue of its essence, "forces" to deal with a variety of issues and integrate diverse knowledge into some unified concept. And these concepts are increasingly acquiring a sociological character: the city is understood in recent times not so much as a form of settlement and production, but as a form of community, as a type of sociality, the essential feature of which is the integration of various types of life into a single self-developing system with its own mechanisms for maintaining stability and order.

3) The problems of the city need to be deeply and seriously studied, to look for and find ways to solve them. At the moment, this task is one of the most important tasks facing social science and which it can and should solve.

The most important condition for balanced urban development is the existence of agreement between different urban communities and the management system for priority development areas. For this, it is necessary that the governing bodies are open and as close as possible to the population. This can be achieved by using the project approach in municipal management.

For any developed country, a stable socio-economic situation is a very important point in overall development the state. This also applies to rural areas, as well as other spheres of life. But no matter how ideal the state is, there are always those aspects that require detailed study and control. These include socio-economic processes in rural areas.

Thus, the urban way of life, being a variety of the way of life of a given society, retains the basic, essential features of the latter. At the same time, it is an independent type of lifestyle as a social phenomenon. It is characterized by such features that qualitatively distinguish it, say, from the rural way of life. In the future, both of these basic ways of life will, apparently, converge on the basis of the gradual overcoming of social differences between town and country, between people of industrial and agricultural labor. Differences are social, natural differences will persist for a long time.

List of used literature

1. Georg Simmel Big Cities and Spiritual Life. Logos 2002 Chapter # 3-4

2. Shtompka P. Sociology of social change. Per, from English, ed. V.A. Yadov. - Moscow: Aspect Press, 1996 .-- 416p.

3. Orlova E.A. Contemporary urban culture and people. Moscow: Nauka, 1987 .-- 191p.

4. Big cities, their social, political and economic importance / Author: K. Bucher, G. Mayer, G. Zimmel and others. St. Petersburg: (Library "Education"), 1905. - 204 p.

5. Student Library Online - http://studbooks.net.

6. Max Weber Favorites. The image of society. Moscow .: Publishing house: "Yurist" 1994. - 704 p.

7. Louis Wirth. "Urbanism as a way of life" / Per. from English - M .: Strelka Press, 2016 .-- 108 p.

8. "Bibliofond" electronic student library http://bibliofond.ru.

9. Database of scientific reports http://docus.me.

10. Library of the architect http://archspeech.com.

Posted on Allbest.ru

Similar documents

    Lifestyle as a characteristic of personality. Factors influencing the formation of a lifestyle. Violations of the formation of a lifestyle. Psychological and social features of gambling, the mechanism of their influence on the lifestyle and recommendations for correction.

    graduate work, added 06/07/2013

    The problem of interaction in the urban environment in the works of the Chicago School. Images in Sociology. The specifics of the consideration of the urban environment by the Chicago School (on the example of the concepts of Robert Park and Louis Wirth). Features of lifestyle and social interaction.

    term paper added on 10/13/2013

    Definition of the concept and disclosure of the essence of social design. Description of the way of life as an object of social design of the conditions and features of the daily life of people in society. Development of a social project "We are for a healthy lifestyle".

    test, added 06/18/2014

    Theoretical foundations for studying the way of life and value priorities of youth. The integrative nature of the category "way of life" in relation to the concepts of "way of life", "quality of life". The lifestyle of youth as seen by the parent and child generation.

    term paper added on 11/07/2013

    The concept and essence of the category "lifestyle", its components. Leaders as a specific social group. Sociological analysis of the way of life of modern leaders of Vologda. Characteristics of content analysis of printed sources of the city of Vologda.

    thesis, added 09/16/2017

    The specifics of modern socio-economic processes in the Russian countryside. Social project as a tool for effective urban management. Urban lifestyle as an object of sociological analysis. The cultural image of a modern Russian city.

    article added on 11/09/2009

    The essence of the concept healthy way life. Regulatory framework for health protection and the formation of a healthy lifestyle of the population. Descriptions of preventive social work on the formation of attitudes towards a healthy lifestyle among adolescents and young people.

    test, added 01/16/2013

    Urban sociology as a special branch of sociological science. Sociological research and analysis of urban lifestyle, communication structure, specifics of personality development, family relations... The interconnection of elements that create a holistic image of the city.

    test, added 08/18/2013

    Installation for a healthy lifestyle. Rational nutrition and its meaning. Personal hygiene rules. Influence motor activity and hardening the body to health. Formation of a healthy lifestyle in childhood, adolescence, adolescence and adulthood.

    term paper added 01/27/2016

    Analysis of the psychological signs of old age. Characteristics of the aging person's lifestyle and its implications for the aging process. Conducting a survey in order to identify the preferences of a modern elderly person in a passive or active lifestyle.

When I was at the university, I had several people from the villages in my group. I have always heard that they want to stay in the city, that there are no prospects in the village. I agree with them, I think, basically, all young people are trying to move to the city and take advantage of all the opportunities.

How rural life differs from urban life

In the village, I only came to my grandmother in the summer for the holidays. Of course, their life is completely different. I have been living in the city since birth, but so far the maximum that attracts me is the acquisition of a summer cottage. We have a river in our city, and having a small house next to it is quite a good idea.


First of all, in a village or village, the absence of large industrial enterprises is striking. Nowhere can you find a factory in the middle of the village. Sometimes such objects are built outside the city, but, all the same, settlements near them are considered at least urban settlements. Of course, all villagers keep livestock. But one should not think that people in villages and villages still live without any conveniences. It all depends on finances, you can build a comfortable house in any village.

One of the biggest differences is people. The rural population is much more friendly and sociable. For example, I don't even know all the neighbors at my entrance, but there people know each other personally.

Pros and cons of living in the city

Each person chooses a place to their liking. But whatever one may say, living in the city has many advantages:

  • developed infrastructure;
  • convenient transport system;
  • more vacancies and higher wage;
  • lots of educational institutions;
  • advanced medicine.

But not all city dwellers are happy with their lives, and many are even seriously thinking about moving to some village. The reasons are as follows:

  • bad ecology;
  • high crime rate;
  • heavy workload;
  • deterioration in physical and mental condition.

As a rule, the desire to lead a more measured lifestyle among city dwellers arises with age, I think this is due to fatigue from a too fast pace of life.

The positive aspects of city life include the presence of a comfortable apartment. In this situation, there are no problems with heating, electricity, garbage disposal. In addition, the apartment has cold, hot water and other amenities of housing and communal services. As a rule, when living within the city limits, there are no difficulties in getting to work. If work is carried out close to home, you can walk, but if far away, you can get there by metro, taxi, personal car or public transport... Preschool and school institutions, as a rule, are located within walking distance from home. And retail outlets can be located right on the ground floor of the residential. There are many places of entertainment in the city.

In addition to its advantages, living in the city also has disadvantages. The apartment, although well maintained, has limited space. This is especially felt when organizing a feast with a number of guests. The walls of the apartment have low noise insulation and do not allow loudly listening to music, singing, dancing, since all this disturbs the neighbors. V multi-storey buildings there is a risk of being flooded with neighbors from above and the risk of flooding the residents from the lower floor themselves. The courtyards of houses are constantly crowded with cars. There is practically no opportunity to breathe clean air in the city.

Advantages and disadvantages of living outside the city

There are many advantages of living outside the city. You can build yourself a house of any size. The main thing is not to limit financial opportunities... You can also equip it at your own request. There is an opportunity to arrange parties with any number of invitees. You can sing and dance until late - the neighbors will not make claims. In addition, those invited for the night can be accommodated in the guest rooms. It is very convenient that you do not need to go far to get the car, since the garage is located next to the house. Outside the city, you can build your own bathhouse, gazebo, lay out a lawn. There is an opportunity to start a personal farm. An additional plus can be considered the presence of a river or forest in the nearby area. Away from the city, the air is clean and fresh.

Suburban life has its own difficulties. In most cases, you cannot do without a personal car. Since there is no way to get to the city by public transport the right place, there is a certain dependence on the vehicle. The daily cost of gasoline can be terrifying. Living outside the city during the cold season can be dangerous. Roads covered with snow do not always allow you to leave, even when urgently needed. In addition to all this, it is necessary to resolve the issue of work and education of children - to go for a drive to the city every day or to get a job in your village. Entertainment in these is practically absent, which can begin to weigh on a family leading a secular lifestyle.

Thus, it is much more practical to live in a city after all. It is convenient to have a country house instead of a summer residence. In summer, you can ride there to take a break from the hustle and bustle, fry barbecue, breathe clean air, and gain strength, return to your favorite city.

Related article

People are very interesting creatures who are usually unhappy with many things going on in their lives. However, such dissatisfaction is one of those psychological mechanisms that move us forward to new sensations, emotions and experiences. This is what allows you to break out of your usual routine and throw yourself headlong into the unknown, for example, change your place of residence, moving from a noisy metropolis to a small provincial town, while avoiding many difficulties that will surely await untrained downshifters.

In the life of almost every person living in a metropolis, there comes a moment when he realizes that a frantic rhythm, an endless pursuit of money, status and the resulting inability to fully relax, makes you think about changing your place of residence. Now this phenomenon (downshifting) has become widespread among residents of large cities who dream of peace and quiet. In this article, we will consider one of the types of downshifting, namely moving to a small town.

What are the advantages of such a solution?

You will forget what it is like to live in a crowd, queues, traffic jams, gas-polluted air, lack of free time and fear of all kinds of criminals and people from the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Great, but how can you avoid the many problems that newcomers face in a new place? Read on and you will definitely find out.

First of all, in a new place you will need to get one. As a rule, there will be no difficulties with him. Prices are lower than in the capitals (renting a 1-room apartment will cost you only 7-12 thousand rubles). In addition, many apartments are rented from, so you will not need to worry about paying a commission to a realtor. If you decide to settle in a new place on a permanent basis, then a 1-room apartment in the province will cost an average of 1.5-1.8 million rubles.

So, you have already thought and assessed what kind of apartment you need and whether you are moving to permanent residence or not. The second important question you must decide is work. Considering that in the provinces they often have not even heard of such specialists who are in demand, for example, in Moscow, it makes sense to find yourself some kind of remote work. This will allow you to both do your favorite job and earn an order of magnitude more than employers pay employees in small towns. Another problem of finding a job in the provinces is that the so-called "grain" places, through which financial flows pass, in small towns are usually occupied by "their" people. Therefore, remote work can be a kind of lifeline for you.

Don't lose touch with your friends. In the provinces, you may have difficulty communicating with the locals. For them, you will be a fat-mad metropolitan eccentric, while they are supposedly busy with hard work to get themselves a livelihood.

What might you not like?

Boredom may attack you sooner or later. A meager assortment of goods, a very small number of exhibitions, museums, concerts, trainings, conferences and seminars. Perhaps only with cinemas and nightclubs is complete order. After a noisy metropolis, you may get the impression that nothing is happening here at all.

Bad infrastructure. Broken roads, lack of street lighting, sidewalks uncleaned from snow - this is not a complete list of what you may have to face.

Increased attention from others. One of the side effects of the fact that in small cities there are significant problems with leisure, and this is compensated by the fact that people start looking at each other more: who is dressed like, who went where, what they bought, etc.

Be that as it may, know that there will be no problem-free move, and in the new place you will have to overcome some difficulties. In this article, I have told you about the advantages and disadvantages of living in the provinces. How to dispose of this information is up to you. I only wish: "Bon voyage!"