14
QERALD L. YOUNQ
categorization, typology. Such an orientation does not make it less valid,
just less human ecology.
One focus in social area analysis, the city, can be traced as a theme
throughout the history of the ecological approach in sociology. The city
as a fit subject for ecological analysis is found prominently in the early
works of the Chicago school of sociological human ecologists (republished
in the 1960’s by the University of Chicago Press; see Wirth, 1964;
Park et al., 1967 as well as others, including such isolated papers as that
by Anderson and Lindeman, 1928) where the city is declared an “ecological fact”, explainable in terms of the tendency of all life to “live in
communities”, to form “associations, groups, communities, societies”,
i.e. in the case of man, a tendency to live in urban aggregates (see also
Burgess, 1953). This theme has continued into contemporary human
ecology in the works of Schmid (1950), Schmid et al. (1958) and
Molotch (1967) and in books produced by Quinn (1950b), Park (1952),
Beshers (1962), Schnore (I965), Thomlinson (1969) and Hawley (1971).
Shepard (1969) in fact dismisses the sociological approach completely as
“a branch of sociology called Human Ecology, but it is mostly about
urban geography”. Shepard’s statement may be in part applicable to
one approach in sociology (social area analysis) but not to all ecological
studies in sociology; he ignores the significance of distribution and
locational analysis in general ecological explanation. There is, in addition,
an established ecological literature in rural sociology, focusing on
problems apart from urban areas (see Edwards, 1947; Young and
Larson, 1970).
If there is one theme that runs through sociological human ecology
from the beginning to the present, it is the importance of “organization”
as a fundamental principle, a unity threaded throughout the history of
sociology and human ecology. Durkheim (1902) indicated how “mental
accommodations to the life-situation shape social organization”. Schnore
(1958) reinforces the idea that Durkheim considered social morphology
as a major branch of sociology and that one type of major inquiry in his
studies was “the study of the environmental basis of social organization”. Spencer, in his early book “The Principles of Sociology” (1885),
compares similarities and differences between sociological and biological
organizations. Park and Burgess (1921) remark that most of the work
on accommodation was “concerned almost exclusively with the
principles, methods, and technique of organization”. They are using
the word accommodation here to mean adaptation through acquired
habit, social tradition, through modification of the environment, as
opposed to biological or hereditary adaptation. Later Park (1936b),
who viewed competition as the essence of human ecology, again
stressed it as an “organizing process’’ connecting man to man and
QERALD L. YOUNQ
categorization, typology. Such an orientation does not make it less valid,
just less human ecology.
One focus in social area analysis, the city, can be traced as a theme
throughout the history of the ecological approach in sociology. The city
as a fit subject for ecological analysis is found prominently in the early
works of the Chicago school of sociological human ecologists (republished
in the 1960’s by the University of Chicago Press; see Wirth, 1964;
Park et al., 1967 as well as others, including such isolated papers as that
by Anderson and Lindeman, 1928) where the city is declared an “ecological fact”, explainable in terms of the tendency of all life to “live in
communities”, to form “associations, groups, communities, societies”,
i.e. in the case of man, a tendency to live in urban aggregates (see also
Burgess, 1953). This theme has continued into contemporary human
ecology in the works of Schmid (1950), Schmid et al. (1958) and
Molotch (1967) and in books produced by Quinn (1950b), Park (1952),
Beshers (1962), Schnore (I965), Thomlinson (1969) and Hawley (1971).
Shepard (1969) in fact dismisses the sociological approach completely as
“a branch of sociology called Human Ecology, but it is mostly about
urban geography”. Shepard’s statement may be in part applicable to
one approach in sociology (social area analysis) but not to all ecological
studies in sociology; he ignores the significance of distribution and
locational analysis in general ecological explanation. There is, in addition,
an established ecological literature in rural sociology, focusing on
problems apart from urban areas (see Edwards, 1947; Young and
Larson, 1970).
If there is one theme that runs through sociological human ecology
from the beginning to the present, it is the importance of “organization”
as a fundamental principle, a unity threaded throughout the history of
sociology and human ecology. Durkheim (1902) indicated how “mental
accommodations to the life-situation shape social organization”. Schnore
(1958) reinforces the idea that Durkheim considered social morphology
as a major branch of sociology and that one type of major inquiry in his
studies was “the study of the environmental basis of social organization”. Spencer, in his early book “The Principles of Sociology” (1885),
compares similarities and differences between sociological and biological
organizations. Park and Burgess (1921) remark that most of the work
on accommodation was “concerned almost exclusively with the
principles, methods, and technique of organization”. They are using
the word accommodation here to mean adaptation through acquired
habit, social tradition, through modification of the environment, as
opposed to biological or hereditary adaptation. Later Park (1936b),
who viewed competition as the essence of human ecology, again
stressed it as an “organizing process’’ connecting man to man and