5.3 The Chicago School
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities as it experienced a huge influx of people, especially immigrants from various foreign nations. Throughout the 1900s, sociologists at the University of Chicago were witness to the interplay among different groups. So many theories came out of the University of Chicago during the 20th century that they became known collectively as The Chicago School. The Chicago School focused on urban settings, bringing to the forefront many new theories that centered urban America.
Robert E. Park, an American urban sociologist, spent his professional career studying human behavior as it pertained to human ecology, race relations, assimilation, migratory patterns, and social structure. Along with his colleagues, noted sociologists Ernest W. Burgess, and R. D. McKenzie, he published the book The City (1925). In it, they liken a city to a living organism, with interactions between humans and their natural environments acting in both a shared and conflicting manner, depending on a group’s location within the city.
It was Burgess, however, who proposed the concentric zone theory, which states that a city’s design is conducive to criminal behavior within its zone of transition, which is the space between the areas where people work and where they live. In simpler terms, a city can be seen much like a target board, with multiple concentric circles surrounding a central hub (figure 5.10). Each circle is specific to its municipal function (manufacturing, city business, residential, etc.).
Shaw and McKay’s Social Disorganization Theory
In the 1940s, sociologists Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay took what they had learned as students of Park and Burgess and developed their own theory. They began to plot the addresses of juvenile court-referred boys and noticed that many of the addresses were located in the zone of transition (zone 2). Upon further investigation, Shaw and McKay noticed three qualitative differences in the transitional zone compared to other zones. First, the physical status included the invasion of industry and the largest number of condemned buildings. When many buildings are in disrepair, population levels decrease. Second, the population composition was also different. The zone in transition had higher concentrations of foreign-born and Black heads of families. It also had a transient population. Third, there were socioeconomic differences. The transitional zone had the highest rates of welfare, the lowest median rent, and the lowest percentage of family-owned houses. Interrelated, the zone also had the highest rates of infant deaths, tuberculosis, and mental illness.
Shaw and McKay believed the zone in transition led to social disorganization. Social disorganization is the inability of social institutions to control individuals’ behavior. Consequently, their theory, social disorganization theory, claims that neighborhoods with weak community controls caus