Abstract:

Background of Study: In the later period of modernization, rural-urban separation has disappeared and urban life has come into a situation such as that it has enclosed all dimensions of social relations. Today, to speak on society means, in a sense, to speak on the urban life. This fact has formed the new focus of sociological interest toward urban issue. Purpose of Study: In the article, with the references to the sociological literature of the twentieth century on the urban issue, the transformation of social relations, life-style, and the forms of sociality is examined. The condition of morality and the changing functions of communities in urban life constitute the main point of the study. Sources of Data: The observations and claims posited in their analysis on the urban life by some sociologists such as Wirth, Simmel, Sennett, and Bauman shapes the framework of the study. The studies of those scholars on the issue form the primary sources for the article. In addition, the critical and commentary texts on the thoughts of those scholars are used as secondary sources in the article. Main Discussion and Conclusions: At the beginning of the twentieth century, many sociologists had observed that traditional social relations in the urban space started to be solved under pressure of the new social formations. They had generally commented this circumstance as a quick direction toward “the loss of community” and “the emergence of a strict anonymity”. But, by the midtwentieth century, it is observed that new primary social relations and new types of community have emerged. As a result of the urbanization of the society entirely “society” and “community” which were conceptualised in classical sociology as different types of sociality existing in different times and different places has come together with other in a same period and space. Thus, it clearly seems that the conceptualization of anonymity and the loss of community by Simmel and Wirth had included extreme anticipations about the nature of the modern society. At the same time, The emergence of new communities in the urban scene resulted in some anxieties such as “fall of public man” Sennett . At the late-twentieth century, anonimity and communality are assessed as social structures giving response to different needs of urbanism and it is seen possible that they may co-exist together Bauman . Contemporary cities can be seen “moral” space giving response to the needs of the people, who keep away from those, in their search for community as well as they are “ethic” space of anonymous relations and strangers. Today, to rescue the concepts such as urban-rural, societycommunity, etc. from their dualist meanings which were loaded on them by Classical Sociology has become an important problem for urban sociology

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