Cities and towns; Social psychology; Sociology; Sociology, Urban
On the other hand, a community which has reached the point of
culmination and which has experienced no form of release is likely to
settle into a condition of stagnation. Its natural surplus of population
is forced to emigrate. This type of emigration tends to occasion
folk-depletion in the parent community. The younger and more
enterprising population elements respond most sensitively to the absence
of opportunities in their home town. This is particularly true when the
community has but a single economic base, such as agriculture,
lumbering, mining. Reformers try in vain to induce the young people to
remain on the farms or in their native villages, little realizing that
they are working in opposition to the general principles of the
ecological order.
Again, when a community starts to decline in population due to a
weakening of the economic base, disorganization and social unrest
follow.[46] Competition becomes keener within the community, and the
weaker elements either are forced into a lower economic level or are
compelled to withdraw from the community entirely. There are, of course,
periodic and temporary fluctuations in the economic balance, due either
to circumstances which affect the entire economic order or to the
vicissitudes of the particular industry from which the community draws
its sustenance. These temporary fluctuations, however, while important
from the standpoint of social well-being, do not comprise the basic
determinants of community development.
The introduction of an innovating element into the adjustment of a
community may be designated as the initial stage of an invasion which
may make for a complete change in the structure and organization of the
community. The introduction of a new mode of transportation, for
instance, may transform the economic organization of a community and
make for a change in population type.
Thus the Harlem Railroad transformed Quaker Hill from a community of
diversified farming, producing, manufacturing, selling, consuming,
sufficient unto itself, into a locality of specialized farming. Its
market had been Poughkeepsie, twenty-eight miles away, over high hills
and indifferent roads. Its metropolis became New York, sixty-two miles
away by rail and four to eight miles by wagon-road.
With the railroad’s coming, the isolated homogeneous community
scattered. The sons of the Quakers emigrated. Laborers from Ireland
and other European lands, even negroes from Virginia, took their
places. New Yorkers became residents on the Hill, which became the
farthest terminus of suburban travel.[47]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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