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There are few issues in British history about which so much unsubstantiated assertion has been written as the adverse impact of industrial urbanization upon popular religiosity. Urban history undergraduates are plied each year with the well-worn secularizing interpretation of urban growth which emanated with the Victorians (mostly churchmen) and which has since been reassembled by modern investigators in forms suitable for digestion in ecclesiastical history, social history (Marxist and non-Marxist), historical sociology, and historical geography. This 'pessimist' school of thought has reigned virtually unchallenged since the nineteenth century, giving rise in its endless repetition to simplistic historiographical myths. Arguably, systematic inquiry has suffered because modern urban society has been regarded as inimical to religion.An important start to disentangling the web of confusion has already been made by Jeff Cox in his admirable but underrated The English Churches in a Secular Society, a study of Lambeth between 1870 and 1930. 'In the first and final chapters of that book, Cox commenced the assault on the 'pessimist' school, pointing out in necessarily blunt language the illogicality and empirical weakness in the arguments of many historians and sociologists of religion. That book should have a reserved space on every reading list dealing with this issue. The present article attempts to expand on what might be called the 'optimist' school of thought concerning the impact of urbanization upon religion: that the churches survived urbanization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While Cox adduced from his research on the 1870–930 period that the great decline of the churches had not occurred before then, the following pages shift the focus to a reassessment of of the evidence on the preceding 100 years.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- A Survey of Urbanization in Korea -- Causes and Comparisons of Urban Growth -- Primacy and City Size Distribution -- Migration -- Structure of Cities -- Land Values -- Housing -- Urban Transportation -- Environmental Quality -- Conclusions -- Appendixes -- Appendix to Chapter 2 Statistical Data on Urbanization in Korea -- Appendix to Chapter 3 Statistical Data on Urban Growth -- Appendix to Chapter 4 Statistical Data on Primacy and City Size Distribution -- Appendix to Chapter 5 Statistical Data on Migration -- Appendix to Chapter 6 Statistical Data on Structure of Cities -- Appendix to Chapter 7 Statistical Data on Land Values -- Appendix to Chapter 8 Statistical Data on Housing -- Appendix to Chapter 9 Statistical Data on Urban Transportation -- Appendix to Chapter 10 Statistical Data on Environmental Quality -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Abstract In an effort to evaluate the situational determinants of crime, principal components analysis was used to reduce 59 demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of 840 American cities to six independent factors: affluence, stage in life cycle, economic specialization, expenditures policy, poverty, and urbanization. When regressed upon crime rates two of these six factors, urbanization and poverty, were found to be the more important criminogenic forces. The exception to this generalization was the South, where stage in life cycle was more important than poverty in explaining crime. One reason for this exception may be that the South, though having a lower standard of living than other regions of the country, does not have the "culture of poverty" usually associated with lower income. Contrary to the assumption upon which most ecology of crime studies are based, larger cities (over 100,000 in population) are not representative of all cities. Greater association between socioeconomic variables and crime was found in larger than in smaller cities.

An attempt was made to test the hypothesis that Ur'ization of the Afrikaner would lead to a more tolerant attitude towards non-whites & a disenchantment with the policy of apartheid. The study was undertaken within the framework of a larger study conducted in the 'Flatland' area of Johannesburg, one of the most densely populated areas in Africa. The sample consisted of 482 residents, of whom 52 were Afrikaans-speaking South Africans. A scale of Ur'ization was constructed based upon the proportion of time which the individual had spent in Ur areas. Scores on the Ur'ization scale were r'ed with scores on 5 attitude scales: anti-African prejudice, pro-apartheid ideology, authoritarianism, humanitarianism, democratic ideology & anomie. A positive r between scores on the scales of anti-African prejudice & pro-apartheid ideology suggested that a dislike of the African underlay the policy of apartheid. The role of group solidarity in mediating the effects of Ur'ization on the att's measured was considered. AA.

Nations of Asia, predominately made up of villages with rural life more the norm than city life, have been changing into lands of cities. The uniqueness of this urban growth in Asia is the universality of its nature and accelerated pace, caused primarily by the explosive increase of population and its shifts into cities. As a result, the immediate consequence of population concentration in Asian big cities in particular, without an adequate base of industrial and urban economies, is the inevitable deterioration of human environment, which affects the lifestyles of families and individuals in cities and rural villages as well. In other words, the patterns of life that provided for the orderly handling of many matters have to be compromised or shattered altogether. It must be recognized, however, that the urbanization process in Asian cities is playing a dynamic role, demonstrating a new spirit in the development of the urban community as well as in the process of modernization of a nation itself. Asian leaders are now convinced that planned urban growth, including the improvement of human environment, is a necessary condition for both a balanced economic growth and a new quality of life.

The formation of slums need not be inevitable with rapid urbanization. Such an argument appears to be contradicted by evidence of large slum populations in a large number of developing countries and particularly in rapidly urbanizing regions like Asia. The evidence discussed suggests that city authorities faced with rapid urban development lack the capacity to cope with the diverse demands for infrastructural provision to meet economic and social needs. Not only are strategic planning and intervention major issues in agenda to manage rapid urbanization, but city governments are not effectively linking the economic development trajectory to implications for urban growth and, hence, housing needs. In the following discussion, a case study is presented in support of the argument that city governments have to first recognize and then act to establish the link that is crucial between economic development, urban growth, and housing. This is the agendum that has been largely neglected by city and national governments that have been narrowly focused on economic growth with the consequent proliferation of slum formation as a housing solution.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- 1. A Nation of Cities -- The Urbanization of America -- Emergence of a New Society -- The Country and the City -- Urban Dwellers and Farm Folk -- Some Consequent Problems -- 2. The American System: The Many and the One -- The Federal System -- The Place of the Cities -- The Cities and the States -- The Cities and the Nation -- Quest for Operational Effectiveness -- An Evolving Federalism -- 3. Unequal Partners: The Case of the Reluctant State -- State Constitutions -- Representative Government -- Organization for Administration -- Resources -- Programs -- Horizons -- Conclusion -- 4. Emergence of an Urban Partner -- Government and Civil Aviation -- The Issue of Federal Aid -- The Recipient Government Dilemma -- The Two Positions -- Congressional Action and Reaction -- The Crystallization of Policy -- 5. The Expanded Partnership: Nature -- Rise of Federal-City Relations -- Three Joint Programs -- Federal-Aid Airport Program -- Urban Renewal -- Low-Rent Public Housing -- Some Observations on the Expanded Partnership -- 6. Three Views of the Expanded Partnership -- Washington: The View from Above -- The Community: The View from Below -- The State House: The Midway View -- 7. The Expanded Partnership: Appraisal -- Consequences Anticipated and Unanticipated -- Problems Real and Fancied -- Local Government Organization -- The Metropolitan Problem -- The Expanded Partnership and the States -- The Expanded Partnership and Democratic Government -- Index

This dissertation contains three chapters that examine development and urbanization in China since 1980. The first chapter investigates the impact of Special Economic Zones established since 1992 on local economic outcomes and urbanization rates. The second chapter studies local bureaucrats' incentives while balancing the goals of economic growth and resource or environmental protection. The last chapter examines patterns of urbanization in China as related to the administrative hierarchy between urban and rural regions.In the first chapter, I examine the local and aggregate productivity impacts of Chinas Special Economic Zones (SEZ) program from the 1990s to 2006. Using an event study de- sign where I exploit variation in the timing of the first zone establishment across counties, I find that an SEZ increased GDP by 1% to 2% per year over 5 years. In order to assess the aggregate impact of the program, I develop a spatial equilibrium model with two sectors – agriculture and manufacturing. In the model, the economy-wide output impact of an SEZ depends on the elasticities of inter-regional and inter-sectoral labor supply, as well as the relative productivity levels of the SEZ-hosting regions and other regions. I do not find any evidence that the SEZ program induced inter-regional labor reallocation. However, the program did accelerate the shift of employment from the agricultural sector.In the second chapter, I explore whether Chinese bureaucrats' policy decisions depend on connections with their superiors through the appointment of bureaucrats to office. In particular, I consider appointment as a kind act on the part of the promoter, and ask whether the promoted bureaucrat enacts policies that are in the interest of his benefactor. This framework is applied to the policy outcome of rural land conversion and air pollution. I examine whether rural land conversion is more prevalent, and whether air pollution is more abundant, when the local bureaucrat works under the Party Secretary who promoted him. My analysis exploits variation in the length of politicians terms within individual and pairs of politicians. Preliminary findings suggest that promoted land bureaucrats may exhibit reciprocal behavior, while environmental protection bureaucrats may not.In the last chapter, I study the impact on urbanization of the Cities Leading Counties (CLC) policy implemented in China beginning in 1983. This nationwide program granted large metropolitan governments administrative control over counties in the surroundinghinterland. I use annual county-level nighttime lights data to examine changes in urbanization in the hinterland after integration with a city. I find that while the policy increased urbanization in counties subsumed into cities, the cities themselves did not experience faster urbanization.