Urban

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Urban areas are distinct from rural areas.

Typically, urban areas have been seen as densely inhabited, however, precisely at what level of population density a rural area becomes a city is unclear.

In 1938, Lewis Wirth, a member of the Chicago School of Sociology, came up with a more rigorous definition, calling urbanism "the complex of traits which makes up the characteristic mode of life in cities."

For Wirth, the numbers, density, and heterogeneity of individuals in a city led to a loss of tradition, an adoption of anonymity, the dominance of transitory social relations, and also, the development of sophistication and rationality.

The 1960 US census was the first in which the majority of Americans lived in urban areas. By 1970, more Americans lived in suburbs than in urban areas. Yet, if less dense, suburbs contained all the traits of urbanism that Wirth described, if in different measure.

The 21st century is the first century in which the world's population is dominated by dwellers in cities. As important as this dominance of the urban in terms of population is its utter dominance sociologically. Regardless of where one lives, modern telecommunications and new migration patterns have made he contemporary individual fundamentally urban. The countryside is now as transformed as the city.

Wirth, Louis. "Urbanism as a Way of Life," American Journal of Sociology (1938)