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What Causes A City For Urbanize?

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What causes a city to urbanize? This is a question that people often wonder, however, the answer is not one specific reasoning, nor simple. Many factors contribute to the urbanization of cities, such as, an increase in population, a growth in trade, and the creation of a capitalist system- just to name a few. Another question that may be conjured up is, what is the result of urbanization? On October 4, 2014 I was able to take a trip to Chicago, Illinois with my urban sociology class. Not only did we drive through multiple neighborhoods looking at urban concentrations, growth poles, suburbanization and much more. Two distinct effects of urbanization in the city, as well as the most fascinating, is the homeless population, and residential segregation in the city. I think that these two topics are important because it allows us to see how economic, political and cultural factors have a rippling effect on different populations. Throughout the semester we have learned how urbanization effects different populations, and the patterns of city growth. Driving through Chicago I noticed that there was an increase in the homeless population than what I am used to see in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We recently read a chapter in the book, “Exploring the City,” by Ulf Hannerz, which discusses in chapter two, “Chicago Ethnographers,” a study done by Nels Anderson called, The Hobo. Anderson’s work explain that the hobo has been around since the second American frontier. Because of

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