单项选择题
| Not too many decades ago it seemed
"obvious" both to the general public and to sociologists that modern society has
changed people’s natural relations, loosened their responsibilities to kin and
neighbors, and substituted in their place superficial relationships with passing
acquaintances. However, in recent years a growing body of research has revealed
that the "obvious" is not true. It seems that if you are a city resident, you
typically know a smaller proportion of your neighbors than you do if you are a
resident of a smaller community. But, for the most part, this fact has few
significant consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few of
your neighbors you will know no one else. Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within small, private social worlds. Indeed, the number and quality of meaningful relationships do not differ between more and less urban people. Smalltown residents are more involved with kin that are big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by developing friendships with people who share similar interests and activities. Urbanism may produce a different style of life, but the quality of life does not differ between town and city. Nor are residents of large communities any likelier to display psychological symptoms of stress or alienation, a feeling of not belonging, than are residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do worry more about crime, and this leads them to a distrust of strangers. These findings do not imply that urbanism makes little or no difference. If neighbors are strangers to one another, they are less likely to sweep the sidewalk of an elderly couple living next door or keep an eye out for size and its social heterogeneity. For instance, sociologists have found much evidence that the size of more likely than their small-town counterparts to have a cosmopolitan outlook, to display less responsibility to traditional kinship roles, to vote for leftist political candidates, and to be tolerant of nontraditional religious groups, unpopular political groups, and so-called undesirables. Everything considered, heterogeneity and unusual behavior seem to be outcomes of large population size. |