There has recently emerged a vast literature dealing with urban life, though in the use of the word urban in social science there is the lack of the clear-cut and generally accepted definition. Urban will be viewed as a form of a settlement and a set of specific
functions. Thus, there are two aspects of the urban form and function. Formal attributes include demographic characteristics, architectural forms and settlement zones. Functional attributes include economic, political, educational and recreational activity. Urbanism is defined as those characteristics, social and cultural, that are a result of the urban. Urbanization is the process by which a society becomes more urban. This can be the result of population shift from non-urban to urban areas or the spread of urban form and functions to previously non-urban areas.
Certain formal and functional features of the urban and urbanism can be revealed by comparing urban and pre-urban (tribal) settlement and by comparing the traditional city in present societies with its surrounding hinterland. Urban centers are places of high population and population density. They have a large range of occupational specializations, with a relatively small proportion of the total labor force involved in agricultural production. In functional terms, urban centers are sources of political, social and economic dominance over their hinterlands. The distinction between the urban and non-urban is much more difficult to determine and maintain in modern complex societies. In such societies, the diffusion of urban forms and functions, as well as of urbanism, to non-urban settlements is marked. This is clearly recognized in the change of terminology from cities to urban centers to the concept of a metropolitan area or megapolis in contemporary society.
Another source of confusion in dealing with contemporary urban phenomena in complex societies is the difficulty in distinguishing those aspects of modern life that are the direct result of the urban from those that are the result of the industrial productive process. Many of what are called urban problems are more the result of the industrial process than the urban.
1. Birth of the Cities in America during its Colonization