ancient cities

ange of class, ethnic, and identity attachments. In
this sense, the pioneering work of the Chicago
School paved the way for a thriving field of community
studies in the American social sciences.
Building upon the influence of the Chicago
School, a classic work of community study in
American scholarship is Middletown: A Study in
American Culture by Robert Lynd and Helen
Lynd. Initially setting out to investigate patterns of
religious belief in an unnamed American city given
the pseudonym of Middletown (later identified as
Muncie, Indiana), the Lynds found that their focus
inevitably led to a much wider exploration of the
means by which community life was sustained.
Although the Lynds did not begin their study with
any highly developed hypothesis or with the aim of
substantiating any particular thesis, their work is
typical of its time in that it focused upon how
social institutions contributed to the functioning of
the wider community.
Studies such as Middletown presented small
town America as a relatively homogenous entity
with a clearly defined pattern of social organization
and cultural outlook. Many subsequent studies
adopted a similarly holistic perspective in
focusing upon how the nature and workings of
family and community operated as self-functioning
social systems. Although such studies presented a
view of small town America as a relatively stable
and culturally homogenous environment, later
criticism sought to reveal the implicit downplaying
of conflicting and oppositional voices in the community.
For example, a subsequent follow-up to
the Middletown study found it to be a far from
unified community and riddled with social divisions
obscured by the methodological approach
adopted in the original analysis. In this sense, the
archetypical American community study of the
mid-twentieth century often stood accused of utilizing
a conservative and analytically limited
approach to the study of community life.
Although the growing utilization of critical perspectives
signaled a decline in the influence of community
studies as a field of institutional strength,
the publication of notable studies continued to
periodically reaffirm the tradition. Gerald Suttles’s
The Social Order of the Slum: Ethnicity and
Territory in the Inner City and Carol Stack’s All
Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black
Community are two such exemplars. Evoking the
Community Studies
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spirit of the Chicago School tradition, such studies
sought to illustrate the means by which disadvantaged
populations constituted community-based
forms of reciprocation and mutual dependency.
Working-Class Communities in Britain
Early investigations on the importance of public
hygiene and health among working-class communities
in Britain led to the development of programs
of community study in which systematic
knowledge of towns and cities was sought as a
means to understand and alleviate problems associated
with urbanization. A particularly strong
tradition of community studies emerged during the
era of economic change that followed World War
II and what was perceived to be a widening gap
between government policy and the concerns of
the working classes.
Whereas community studies of the mid-twentieth-century
American context focused upon factors
related to immigration and the diffusion of
population aggregates toward suburban and
regional areas, the orientation of the British social
sciences ensured that social class came to be seen
as a key determinant of many programs of community
study. These studies were focused predominately
upon practical rather than theoretical
issues, and research findings were often closely
linked with policy analysis. Central to such studies
were investigations of the distinct social, economic,
and political conditions among people who shared
a similar experience within a given locality.
Commensurate with the approach taken by the
community studies tradition in the American context,
working-class communities were seen as
homogenous and close-knit embodiments of the
spirit of community due to the perceived similarity
of lifestyle and standard of living.
Founded in 1954, the pioneering Institute of
Community Studies was a research center specifically
focused upon the investigation of life in British
communities. A study of the London working-class
district of Bethnal Green was perhaps the most
famous work that emerged from this era. Blending
a social anthropological perspective with a sociocultural
analysis, the publication of Family and Kinship
in East London signaled a decisive move away from
more statistic-laden studies in favor of more ethnographically
minded descriptions of community life.