Louis Wirth was born in Germany, but studied in the United States and became a leading figure in Chicago School sociology. His interests included city life, minority group behaviour and mass media and he is recognised as a leading urban sociologist.
A good example of Wirth's work, which includes a comprehensive bibliography is On cities and social life, published in 1964.
Wirth writes that urbanism is a form of social organisation that is harmful to culture, Wirth details the city as a “Substitution of secondary for primary contacts, the weakening of bonds of kinship, the declining social significance of the family, the disappearance of neighbourhood and the undermining of traditional basis of social solidarity”.
Wirth was concerned with the effects of the city upon family unity, and he believed urbanisation leads to a ‘low and declining urban reproduction rates … families are smaller and more frequently without children than in the country’.
Wirth continues, marriage tends to be postponed, and the proportion of single people is growing leading to isolation and less interaction.
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