Human Ecology

Author(s): Louis Wirth

Source: The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 50, No. 6 (May, 1945), pp. 483-488
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2771392
Accessed: 06/03/2009 16:38

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
American Journal of Sociology.

http://www.jstor.org
 HUMAN ECOLOGY
LOUIS WIRTH

ABSTRACT
Humanecology,one of the latest arrivalson the socialsciencescene,has borrowedits conceptualframe-
workandmethodsfromplant and animalecology.Malthusianism,Darwinism,the socialsurveymovement,
andhumangeographyareamongthe precursorsof humanecology,whichfirst receivedsystematicformula-
tion by Park and others about I9I5. It strives for the objective depiction and analysis of the spatial, tempo-
ral, physical, and technological bases of social life. The capacity for symbolic communication, rationality,
relatively great mobility, and formal organization and control and the possession of a technology and culture
distinguish human beings from plants and animals; the recognition of these differences makes human
ecology a unique social science discipline. It is concerned with localized, or territorially delimited, social
structures and phenomena, the community being the core concept. The definition of natural, as distinguished
from administrative, areas and of regions has been one of its chief theoretical and practical contributions.
The discovery of the patterns into which social phenomena group themselves and of the coincidence of the
patterns has had important implications for social control and planning. Ecological facts, not being self-
explanatory, must be understood in the light of sociocultural and psychic phenomena.

I nished by the human geographers,together

Human ecology as an academically rec-
ognized intellectual discipline is consider-
ably younger than the Journal, whose fifti-
eth anniversarythis issue celebrates. It bor-
rowed its conceptual framework and much
of its method fromplant and animal ecology,
origem do
conceito de which are themselves but recent arrivals in
ecologia. the scientific world. When Ernst Haeckel
coined the name for the new branch of bio-
logical science in I869, he sought to call at-
tention to the fact that the structure and
behavior of organisms are significantly af-
fected by their living together with other
organismsof the same and other species and
by their habitat.
Whatever else men are, they are also ani-
mals, and as such they exhibit the effects of
physical aggregation and of their habitat.
Much of what subsequently became human
ecology had already been studied in a less
systematic and scientific manner by geog-
raphers, historians, and philosophers under
the general theme of "environmentalism."
New impetus was given to the study of hu-
man ecology by the interest aroused in the
relationship between population and the
means of subsistence through the writings of
Malthus and by the new understanding of
the web of life, including the survival and
developmentof species derived from Darwin
and the theorists of evolution.
Developments in demographyduring the
nineteenth century and the more accurate
description of human settlements as fur-
483
with the beginnings of social surveys of spe-
cific communities, particularly in England,
set the stage for the systematic formulation
of problems and the perfection of methods
out of which have grown the ecologicalstud-
ies of the last generation.
Sociologists, both urban and rural, were
at work studying the human community by
methods which subsequently have been
called ecological long before human ecology
was recognizedas a distinctive field of scien-
tific activity. A series of significant maps
on the spatial distributionof vital and social
phenomena in England had appeared in Pioneirismo
Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the ingls.
LondonPoor. Booth's Surveyof the Life and Criao de
mapas de
Labour of the People in London had fur-
distribuio
nished a notable example of the importance espacial.
of areal study of the great metropolis of
London. Von Thiunen'sDer isolierte Staat
had given a theoretical framework for the
understandingof successive concentriczones
of land use of a region. The device of graphi-
cally presenting population composition by
means of pyramidshad already been used by
pioneers in the United States Census. There
had been studies of urban land use, of hous-
ing, and the incidence of poverty, disease,
and crime, and there had also been system-
atic interpretations of these phenomena on
high theoretical levels, of which Henry
George'sProgressand Povertyis perhaps the
outstanding example. Studies of the physi-
cal aspects of the human community had
 484 THE AMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY
even found their way into sociological text-
books, exemplifiedby Albion W. Small and
George Vincent's An Introduction to the
Study of Society. C. J. Galpin, in his sur-
veys of rural communities, notably in his
The Social Anatomyof an AgriculturalCom-
munity, had indicated the methods for de-
picting objectively the interrelations be-
tween the trade center and the hinterland.
In addition, there had been numerousmono-
graphs of a more or less scientific nature on
specific communities, towns, and cities in
various parts of the country showing their
growth, their social characteristics, their
physical structure, and the incidence of
problems such as housing and social disor-
ganization.
It was not, however,until I915, when
Robert E. Park published his provocative
Park paper on "The City: Suggestionsfor the In-
vestigation of Human Behavior in City En-
vironment" in this Journal, that what sub-
sequently became recognizedas the ecologi-
cal study of the human community was sys-
tematically formulated. Park's suggestions
stimulated a series of investigations which,
in the course of a few years, led not merely
to the accumulation of a rich body of ob-
jective data but also to an appreciation of
the significanceof the study of the commu-
nity as a physical fact for the understanding
of it as a social phenomenon and as a state
of mind, and eventually to the recognition
of the role that human ecology might play
in the study of social life generally.
A ecologia Human ecology, as Park conceivedit, was
humana um not a branch of sociology but rather a per-
corpo de co- spective, a method, and a body of knowledge
nhecimentos essential for the scientific study of social
para estudar a life, and hence, like social psychology, a gen-
vida social e eral disciplinebasic to all the social sciences.
se torna uma He recognized its kinship to, and derivation
disciplina b-
from, geography and biology. But he em-
sica para todas
as cincias
phasized that, unlike the former, human
sociais. ecology was less concerned with the rela-
tionship between man and his habitat than
Preocupa-se with the relationship
between man and man
com as rela- as affected, among other factors, by his habi-
es entre pesso-tat. In distinguishingit from plant and ani-
as e como es- mal ecology, he stressed the unique char-
tas relaes acteristics of man and the human commu-
afetam o habitat.
nity. He noted that, unlike plants and ani- Os seres
mals, human beings in large measure make humanos
their own environment;they have relatively criam seus
great powers of locomotion and thus are less prprios
attached to the immediate habitat in which ambientes
by nature they are placed; tlley are condi-
tioned by their capacity for symbolic com- Teoria da
munication, by rational behavior, and by ao
the possession of an elaborate technology racional.
and culture. Moreover, in human aggrega-
tions we find the life of the individualsregu-
lated by consciouscontrols,by rules, norms,
and laws, and by formal organizationsand Normas, leis,
institutions. These factors introduce into instituies.
the study of human ecology complications
unknown in the plant and animal world.
The focus of attention of ecological stud- Um dos
objetivos
ies has been on localized or territoriallyde- delimitar as
limited social structures and social phenom- estruturas
ena. This has given to the community a cen- sociais e os
tral position in the conceptual frameworkfenmenos
of human ecology. Unfortunately this com- sociais.
mon-senseterm, like all other common-sense
terms when used in scientific discourse, has
had the disadvantage of ambiguity. The
early literature of human ecology was much A
concerned with the distinction between the comunidade
community and the society. The former o elemento
stressed the symbiotic relations, spatial and central dos
estudos
temporal dimensions, physical structure, sobre as
competition and the division of labor; estruturas da
whereas the latter stressed communication, ecologia
consensus, common norms, values, con- humana.
scious social control, and collective action.
Unfortunately these two ideal-typical as-
pects of human social life have frequently
been confused with concrete realities. Thus
there has been a failure to see that all com-
munities are also societies and all human so-
Confuso
cieties bear at least some of the character-entre os
istics of communities. Competition, for in- conceito de
stance, among human beings never takes sociedade e
the form of a blind struggle for life and sur- comunidade
vival. Rather, it manifests itself as a more or
less regulated and controlled struggle for a
living and for status. Whereas in the plant
and the animal world the mechanismsof col-
lective behavior, such as there are, are built
into the structure of the organisms and can
truly be described in terms of reflexes and
instincts, the behavior of the human world
 HUMAN ECOLOGY 485

can be understoodonly in the light of habit, II

custom, institutions, morals, ethics, and Distino
Considerableprogress has been made in entre o
laws. the methods of delimiting the territorial conceito de
Contribuies Aside from the considerable theoretical bounds of social phenomena and relation- espao
nos estudos deliterature that has developed in the field of ships. This has called into being the concept natural e
comunidades human ecology, the contributionsof the dis- of the natural area as distinguishedfrom the espao
e regies. cipline have become increasingly manifest administrative area. It has been found that administrativo
Comunidades as aspects of specific studies of communities the settlement of human beings, the pattern- .
rurais e urba- and regions. As the ecological interest and ing of social institutions, the incidence of
nas. techniques developed, almost all American social problems, and the intricate network
community studies have given increasing of social interrelationshipsdoes not, except
evidence of the use of ecological methods by accident, conform to arbitrarily de-
and knowledge.This is as true of the studies limited areas and that hence administrative
of rural and urban communities as it is of areas only rarely coincide with the ecologi-
those of wider regions. It is not merely be- cal or natural areas. In the study of urban
cause the ecological aspect of human social life, for instance, the types of land use and
Mtodo quan- life yields a degree of objective knowledge, the types of residential areas to be found in
titativo. Tpico in the sense of noncontroversialdescription the city do not conform to the neat lines of
dos estudos of physical facts and offers possibilities for precincts, wards, and other political and ad-
americanos. a high degree of mensurationand precision, ministrative boundaries. Neither do crime,
but also because the relevance of the physi- disease, family disorganization,and, for that
cal base of human social life is increasingly matter, political alignments fit themselves
appreciated for the understandingof socio- into the static patterns of formally adopted Construo
cultural phenomena that human ecology areal units. They have patterns of their own, do Espao
has found an increasingly important place and they shift in accordancewith the total Social. Difere
in community studies and, for that matter, conditionsof-life.Human ecologists have de- das
in all studies which have an areal dimension. veloped the techniques of base maps, spot abordagens
The emergence of human ecology as a maps, and rate maps for the more accurate territoriais.
scientific discipline and its recent develop- explorationand delineation of the actual in-
Reviso ment have already been adequately re- cidenceanddistributionof these phenomena.
viewed by others.' It is necessary in this re- Burgess' ideal concept of the growth of the
view to sketch merely the newly developing city2 and the many studies of delinquency,
interests, problems,procedures,and findings family disorganization,racial and economic
of the discipline. As might be expected, the distribution, housing, incomes, and stand-
most important developments and achieve- ards of living in rural, as well as urban,
ments of human ecology are not to be found areas have shown that students of social life
in studies which pass under that label but cannot accept without considerablemodifi-
are associated with empirical studies of cation the presentation and analyses of data
rural and urban communitiesand of regions offeredthem by officialagencies which must
undertaken by sociologists, by other social use arbitrary administrative areal units.
scientists, and by specialists in other practi-The development of census tracts in cities,
cal fields such as market analysis, adminis- for instance, by the United States Bureau
tration, and planning. of the Census representsa recognitionof the Censo
need for reducinglarge arbitraryareal units
' See R. D. McKenzie, "The Field and Problems to the smallest possible units for the pur-
of Demography, Human Geography, and Human pose of scientific investigation.
Ecology," chap. iv in The Fields and Methods of Particularly in the study of urban areas
Sociology, ed. L. L. Bernard (New York:, Long &
Smith,Inc., I934), pp. 52-66; and JamesA. Quinn, and metropolitanregionshas it become nec-
"Topical Summary of Current Literature on Human 2 Robert E. Park, E. W. Burgess, et al., The City
Ecology," American Journal of Sociology, XLVI, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, I925),
No. 2 (September, I940), I9I-226. chap. ii.
 486 THE AMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY
Influncia do
essary to discover the actual extent of the
centro na peri
feria
influence exerted by the center upon the
periphery.This applies as much to social in-
stitutions as it does to technology and to
A rede de intere-population aggregates. A metropolis,
laes metropoli tlhrough its intricate network of interrela-
tana se espande tionships, extends its range of influenceupon
para alm dos a territoryusually far byond the orbit of the
limites urbanos. immediately surroundingurbanized fringe.
Because the census gives us a picture of hu-
O censo nos forman settlements in accordance with where
nece informa people sleep rather than where they work,
es sobre esta we are likely to gain a false impressionof the
complexidade. economic and social entity constituting the
metropolis and tend to conceive of it pri-
marily as a political unit.
Os dados podem The recognition of the factors which un-
servir como ferra
derlie the distribution of people and which
mentas de con
trole social. account for the differentiation of types of
human settlements has important implica-
tions for social control, especially govern-
ment. For instance, whereas the criminal is
free to move about, irrespective of political
boundaries,the police are hedged in by rigid
lines of areal jurisdiction; and whereas dis-
ease germs are no respecters of administra-
tive barriers,health officialsare often handi-
capped by them. The no-man's land on the
margin of two or more jurisdictions, that so
frequently becomes the favorite location for
contraband activities, is the result of the
discrepancy between natural and adminis-
trative areas. The lack of coincidence be-
tween natural areas (which are defined by
the range of actual functions and which are
constantly in flux) and administrative areas
(which are definedby law and are relatively
static) is of particularconcernto community
organization and planning. Unless the area
of community organization and planning is
approximately coextensive with the area
over which the phenomena to be organized McGraw-HillBook Co., Inc., I933).
or planned extend, there is bound to be con-
fusion and ineffectiveness.
To the research in human ecology be-
longs much of the credit for the more realis-
tic conception of the community and the
region. The Fifteenth Census of the United
States (I930), in its specialmonographon
MetropolitanDistricts,3tookexplicitaccount
3 Washington: Government Printing Office, I932.
of the regional scope of at least our largerEstudos
urban centers. McKenzie's study of thesobre as
metropolitan community4 traced "some ofmodicaes
the basic changes that have taken place inbsicas da
American cities since the advent of motorchegada dos
transportation" and "the more importantveculos
structural changes that are taking place in motorizados.
American settlement"5 as a result of new
technological developments. By taking ac-
count of newspapercirculationas one of the Estudos
factors determining the scope of the metro-sobre a
politan region and the area of influence of influncia
urban institutions, this study suggested a dos meios de
comunicao
series of subsequent investigations into the como linhas
ecological aspects of social-psychologicalde
phenomena which had hitherto been neg- divulgao
lected or were not thought to be subject to da influncia
objective analysis. The numerous studies de
which followed on radio-listeningareas and determinadas
on the area of influence of urban institu- instituies.
tions, such as the stock exchange, the pro-
fessional organization, and the health, wel-
fare, educational,governmental,and cultur-
al agencies and institutions, gave ample evi-
dence of the theoretical as well as practical
usefulness of this approach.
Nowhere has the new conception of the
metropolisfound greater recognitionthan in
the field of planning. The RegionalSurveyof
New York and Its Environs,6the National
Resources Committee's Regional Factors in
National Planning and Development,7 and its
Our Cities: Their Role in the National Econ-
omy,8together with supplementary reports,
and such technical planning manuals as
Action for Cities: A Guidefor Community
Planning,9show the extent to which the eco-
logicalpoint of view, concepts, methods, and
findings have penetrated into the art and
4 The Metropolitan Community (New York:
5 Ibid., p. ix.
6 New York, I927-3I.
7 Washington: Government Printing Office, I935.
8 Washington: Government Printing Office, I937.
9 Published under the sponsorship of the Ameri-
can Municipal Association, the American Society
of Planning Officials, and the International City
Managers' Association (Chicago: Public Administra-
tion Service,I943).
Estudos que podem ser aplicados tanto para
estudos urbanos como tambm para estudos
rurais.
HUMAN ECOLOGY 487

science of planning. And what is true of ur- a preliminaryway by the methods of human
ban studies is equally true of ruraland wider ecology; and there is every reason to believe
regionalanalyses and planning enterprises."' that in the future the knowledge gained
Even when planning was primarily from local small-scale research will be ap-
physical planning it offeredgreat hospitality plied to the world as a whole.
to the methods and findings of human
ecology; but since planning has developed III
to include the economic and social design- The accumulation of vast bodies of pre-
ing or redesigning of the community, hu- cise, descriptive material and its graphic
man ecology has found an even more im- presentationby means of maps and diagrams
portant place in it. Planning aims at the has unfortunately led some investigators to
optimum use of resources and the rational assume that the facts are either self-explana-
integration of community life. Such knowl- tory or that one set of ecologicalfacts can be
edge as the human ecologist has been able adequately interpretedin terms of other eco-
to obtain about the location of industry, logical data. In the ecological studies of de-
the-distribution,segregation,and succession linquency, insanity, family disorganization,
of population, the areas of influence of religious life, political behavior, and social
social institutions, and the interrelation- institutions it has sometimesbeen naively as-
ship between the physical, the technological, sumed that, once the spatial distribution of
the economic, the political, and the cultural people, institutions, functions, and problems A vida social
complexament
aspects of community life has proved itself has been traced and their concentration and e
indispensable. dispersion noted, there remains nothing for independente.
It should be noted, however, that human the ecologist to do but to relate these phe- As condies
Os estudos ecology has not been merely the handmaiden nomena to other ecological data to arrive at materiais so
de ecologia either of the other social sciences, on the valid explanations. This view overlooks the importantes
humana no one hand, or of such practical arts as plan- fact that social life is a complexinterdepend- fatores na
se resume ning, on the other. It has, in recent years, ent whole. Material conditions of existence determinao
a servir como developed a substantial body of scientific are, of course, important factors in the de- das estruturas
data para as knowledge in its own right and has also termination of social structure and personal e nas
cincias soci drawn upon other branches of social science characteristics and behavior. Subsistence, caractersticas
ais, mas, sim for its data and hypotheses. Thus, for in- competition, the division of labor, spatial pessoais e de
contribui para stance, studies of communication, public and temporal arrangements and distribu- comportament
diversas reasopinion, markets, and voting have con- tions are important aspects of the material o.
de conheci- tributed immensely to the formulation of conditions of existence and, in turn, of social Subsistncia,
mento. competio,
the problems of human ecology, the data life. But they are not the whole of social life. diviso do
with which the discipline works, and the ex- On the contrary, as has been adequately trabalho so
planations and interpretationstowardwhich demonstrated through numerous investiga- importantes
it strives. tions, types of attitudes, personalities, cul- para a vida
It should also be noted that, although the tural forms, and social organizationsand in- social, mas
A Ecologia most intensive studies of human ecology stitutions may have as significant an effect no
Humana tb have been concerned with urban and rural in shaping ecological patterns and processes representam
pode ser apli- communities, human ecology has also been as the latter have in conditioning social and todos os
cado em pers-applied to larger areas and to world-wide social-psychologicalphenomena. Indeed, in aspectos da
pectivas maisphenomena. Thus the patterns of urbaniza- view of our present-day knowledge concern- vida social
amplas que
os fenmenos
tion, the trends of migration, the interrela- ing social causation, we might well be pre-
locais do ruraltions between national states, the functions disposed to follow the generalprinciple that
e do urbano. of frontiers, and the problems of minorities, physical factors, while by no means negligi-
Podem ser among others, have been studied at least in ble in their influence upon social life and
feitos estudos 'o Cf. the studies of Rupert B. Vance, the "Rural psychological phenomena, are, at best, con-
glo- Studies" prepared by the U.S. Department of ditioning factors offering the possibilities
de dimenso Life
bal. Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. and setting the limits for social and psycho-
 eles estabelecem o cenrio para o homem, o ator. Ainda no estamos suficientemente avanados para dizer com
confiana que importncia deve ser atribuda a qualquer fator que opere na esfera complexa do social e psicolgico, e
muito menos para avaliar a importncia relativa do fsico como distinto dos fatores sociais e psicolgicos
488 THE AMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY
logical existence and development. In other
words, they set the stage for man, the actor.
We are not yet far enough advanced to say
with confidence what importance shall be
ascribed to any one factor operating in the
complex sphere of the social and the psy-
chological, much less to evaluate the rela-
tive importanceof physical as distinguished
from social and psychological factors.
A Ecologia
This does not, of course, mean that eco-
Humana serve logical studies are irrelevant to sociology
como campo and to the social sciences. They furnish the
indispensvel indispensableframeworkof knowledgeupon
para descobrir which social and psychic existence rests.
as interelaesThey often aid us in defining and localizing
que de outra our problems. They aid us in uncovering in-
forma no se terrelationshipsof which otherwisewe might
estariam revelanot be fully aware, and they suggest the se-
das. lection of criteria for controlled study. It is
as yet questionable to what extent ecologi-
Servem tb cal facts may serve as indices of social and
para definir psychological facts. For instance, the use of
os critrios de income, occupation,area of residence,home-
um estudo conownership, rental, and duration of settle-
trolado. ment may well be justified in the analysis
of social status; but if social status is not to
be thought of as identical with economic
status and if, as we might well suspect, eco-
nomic status itself is the resultant of factors
among which those cited are only a few, then
the use of such an index as rental for eco-
nomic status, not to speak of social status, is
likely to be misleading. Used judiciously,
however, such an index may prove itself
useful for scientific analysis, especially when
its correlation with other facts of the same
order has been established.
The studies showing significant differ-
ences in such phenomena as delinquency
and mental disorders as between different
areas of the city are of the utmost impor-
tance for the advance of scientificknowledge
in these fields. The establishment of gra-
dients for rates of personal and social dis-
organizationpassing from the center of the
city out toward its periphery is a scientific
achievement which carriesus far beyond the
common-senseknowledgewe have had hith-
erto. But it would be absurd to say that
there is something in the inlying areas
themselves or in the fact that they are close
to the center of the city that produces these
high rates of delinquency or other forms of
social disorganization. It is rather to the
relative concentration and segregation of
certain population groups living under cer-
tain conditions and in a certain culture that
we must look for an explanation of these
facts. Human ecology thus provides us with
one of the hitherto neglected aspects of the
matrix within which social events take place
and hence with a conceptualframeworkand
a battery of techniques through which these
social phenomenacan be morefully and ade-
quately understood.
It would be vain, however, to expect hu-
man ecology to give us more than a seg-
mental view of the group life of man which Obviamente,
sociology seeks to depict and to understand. os estudos
Working in co-operation with students of em Ecologia
social organization and social psychology, Humana no
possuem a
human ecologists can furnish a more com-
capacidade
prehensive and a more realistic analysis of de elaborar
society than would otherwise be possible. um panorama
They can introduce into the study of social completo da
phenomena objective referents which will vida social,
anchor the generalizations concerning so- mas com a
ciety, for which all sociologists strive, more colaborao
firmly in time, in space, and materialreality. de outras
Human ecology is not a substitute for, but reas do
a supplement to, the other frames of refer- conhecimento
ence and methods of social investigation. By , as
introducing some of the spirit and much of informaes
obtidas so
the substance and methods appropriate to
extramament
the natural sciences into the study of social e valiosas.
phenomena, human ecology has called at-
tention to the wide areas where social life
can properly be studied as if the observer
were not an integral part of the observed.
This beneficent influence would be negated,
however, if the human ecologists were to
proceed as if they, together with the demog-
raphers and the statisticians, were the only
true scientists among the sociologists, or as
if they, unaided by others using differentap-
proaches, alone could comprehend and ex-
plain the complicated and elusive realities
in the realm of the social.
UNIVERSITY OF CIICAGO