Rise of the Ecological Theory of the City

• By the beginning of the twentieth century the first academic departments of sociology were being established. At Chicago University a new approach was being developed by a small group of sociologists. As opposed to any moral judgment on the city the ecological theorists focused on first hand study of facts regarding the urban environment and developing an objective point of view. For developing such an approach Park used to tell his students to get the ‘seats of their pants dirty’. This perspective came to be known as the Chicago School.
  
  
• Whereas the European thinks such as Weber, Marx, and Simmel viewed the city as an environment where larger social forces of capitalism played themselves out influencing all the facets of human life, Chicago School avoided the study of capitalism per se, preferring instead a biologically based way of conceptualizing urban life.