It could be said that the ecological school saw in the city anonymity, alienation and anomie. City has no moral surveillance but at the same time no moral responsibility either. The point is that you see what you look for. ¹Therefore, the contention of the compositional theorists is that the ecological theorists had completely overlooked that the socio-psychological markers or differences emerge from factors such as race, ethnicity, class, gender and life-cycle stages. These urban ‘worlds’ are intimate social circles based on kinship, ethnicity, neighbourhood, occupation etc.

In the next lecture we will see how the network/subcultural theorists brought together some of the insights from both the theoretical schools.