Tonnies had an evolutionary perspective. He saw in the rise of the city in the 19th century the rise of the gesellschaft.

At the same time Tonnies pointed out: Both village and town retain many characteristics of the family, the village retains more, the town less. Only when the town develops into the city are these characteristics almost entirely lost. Individuals or families are separate identities, and their common locale is only an accidental or deliberately chosen place in which to live. But as the town lives on within the city, elements of life in the gemeinschaft, as the only real form of life, persist within the gesellschaft, although lingering and decaying. On the other hand, the more general the condition of gesellschaft becomes in the nation or a group of nations, the more this entire ‘country’ or the entire ‘world’ begins to resemble one large city. (Tonnies,2005) [1887]

The early sociologists were trying to figure out the changes that were wrought by the forces of industrialization and urbanization.