Seeing the Forest through the Trees: Sociocultural Factors of Dense Urban Spaces

• Main Authors: Richard L. Wolfel, Amy Richmond, Peter Grazaitis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017-12-01
• Series: Urban Science
• Subjects: socio-cultural modeling; dense urban areas; political development; military operations in dense urban areas
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2413-8851/1/4/40

Coming to terms with the complexity of dense urban areas represents one of the major challenges people, organizations and governments will face in the next few decades. Defining, explaining and modeling socio-cultural factors associated with the development of dense urban regions will be among the most complex problems researchers will face when studying dense urban areas. In this paper, we seek to open the discussion and begin to define the modeling process by conducting a literature review and creating a conceptual framework based on Verba, Binder, Coleman, La Palombara, Pye, & Weiner’s (1971) model of political development. The model emphasizes six key elements of political development, which we use as a point of departure to begin to identify key socio-cultural factors of dense urban areas. Our framework also embarks on identifying a difference between factor relationships in loosely and tightly integrated cities. The interrelationship between variables and the recursive nature of variables are some of the major difficulties we identify when it comes to modeling sociocultural dynamics in dense urban areas.