The Social Experiences of Neighborhood Density and Apartment Density (or Crowding) in Queens, New York City

Abstract

“In the rich literature on the city we look in vain for a theory of urbanism presenting in a systematic fashion the available knowledge concerning the city as a social entity.” (31, p. 8), For three very different reasons this statement of Louis Wirth may be as true today as it was when he wrote it in 1938. One likely reason why this is the case reflects the highly political nature of urban studies, on which Robert Merton remarked in 1948 (22, p. 164):

Yet so deep has been the concern of social movements for housing reform that they have sought to establish a ‘case’ for adequate housing by citing often defective actuarial inquiries…, rather than by directly affirming an institutional right to decent housing in precisely the same sense that education was defined as such a right with the emergence of public education.²

Research funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

Elsewhere in this essay Merton notes that “housing involves the economic interests and social sentiments of important skill-groups and power-groups in American society.” The urban researcher encounters hazards from research, institutional cross-fire, urgency and uncritical empiricism (22, pp. 164–177, passim).