Urban culture
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Urban culture is the culture of cities. Cities all over the world, past and present, have behaviors and cultural elements that separate them from otherwise comparable rural areas.
In the US and UK, "urban" is often used as a euphemism to describe hip hop culture or subsets of black culture; being these defined groups as a type of urban tribe. Hence names for cultural artifacts like urban music could be seen as a new term for "Race music". It can also refer to the greater availability of cultural resources (such as art, theatre, events, etc) as compared to suburban or rural areas.
The defining theme is the presence of a great number of very different people in a very limited space - most of them are strangers to each other. This makes it possible to build up a vast array of subcultures close to each other, exposed to each other's influence, but without necessarily intruding into people's private lives.
Urban areas
Globally, urban areas tend to also be home to concentrations of power, such as government capitals and corporate headquarters, and the wealthy and powerful people that are employed in them. Cities also organize people, create norms, beliefs, and values. As outlined by Max Weber in his book, The City, "there are five things that make a city: fortification, market, a law code, an association of urban citizenry creating a sense of municipal corporateness, and sufficient political autonomy for urban citizens to choose the city’s governors." In some countries, elites have built themselves enclaves outside of the central city (e.g. white flight in the United States).
See also
- Inner city
- Street culture (disambiguaation)
- African-American culture
- Graffiti
- Hip hop music
- Hipster (contemporary subculture)
- Street Life, the Crusaders song and album of 1979
Other:
- Futurism
- Chicago School (sociology)
- Principles of Intelligent Urbanism
- Urbanism
- Urban economics
- Urban sociology
- Urban pop culture
- Hip hop fashion
- Urban contemporary