The culturalist school as a critique of the urban society

Abstract

The culturalist school constitutes the first large sociological reflection on the city. In it the city appears as the setting of a system of values and emerging types of conduct which are definitively linked to the origin of capitalist society. From Tònnies to Redfield we witness not only the construction of a sociological reflection on the urban way of life but also the strictest critical effort of the values of modern society that the city represents. This precisely defines the true value of these thinkers who are grouped here under the generic title of culturalists.