Sociology Now, Census Update

The Human Environment

Humans are a social species. We want—and need—to be around other people most

of the time. People who go off by themselves on purpose are often considered strange,

socially inept, or even psychologically disturbed. Every time a serial killer or mass

murderer is apprehended, newshounds rush to broadcast a neighbor saying, “He was

a loner, kept to himself most of the time,” as if somehow being alone explains mur-

derous thoughts.

A major part of our environment is the mass of other people around us, simply

doing what people do: being born and growing up, moving into town and leaving

town, getting sick and getting well, living and dying. Demographyis the scientific

study of human populations and one of the oldest and most popular branches of soci-

ology. Demography is used to calculate health, longevity, and even political represen-

tation, as the census is the basis for allocation of congressional seats. Demographers

are primarily concerned with the statistics of birth, death, and migration (Yaukey and

Anderton, 2001).

Being Born

Demographers use two birth measurements: fertility(the number of children that a

woman has) and fecundity(the maximum number of children that she could possibly

have). Women are physically capable of having a child every nine months, so in the years

618 CHAPTER 19SOCIOLOGY OF ENVIRONMENTS: THE NATURAL, PHYSICAL, AND HUMAN WORLDS

and federal troops were mobilized, but were they in New Orleans to distribute food and

water or to keep looters away from the pricey boutiques on Canal Street? Why did they take

so long to arrive? Most of the survivors were poor and African American. And the spin of

the news reports—African Americans “looting” but White people “searching for food”—

suggested that the disaster was bringing long-hidden prejudices to light.

We think of human beings, the cities they live in, and the physical world of tropical

depressions as separate realms, sometimes even conflicted ones. As the events leading up to

and following Hurricane Katrina demonstrate, they are related, even interdependent. The

hurricane, the flooding of New Orleans, and the aftermath are parts of the same story. Cities

“create” the countryside. “Natural disasters” have human causes as well as human conse-

quences. All three environments—the human, the urban, and the natural—constrain and

construct human action, help create and sometimes help destroy each other. Sociologists are

vitally interested in the dynamic relationships among the human, the physical, and the

urban environments.