Consensus Vs. Urbanization Essay, Research Paper

The process of modernization contains many elements, which work together in many ways. The two elements that I will be discussing are consensus and urbanization. Consensus is when a group or groups of people come to an agreement with each other. Urbanization is the development of cities.

Consensus makes the social forces stronger. Social forces strengthen with higher levels of consensus because more people are agreeing with each other. The social forces can now begin to agree on the things they want and most likely get the things they want. More people can agree on the changes that need to be made. Urbanization affects the social forces by bringing people into closer proximity. With people in closer proximity to each other, they exchange ideas. The exchange of ideas helps the social forces because the people will be able to understand what others are thinking. Urbanization brings different cultures into contact with one another.

Political institutions are affected by consensus by causing them to deal with a larger group of people who want the same thing. The political institutions must now pay closer attention to the needs of the people because a larger group has a larger voice. High levels of consensus will allow the political institutions to become more stable because they now know what most of the people want. The political institutions just have to find the ways to give the people what they want. Urbanization affects the political institutions by causing them to become more complex. The complexity increases because of the fact that people are in closer proximity with each other and the political institutions have to adjust to maintain the order of larger groups of people.

Consensus impacts the process of urbanization by helping the process move along in a somewhat smoother way. The process of urbanization is complex and with high levels of consensus, the people are able to cope with the changes that occur during the urbanization process a little better. Since urbanization involves the movement of people from rural and more isolated areas into an area where people are in close proximity, it is important for high levels of consensus. The people will always have different views and disagree with each other but they need to agree on a basic set of rules, which are usually determined by the political institutions. The cities created by the urbanization process bring many groups, many time groups, which are in conflict with each other, into closer proximity, and they must get along in someway. Consensus is important because the urbanization process will fail if the groups within the developing cities can not get along, they will be to busy fighting with each other that nothing will be accomplished.

Urbanization makes the social structure more complex, which in turn needs a higher level of consensus. With the many groups that are usually involved in the urbanization process, they are bound to disagree about things due to varying views of the different groups. This is okay but the groups have to agree on a basic set of rules or guidelines in order to sustain a strong social structure within the urban setting. The people can have varying views of many things, but with high levels of consensus, the people and/or groups will be able to accept the fact that everyone has different views or opinions about things.

Urbanization affects consensus by bringing in many groups with varying ideas. The exchange of ideas between the many groups can create higher levels of consensus. Different groups have varying views about things and the exchange of ideas will help other groups see the differences. There will naturally be things, which the varying groups will disagree on, but with high levels of consensus they can accept this. The process of urbanization forces the groups to communicate in some way because they must agree on a set of basic rules while maintaining their own identity. One group may perform a task better than another group and another group might notice this and start working with the groups. They will exchange ideas and eventually agree on a way to perform the task using the good qualities of both there ideas. For instance, one group may know a more efficient way of building a house or building, while another group knows of how to get the materials at lower cost. The two groups can work together and agree on a way to work more efficiently at a lower cost. This will create higher levels of consensus.

High levels of consensus are needed in order for the urbanization process to complete successfully, but what if the levels of consensus are lower. Lower levels of consensus pose many problems on the urbanization process. Low levels of consensus will slow down the urbanization process. This will occur because the people and groups will be too busy disagreeing with each other that they will not be able to build the cities. If the cities do get built then there will be so much disagreement among the groups that they will create their own sections in the city and not allow other groups to reside there. This will pose a huge problem because the groups will now fight over the areas where they can go. The whole urbanization process will be defeated because the purpose of creating cities is for people to interact with each other.

Low levels of consensus hurt urbanization process due to the fact that the groups will have a hard time agreeing on a basic set of rules. If the groups cannot agree on a basic set of rules within the urban setting then there will be conflict all the time. This situation is bad because the people are so close together that problems will always occur. It will eventually cause the cities to break up because the groups can’t agree on anything.

Consensus and urbanization are two important elements of the modernization process. Without a good level of consensus, the urbanization process may fail. If the urbanization process fails then the whole modernization process will fail.