TECHNOBUREAUCRACY AND CITY LIFE the « zone of working men's homes », then the middle-class « residential zone » and finally the high-status « commuters zone» (either outlying estates or satellite villages). The « zone of transition » was considered by the Chicago School to be the most undesirable part of the city where a mixture of industry, commerce and substandard housing formed the environment of where society's « deviants » tend to live. R. D. McKenzie writing in the American Journal of Sociology in November 1924 reveals his bourgeois moral values with regards to the residents of the « zone of transition ». « It is in the Seattle neighbourhoods especially those on the hill tops, that the conservative, law-abiding, civic minded population elements dwell. The downtown section and the valleys which are usually industria! sites, are populated by a class of people who are not only more mobile but whose mores and attitudes as tested by voting habits, are more vagrant and radical » (26 ). This purely « functionalist » approach, however, totally ignored the influence of the social structure on the spatial structure and with the emphasis which it placed on concepts such as « neighbourhood », analyses based on the power structure and the social conflict thereby engendered were never even contemplated. The « concentric zone» theory and the concepts used still influence the policies and programmes of planners and urban policy makers. Several writers have advocated the study of the social structure as a means of understanding the spatial structure of cities. W.H. Porro, for instance, advocated that in order to understand « ecologica! » change in cities the most important and powerful « land interest groups » in the city should first of all be identified. His was still a « functionalist » approach, however, and such analytical approaches tend to present a consensus view of society. Nevertheless, advocating the study of those « institutional and other groups controlling or being controlled by the urban system » (27) was a considerable advance. The next development in urban sociology was the appearance of studies using what Pahl describer as « behaviourist ». This approach advocates a « value system » model whereby (26) R.D. MCKENZIE, Ecological Processes and the Internal Structure of Community, reprinted from the American Journal of Sociology, Voi. 30, n. 3, November 1924 in « Cities in Modem Britain » (Fontana 1975). (27) D.C. MC CULLOCH, op. cit., p. 22. 29
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