Community Disorganization: Some Critical Notes*

Abstract

In recent years numerous discussions of urban communities have given great weight to themes of disorganization and disorder. This paper critically examines several impoitant conceptual, procedural, and substantive issues inherent in most treatments of community disorganization. To illustrate such fundamental problems as “overgeneralization” and dominant group bias five specific topics‐migration, disasters, slums, ghettos, and collective violence‐were selected for intensive analysis.