Les villes de Robert Ezra Park: Pour une périodisation de sa conception de la métropole (1915-1939)

Abstract

Robert Ezra Park is often identified as one of the founders of urban sociology in the United States. While it is undeniable that the work on the city partake of a coherent research program, the fact remains that certain inflections appear when considering production more closely The City his first article on the metropolis, and 1939, the date of his final paper on this theme, The City as a Natural Phenomenon, we can distinguish three major periods, each of which is characterised by a different conceptualisation of the city. This study attemps to describe the different stages in the development of Park's thinking about the city. It insists on the extra-theoretical influences at the root of the transformations in his conception and definition of the metropolis.