Abstract
To examine urban effects on ways of life has long been a major focus of urban sociology, but some empirical researchers have found only modest effects of urbanism on ways of life. However, there is a possibility that previous empirical research underestimated urban effects because using the size of municipality as an urbanism scale has at least two problems. Firstly, the size of the place cannot reflect the number of residents in the vicinity of the municipality. Secondly, it cannot indicate the internal differences of the place.
To avoid these problems, this paper focuses on how to formulate alternative scales. Two alternative scales based on population potential and population in accessible areas, respectively, are formulated by using regional mesh statistical data and geographic information systems. Moreover, I examine the effects of urbanism measured by these two scales as well as traditional one on 122 variables by using a correlation analysis. The results indicate that the alternative scales generally have stronger effects on many variables of urban behaviors and attitudes than the traditional one.
