How did Robert Redfield and Milton Singer describe the orthogenetic role of cities?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

urban culture Cafes and shops along Montague Street in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

In their collaborative work, "The Cultural Role of Cities," Robert Redfield and Milton Singer moved away from earlier, more limited definitions of urban life to categorize the variable cultural roles cities play within societies.1

They described the orthogenetic role of cities as the process of constructing and codifying a society’s traditions. In cities performing this function, cadres of literati work to rationalize and elaborate a "Great Tradition" for the society at large. This cultural message, which serves to safeguard and refine established traditions, is characteristic of capitals such as Paris, Delhi, or Washington, D.C.1

This concept was intended to provide a more nuanced, cross-culturally valid understanding of urban centers, contrasting the orthogenetic role with the "heterogenetic" role, in which cities act as centers of technical and economic change that introduce new ideas and challenge established practices.1