How did Robert Redfield’s folk-urban model contrast city life with folk communities?

In his folk-urban model, Robert Redfield contrasted the characteristics of folk communities with those of city life to illustrate the social and cultural changes associated with urbanization.12

Redfield characterized the folk community as:
* Small and isolated: Composed of limited numbers of people living in relative isolation.3
* Homogeneous: Sharing a unified culture and world view.1
* Sacred: Permeated with religious meaning, where the moral order holds absolute authority.3
* Personalistic: Defined by unmediated, intimate social interactions that satisfy an individual's needs throughout their life.31

In contrast, he defined city life as:
* Impersonal and heterogeneous: Characterized by diverse populations and less intimate social bonds.1
* Secular: Lacking the sacred, traditional cohesion of the folk society.1
* Disorganizing: He presumed that the transition from a folk community to an urbanized society leads to a breakdown in cultural traditions, resulting in social pathologies such as loneliness, crime, divorce, and alcoholism.1

Redfield viewed this transition as a continuum, suggesting that as societies urbanize, they experience progressive cultural disorganization.2