Louis Wirth (1897-1952) was a noted urban scholar who created a typology of urbanism that defines cities according to three factors
- Large population size
- Density of settlement
- Heterogeneity [diversity] of inhabitants and group life
Hamilton, with a population of over 100,000, is city-sized and it does have a good number of areas with population densities of over 3,000 people per square km, but no unit areas meeting the urban density benchmark of 10,000 persons per square mile [3,886 per square km] suggested by Mark Jefferson (see p6 in the reference below)
However, as Wirth stated, “The characterization of a community as urban on the basis of size alone is obviously arbitrary” (p5).
This brings us to heterogeneity, which can be interpreted as showing that something that is made up of many different elements, one example being a local dialect that has components from several different languages. Census data uses two measures for language, as illustrated in the examples below.
Louis Wirth also gives a further measure: ‘The foreign born and their children constitute nearly two-thirds of all the inhabitants of cities of one million and over. Their proportion in the urban population declines as the size of the city decreases, until in the rural areas they comprise only about one-sixth of the total population.’
Using factors 2 (Density), 3 (Heterogeneity using Language) and being foreign born, we can identify Hamilton’s most compact and diverse neighbourhoods.
| Neighbourhood | Density per/ha | Multilingual % | Foreign Born % | Score |
| University | 30.2 | 32 | 36 | 98.2 |
| Hillcrest West | 31.5 | 30 | 36 | 97.5 |
| Silverdale | 25.4 | 29 | 33 | 87.4 |
| Hamilton Central | 11.5 | 32 | 40 | 83.5 |
| Insoll | 33.3 | 30 | 19 | 82.3 |
| Brymer | 26.5 | 25 | 29 | 80.5 |
| Melville | 25.7 | 27 | 27 | 79.7 |
| Hamilton East | 24.9 | 25 | 29 | 78.9 |
| Peachgrove | 22.9 | 26 | 28 | 76.9 |
| Huntington | 20.9 | 24 | 31 | 75.9 |
| Bader | 20 | 28 | 27 | 75 |
| Dinsdale South | 25.8 | 16 | 13 | 74.8 |
| Fairview Downs | 29.5 | 24 | 19 | 72.5 |
| Enderley | 28.5 | 24 | 20 | 72.5 |
| Porrit | 17 | 29 | 26 | 72 |
| Rototuna | 21 | 21 | 29 | 71 |
| Hamilton Lake | 11.5 | 27 | 32 | 70.5 |
| Horsham Downs | 12 | 25 | 33 | 70 |
| Chedworth | 22.5 | 22 | 25 | 69.5 |
| Grandview | 34 | 20 | 15 | 69 |
| Claudelands | 20.4 | 23 | 25 | 68.4 |
| Crawshaw | 34.1 | 23 | 11 | 68.1 |
| Swarbrick | 28.6 | 22 | 17 | 67.6 |
| Riverlea | 15.7 | 22 | 28 | 65.7 |
| Clarkin | 23.8 | 23 | 18 | 64.8 |
| Naylor | 19.6 | 21 | 24 | 64.6 |
| Nawton | 26.2 | 20 | 17 | 63.2 |
| Maeroa | 25.7 | 20 | 16 | 61.7 |
| Flagstaff | 18.9 | 17 | 25 | 60.9 |
| Sylvester | 6.5 | 20 | 29 | 55.5 |
| Frankton Junction | 5.8 | 20 | 24 | 49.5 |
| Temple View | 4.2 | 22 | 16 | 42.2 |
While the University area does well in terms of compactness and diversity, the data also show that the Hamilton Central area is attracting the right type of people; it just needs more of them.
Reference: Wirth, L. (1938). Urbanism as a way of life. American Journal of Sociology, 44(1), 1-24. Retrieved from