Urban life and cultural lag

Technology, which gradually surrounds societies after the Industrial Revolution, deeply affects our daily life. Thanks to technology, we do many of our works today and we organize our live accordingly. The strengthening of link between technology and our life accelerates the changes in technology and it forces us to live a faster life. However, it is not always possible to adapt to living a fast life at every stage of life. In such cases, a cultural lag arises. The cultural lag theory asserted by William Fielding Ogburn focuses on the incompatibilities between changing technology and our life. Many cultural lags also occur in urban life, which is a stage of life. So in this study, cultural lags in urban life were examined. Accordingly, the first aim of this study is to explain both the sociological views of William Ogburn and his theory of cultural lag. The second aim of the study is to determine how the observed cultural lags arise and how they affect the urban life. Finally, it is the last aim of this study to determine the relationship between some facts that emerged in the urbanization process of Turkey and the theory of cultural lag. In this direction, the facts such as traffic, slums and unemployment observed in urban life were examined using historical method by establishing a cause-effect relationship between them, and it was concluded that these facts emerged due to some cultural lags that occurred in the urbanization process.