At the beginning of “Theoretical Perspectives on the City”, the author explains that Emile Durkheim believed in the “organic solidarity” among people with different social and occupational characteristics. I believe that this is a strong counter-argument to the fear of dissolution of societies with the introduction of the urban city. His functionalist argument that compares the society to an organism does a very good job of showing how, in reality, the specialization of jobs and heterogeneity of the urban population has brought the town closer. The interdependence arising from the division of labor and diversity of people creates a situation in which people are closer because they have to be in order to live a certain quality of life.

This idea carries over into Black Corona, when Gregory discusses the black poor. If we use a functionalist argument to explain this phenomenon, we can see that the effects of institutional racism, historical colonialism and slavery have created a capitalistic system in which the black poor are not needed in this organism of society. Politics have been shaped in such a way as to exclude this population from what is considered mainstream society in order to keep the privileges (like good schools and healthcare) away from the black poor.