Abstract
Societies have systems that enable them to run as a unit. The institutions enable the characterization of societies and facilitate their cultures. They exist in traditional cities and the campus to play specific roles enabling societies to thrive. For instance, conformity enables the development of guiding rules. The police enable law and order and also allow for social control. The campus and cities’ healthcare systems include service delivery and reimbursements. They ensure people’s well-being. Urban transportation and mass media enable the movement of people, goods, and information, respectively. The various institutions are affected by accessibility, affordability, technology, and institutional support, among other factors.
Institutions in Traditional Cities that are also in Buffalo State
Societies have systems that enable them to run as a unit. The institutions enable the characterization of societies and facilitate their cultures. Even though university campuses are usually relatively small compared to cities, they emulate the cities’ systems. The paper will look at five social institutions in Buffalo State that are also evident in traditional cities to compare how the campus meets society’s criteria. Social institutions are structures organized to enable people to meet their needs (Putri et al., 2022). the discussion will focus on the police, conformity, healthcare, urban transportation, and mass media.
The Police Department
The police department is among the institutions in cities and Buffalo State campuses. The department performs law enforcement for the city administration and the people. It is among the available institutions in the state and Buffalo State campuses. While the police differ in jurisdiction and other factors between the city and the campus, various factors make them mirror each other. The police in both the campus and New York City perform the primary roles of ensuring that the laws are enforced, responding to emergencies, preventing criminal conduct, and offering other support services. The methods and powers of the police in society have changed over time to become what it is currently in urban places like New York City and Elsewhere. Understanding the police’s roles and powers is necessary for residents to know what issues to present for solutions and how best to protect themselves. The police’s effectiveness is affected by the affordability of resources, and institutional support inaccessibility.
Urbanization causes the need to maintain law and order. Usually, when people move from rural areas and other places to settle in cities, they cause congestion in some areas. Therefore, pressure on the available resources results in people conflicting over them. The urban crimes that mostly result from unequal access to resources in urban areas make policing very important. Hahn (1971) detailed the rise of policing and its emergence from Western countries. While law enforcement had always happened, especially in Europe, where monarchs had to ensure that people were orderly and abided by the rules of the governing families, reforms that caused modern policing can be traced to the industrial revolution, which led to urban centers becoming congested. The congestion increased the chances of people offending each other and their governments. Therefore, the police needed to become more organized.
Institutional/ government support
The police are also usually affected and supported by the leadership of their organizations. In New York City and Buffalo State Campus, the police receive equipment, payments, and training from the institutions that employ them. The laws of the organization or city/state also support them. For instance, the NYPD works according to the city’s by-laws and state and federal regulations (Trinkner et al., 2019). Their ability to deliver their duties is supported by the roles enshrined in the laws. The campus police are also supported financially and regulatorily by the campus leadership. For instance, like the city, the campus also ensures to employ enough officers and equip them with the necessary gadgets and training.
Accessibility
The accessibility of people to policing should be equal. However, it is affected by factors that may limit or promote policing. Over time, various models of policing have been proposed and used. For instance, urban policing requires community policing and intelligence-led policing, among others. Both police services apply a mixture of models to ensure they effectively deliver their roles. For instance, according to Louis (2019), policy applies a mixture of strategies like community policing and body-worn cameras (BWC) to ensure that the police are efficient and fair. The author proposes using BWCs to improve relations between the police and communities. Using technologies in campus settings can also improve police-student relations. Fallik et al. (2020) discussed how social media can enable interactions between the police and the communities. For instance, police use social for surveillance to know what is happening in the communities and reach out
Affordability
The police’s ability to dispense their duties depends on their accessibility to the resources needed for law enforcement. The police need uniforms, human resources, and gadgets for surveillance and protection, like guns and computers. Modern technologies like cameras and scanners are also important. The accessibility to the instruments that enable policing depends on available finances. For instance, the state and city police departments must buy BWCs to counter racism and unprofessional behavior. The police must be adequately equipped for information collection and arrests on campus and in New York City. They should also have enough resources for training and salaries for the employees. All the needs have to be afforded by the society. Usually, the city and the campus make budgets to cater to security needs (Dikeç, 2002). the police also need care, such as mental health, for the traumatic experiences they get in their work. In the campus, the budget for the campus police determines what the department can acquire and the methods they use, similar to the police in the cities.
Importance of the police in Buffalo State
The police in the campus have similar roles to the police in the city, albeit with different jurisdictions. According to Hahn (1971), the roles of the police have always been to ensure social control as well as prevent or resolve social conflicts. Social control involves using pressures from social organizations like families, police, and other authoritative agents to enforce control of people’s behaviors and beliefs. Generally, the police are very important in ensuring the development and regulation of cultures. Enforcing the laws leads to people abiding by laws and behaving as expected by the governments or leadership. Administrators in both campus settings and cities need social control. In cities like it Buffalo State Campus, there are laws. The laws are usually developed based on the values and beliefs of the majority. For instance, even though the Buffalo State Campus rules are based on a code of conduct that was developed long before the current students joined, the values and rules are based on what is acceptable in academic settings. There is a need to ensure that students get conducive environments to study, just like there is the need to ensure that people behave in ways that promote businesses in cities.
Conformity
The second institution that exists as part of cities and the campus is conformity. Conformity involves people having matching attitudes and behaviors that enable them to fit in their communities. In cities, people have to conform to form norms that are acceptable to the people. in both campus and the cities, people must abide by rules that make them fit in their respective groups. For instance, students must be silent in their classes to enable learning. Also, people must respect traffic rules like driving on the right side to prevent accidents. The next part discusses how people in both cities and the campus have shared values and norms that guide their lives. Like in the cities, students and professionals on campus share values like individualism, relying on themselves and measuring success based on material gain.
Individualism
Individualism is a culture that supports autonomous living by people. Members of such society seek to achieve goals individually and do not like collective action. Individualism-collectivism is among the social dimensions that have been studied. Hamamura (2012) is among the scholars that have explored the social dimensions. He studied how Individualism-collectivism affects Japan and the US, which are developed countries whose cultures vary. He found that individualism was favored in both countries. The author also discovered that the preference. The findings supported the idea that modernism favors individualism (Milbrandt & Park, 2023). Urbanization is increasing because of modern lifestyles like jobs and economic situations. People who live in cities must learn to thrive in competitive American capitalistic societies. Also, the authors found that individualism affected people’s choices, such as the charities to donate to and social activities to participate in. Educational institutions also support individualism in various ways. For instance, people have to do individual assignments. Students also have to pay their fees and other services they get during their education.
Self-reliance
Self-reliance is another common thing in the campus and cities. It involves people being self-sufficient. While people in cities also rely on social support from cities on issues like housing, most of them strive to achieve self-reliance. For instance, people work in jobs to pay their own bills and satisfy their desires. Jenkins et al. (2022) studied how the need for self-reliance among at-risk youths affected their deviance. The authors found that the need for autonomy led to the youths seeking to solve issues alone and falling into crime. The study that focused on urban youths also found that people lacked trust and resisted help and social support from others because they thought they needed to face their issues alone. Self-reliance on campus may involve studying and facing the pressures of being a student.
Material gain
Material gain is another common value among urban societies and the campus. People in cities, like school students, are motivated by material gain. Material gain is an important aspect of capitalistic cities. People work intending to get paid. They also participate in activities like education and insurance because of the material they hope to get from them. The value also promotes high rates of crime. According to Schiller (2022), corporations’ privatization and other business decisions aim to cause material gain. The value is very common in capitalistic societies like the United States. In higher learning, people are motivated by the need to get certificates that will enable them to get jobs to provide for themselves.
Evidence of Conformity in the Campus
The evidence of conformity on campus is evident in how students are motivated by self-material gain and the need for self-reliance. Students are encouraged to work hard and achieve their educational goals. Therefore, while they study together, each student is motivated by their own desires. The group work and teamwork that happens is mostly for individual gains. For instance, players play sports to get sponsorships or maintain theirs’. They are also incentivized by the promise of a degree that will give them a better chance. Self-reliance is also evident in the campus in how people study hard so they do not need help with exams. They also study to become empowered to depend on themselves for their needs. The need to become wealthy and independent also shows how material gain is a serious motivator on campus. While the things people struggle to achieve on campus differ from what city societies want, they are similar in how they conform to the capitalistic tendencies of self-reliance, individualism, and material gains.
Urban Transport
Urban transportation is the third common institution between the cities and the campus. The transport system enables the movement of people and goods. Includes the available measures in the cities and campuses that enable movement. Urban transportation includes the laws that guide traffic, its management, and the infrastructures like roads, trains, and buses involved in moving people and goods. The transport system is necessary because cities are usually vast and people must access their employments and homes. Modern transport aims to improve convenience and reduce the time spent moving between places. Therefore, in this part of the paper, the goal will be to discuss factors that affect the transport system in both the cities and the campus, like accessibility, affordability, and institutional support. In cities, like campuses, societies strive to improve the affordability of their transport system.
Affordability
Urban transportation has developed to become affordable to the people with the introduction of differently sized buses and using less costly fuel like electricity to drive the buses and trains involved. In major cities like New York, the subway systems enable affordable movement among people. Urban transportation is necessary because it gives more affordable alternatives to personal cars and bikes, among other methods. Urban transportation makes movement affordable in large areas of cities because of the economies of scale. Infrastructure like trains and buses enable people who work far away to commute to work and attend other activities. The urban transport systems also usually drop people off and pick them up at various city stations. Therefore, transportation ensures that urban economies thrive and eases the accessibility to services.
Accessibility
Accessibility is another important factor. Accessibility refers to the availability of urban transportation systems to the people who need them. In many cities, especially in developed countries like the US, subway stations and bus transit systems allow people to access buses and trains for work. The vessels also have many sits to make them adequate for people. Usually, there are many sites per vehicle because people share spaces. The trains and buses also stop at multiple points to collect and drop passengers. The system allows travelers to board at different points while others alight at designated bus stops.
Institutional Support
The cities usually support urban transport systems. The transportation infrastructure is usually built depending on need. Therefore, implementation depends on the city administration performing needs assessments to determine how best to plan their transportation. Cities enforce urban transportation laws to ensure order in service delivery. They also ensure security. Because the systems are located within cities, they must be supported by the cities. They perform roles like assigning human resources and providing funds to purchase equipment and other requirements. The cities also create laws that affect issues like discrimination and ensure that citizens can access transportation equally. Cities also determine qualifications and hire people who meet the criteria.
Evidence in Buffalo State
Urban transportation is also on the campus, although to a smaller extent. The institution needs urban transport to enable students and staff to get cheaper transportation. By sharing Currently, the campus organizes several means of transport. For instance, there are stations where people can meet for carpooling and share their car. The institution also has buses that transport people in the vast road network that runs in the institutions. However, like in cities, people must compete for the public transport systems. They have to ensure that they wait at appropriate times at the appropriate stations. They also need to be timely. For instance, they should arrive at the stations early to get comfortable seats. The institutional transport department manages the staff and repairs and acquires new buses to ensure that employees reach their workplaces and students reach their classes on time. Like in cities, while urban transportation is available, people must choose whether to use it or their cars.
Healthcare System
Healthcare systems are also located in the campus and traditional cities. People have the right to access healthcare. Hence, institutions like city and state governments and campuses must have means of preventing illnesses and promoting optimal well-being. Healthcare systems include both social and physical aspects. Healthcare systems include the payment methods like insurance and out-of-pocket payments, hospitals and other primary care setting, and the employees who deliver the care. Traditional cities provide infrastructure, employees, and laws that affect their services. Campuses, too, usually have health centers where students go for services like diagnoses and consultations. It is important to ensure they are accessible, affordable, and have adequate institutional support.
Accessibility
Accessibility is necessary for healthcare because it determines the number of people who can reach care facilities. The factor impacts people’s life quality in cities (Mouratidis, 2021). accessibility is affected by the physical distance between people’s residential housing and the care providers. In cities, there are usually many providers. However, in some places in cities, like in inner-city dwellings, people still struggle to get the care they need because of distance, poor roads, and other barriers and disabilities. Making healthcare accessible to everyone is a priority that people focus on in traditional cities. The culture of the different dwellers may affect the accessibility of care to them and their children. For instance, some Christian denominations prevent members from getting Western medicine. Others refuse blood transfusion. Regardless of people’s personal convictions, cities strive to ensure that healthcare is accessible to all citizens. Also, social factors like economic situation and geographical factors may impact accessibility. Accessibility problems contribute to disparities among racial groups (Thakur et al., 2020). Hence, cities strive to ensure that hospitals are located near people’s residential areas to reach them easily.
Affordability
The affordability of healthcare is another important aspect. Affordability impacts people’s uptake of services. Services and drugs must be affordable for people of different classes to access. Usually, people in states and cities can afford healthcare through insurance (Yabroff et al., 2019). Insurance involves paying a monthly premium to insurers who then pay for the care of people when they fall ill. Insurance companies function by collecting contributions from people who may want healthcare, whether or not they get ill. Usually, governments improve affordability by allowing subsidies and insurance for the poor. For instance, Medicare and Medicaid are social programs that enable people to access healthcare (Yabroff et al., 2019). Such programs offer a safety net for people to access care services. The healthcare policies of cities depend on the issues that affect people to improve their cost-effectiveness. For instance, cities may prioritize prevention through public health measures to reduce the expenditure on emergency care and hospitalizations. Even though in New York, healthcare is managed by the state like other states cities, it runs within the city to solve city residents’ issues and is therefore affected by city policies like planning. City decisions, therefore, also affect affordability. For instance, if the plan puts hospitals far from people, it affects their affordability because they also need to travel far to access care. Hence, they pay more for fares (Ghazal et al., 2021). The economic situations of city dwellers also impact their ability to afford care. In poor neighborhoods, where people have no jobs and crime is high, people may find it hard to afford care. Also, cities with lower insurance levels have many residents who struggle to afford care.
Institutional Support
Effective healthcare systems also require institutional support. Institutional support from cities involves infrastructural support and employing competent people. Cities must ensure competent emergency services and laws supporting healthcare provision (Ramirez-Rubio et al., 2019). They also have to ensure that their urban planning provides spaces for hospitals. They must also give licenses to providers (Ramirez-Rubio et al., 2019). Licenses ensure that providers are regulated. On campuses, too, institutional support ensures providing necessary infrastructure like buildings and equipment, employing professionals, and stocking drugs.
Evidence in Buffalo State
In the Buffalo campus, a healthcare system is evident in the presence of a health center. The campus responds to students’ and employees’ care needs. The institution funds the healthcare center through money paid by students and other payers that act as student health insurance. Therefore, when people get sick, they do not usually have to pay out of pocket to access care. Hence, healthcare on campus is affordable. It is also accessible because it is within the campus compound. People can quickly reach the facility and seek care when they get sick. The facility receives institutional support from the campus. Institutional support ensures that there are proper policies. The campus also employs competent professionals and funds the services of its students and staff.
Mass media
Mass media is the last institution in traditional cities and campuses. Mass media encompasses technologies that enable the wide dissemination of information. Usually, such media are desired to reach most community members simultaneously. Examples of mass media include radio, magazines, and television. Mass media is important for the government and people because it enables people to become aware of what is happening. Mass media in cities and Buffalo states are affected by accessibility, institutional support, and the technologies used.
Technology use
Technology development and choices affect mass media. Over time, mass media technologies have developed, making information dissemination simpler and less costly. For instance, computers and more efficient printing technologies make it easier for people to access information. Now, the internet has become a very important tool for broadcasting in cities and other places where people have connectivity. New technologies have reduced the output time required to print materials like magazines and newspapers (Khan et al., 2020). Also, internet sites are used to print and provide soft copies of newspapers, making it less costly. For instance, New York has newspapers like New York Times and the New York Post that let city residents know news about their cities and other places. The internet and effective printing and supplies technologies like vehicles enable news to reach people quickly so they can use it for their good. Also, technologies like televisions and radios affect the form of information and its reach. Television allows for video broadcasts, and radio allows for audio broadcasts. The availability of information in different formats improves its efficiency.
Accessibility
Accessibility to radios, television, and other receivers also affects people’s use of mass media. Mass media depends on people having the vessels needed to convey information. For newspapers, having adequate road networks in cities enables vendors to reach their clients with newspapers. Also, people’s access to radio and television sets affects their access to mass media information. Arisukwu et al. (2022) studied students’ use of mass media. They found that their ability to access technologies involved in receiving information was a major driving factor. The various mediums of mass media are important because they fit various people’s needs. For instance, working people buy newspapers to read, and people at home are likely to prefer radio and television (Rubin & Perse, 2020). Therefore, having the various form of mass media in a city ensures that as many people as possible are covered.
Institutional support
Institutional support also affects mass media. Cities and institutions support mass media severally. First, they form laws that promote the media’s freedom. Having free media enables it to disseminate all important information and allows people to make informed decisions. Cities support mass media by allowing the vending of newspapers and establishing radio and TV stations to inform the public. They also invite media houses to conferences where they give information that should be shared to the people. Other institutions also sponsor or facilitate mass media to enable people to access the news. For instance, they have libraries that are publicly funded. They also offer room for establishing media officers. For instance, educational institutions set up stations for training and broadcasting. Brown and Harlow (2019) explored how governments can support media in protests by providing security and not attacking them. Media freedom is important to ensure information is objective and reliable.
Evidence in Buffalo State
Buffalo also has various mass media to help disseminate information to students. The available media include radio, television, and magazines. The campus newspapers and magazines cover various topics similar to students’ politics and leadership. Buffalo State College TV offers programs like sports, Broadcasting Buffalo, and others that entertain students and also inform them. The journalism program also facilitates the campus radio and newspapers that reach students and the community around the campus.
Conclusion
The primary question that the paper answered is whether or not the social institutions that exist in cities also exist in Buffalo State. There are similar institutions on the campus as there are in traditional cities. They enable the university’s running and access to information, healthcare, movement, education, and other student needs. Buffalo’s most prominent institutions include conformity, the police, healthcare, urban transportation, and mass media. Each institution plays a different role in ensuring students and professionals access their personal and group needs. The institutions and resources are affected mostly by affordability, accessibility, institutional support, and technology uptake, among other factors. Future research should examine how the campus community uses the specific institutions to achieve their academic and other goals.
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