The Shared Space

The Two Circuits of the Urban Economy in Underdeveloped Countries

Milton Santos, Chris Gerry

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138102248
• eBook ISBN: 9781351594073
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Originally published in 1979. In this forcefully argued book, Milton Santos shows that contemporary explanations of urbanization and spatial organization in underdeveloped countries are inadequate. This failure is attributable to their origins in theories elaborated to explain the development of advanced Western societies. Santos' work provides the basis for the new theory which is so badly needed. He describes the urban economy in these countries in terms of two circuits of activity – an upper circuit consisting of those enterprises and structures which are based on modern technology and are oriented towards the advanced capitalist world, and a lower circuit comprised of more traditional processes and forms of exchange. The dialectical interaction of these two circuits is seen to generate the patterns of growth, forms of State intervention and, above all, the spatial organization characteristic of Third World economies.

This was a revision and translation of L'Espace Partagé (1975).

PART I

1

Towards a new paradigm

It is only in recent years that the urbanization process in underdeveloped countries has been treated in a theoretical manner. The 1950s saw pioneering work in this field and produced the type of speculative analysis capable of generating a wide spectrum of descriptive terminology. Redfield and Singer (1954) advanced the concepts of orthogenetic and heterogenetic cities; Davis and Hertz Golden (1954) returned to and reinterpreted the concept of primacy and Jefferson (1939) introduced the idea of overurbanization. In 1960, Sjoberg added the notion of the pre-industrial city, and Hoselitz (1960a) characterized Third World cities as either ‘generative’ or ‘parasitic’.

These different approaches, and particularly the dichotomy proposed by Hoselitz, were sufficiently well received for them to be adopted as paradigms upon which the subsequent important work on Third World urbanization was to be based. They remained to the fore throughout the 1960s, though they were interpreted in a number of different ways. For example, Emrys Jones (1966: 38–54) used the term ‘pre-industrial city’, whilst Friedmann and Lackington (1966) replaced ‘overurbanization’ with ‘hyperurbanization’. Though initially critical of such superlatives, Sovani (1964) later inclined towards the use of some qualification when advancing the idea of ‘primary’ and ‘mature’ urbanization (1966). Bose (1965) defined Calcutta as a premature metropolis.

Those who initially undertook the search for a general theory of Third World urbanization may be exonerated for retaining what might be called a ‘qualificative’ approach; they were working at the inception of our initially slow progress towards an understanding of the nature of underdeveloped countries. With hindsight, and considering how much more is now known on the subject, it is clear that this school of thought had not been able to grasp the fundamental reality of Third World urbanization. Instead, it restricted itself to the superficial approach which was productive only of a wide range of qualifying terminology, much of which had been transferred from the environment with which these writers were already familiar, namely the urban phenomena of Western countries.

Twenty years of experience has placed the futility of this approach beyond dispute; the time is more than ripe for a reorientation towards a substantive analysis more conducive to an understanding of the reality and internal dynamic of urbanization in underdeveloped countries, and away from speculative and comparative studies.

National planning with immature theories

The 1950s also saw the introduction of systematic planning in underdeveloped countries, whilst the first studies of spatial planning appeared during the 1960s. Using Perroux’s (1955) now classic work on growth poles as a base, Boudeville (1961, 1966), Rodwin (1961), Alonso (1968), and Friedmann (1963, 1966) attempted to introduce a spatial dimension into the analysis of urbanization. Similarly, Christaller’s (1933) seminar on central place theory regained popularity, and numerous studies were devoted to these two themes. Lasuen (1971) considered that growth poles and central places were manifestations of the same theoretical problem. However, national planning was rapidly subordinated to political expediency, notably in the sphere of international relations.

Analyses of Third World urbanization have also been handicapped by political preoccupations. In many studies, urban realities have been identified as elements of instability.¹ Studies of urban housing, employment, marginality, migration, and overcrowding are dominated by a greater preoccupation with the symptoms than with the causes of urban poverty. Moreover these latter are becoming increasingly serious on an international scale.

The whole question of foreign aid can be viewed from the same standpoint; again we see the results of basing analysis on an hypothesis yet to be validated. Despite the critical attention which foreign aid has attracted (Hayter 1971; Mende 1972) it is still advanced as a miracle cure. The expected critique of that assertion is rarely forthcoming for the simple reason that it no longer appears necessary or even desirable to treat the subject to a scientific analysis (Myint 1965a:491). Exactly the same can be said of the most urgent problems of urbanization, the study of which has been restricted by a narrow and almost exclusively political perspective. Thus virtually all analysis is invalidated from the start when the researcher feels himself obliged to provide, often in a limited period of time, the results expected of him.

As a result, research is distorted and weakened, whilst the results are inevitably a compromise. Also, the researcher is torn between the desire to understand reality objectively and the temptation to prophesy and offer solutions. But the difference between the perspective required of the theorist and that required of the technical adviser is fundamental: the adviser has to consider the particular variables of a given situation, which means considering the objectives of the bureaucrats and administrators, as Moore (1965:13) so perceptively pointed out. The results of such analyses can only be disappointing. Moreover, they give rise to a pressing demand for studies of an even more detached and systematic nature (Wurster 1964:10).

Mathematical methods have been applied to the story of urbanization in underdeveloped countries in the hope of providing a more rigorous and well-focused analysis. But we know the results. Theoretically, the use of multivariate techniques facilitates an understanding of the functioning of urban systems. However, when the methodological framework and spatial theories are patterned on Western realities, mathematical rigour serves to perpetuate not only inappropriate theories but also errors in their interpretation. Moreover, not all economic problems are amenable to mathematical treatment; those that are may not necessarily be the most important. Although in certain cases, as for example in the studies of Abiodun (1967, 1968), the possibility of description of non-dynamic conditions has been refined, the use of quantitative models unsupported by an understanding of local realities has not contributed to the advancement of theoretical models.

Underdevelopment: the historical context

To understand the processes of underdevelopment we must use a more explicitly historical methodology. The fundamental mistake that many researchers have made is to rely on comparisons between the developed and the less developed world. In this way concepts formulated on the basis of data from developed countries have been indiscriminately applied to Third World countries. As the availability of data on underdeveloped countries increases so it becomes possible to base an historical analysis on Third World reality rather than on the assumption that all social evolution is simultaneously comparable and complementary. Researchers who use raw data collected in underdeveloped countries and who are free from the need to make comparisons with developed countries reach very different conclusions from those researchers who depend upon spurious cross-sectional comparisons.

Reissman thus draws parallels between developing and developed countries: ‘the urban process in the developing countries is presently repeating many of the characteristics observed in the Western world.’ Supposedly this can be explained ‘by the similarity of development in the two periods and in the two types of societies’ (Wellisz 1971:39; Smailes 1971:5). Bauer(1957:36) goes still further by risking a parallel between contemporary India and medieval Europe.

Such views are based on the postulate that the Third World is ‘developing’, i.e. in a state of transition towards the contemporary situation in developed countries. In reality, this idea of ‘similar path models’ is inadequate (McGee 1971a). The ostensible world in development is actually an underdeveloped world with inherent characteristics and mechanisms which are clearly in need of explanation.

An historical approach to the study of the underdeveloped countries shows that they did not evolve in the same way as the developed countries. This difference shows up well in the social, economic and spatial organization of Third World society, whose process of urbanization can be seen as just one element in a spectrum of complementary processes. The contemporary situation in underdeveloped countries is in no way comparable to that of the ‘advanced’ countries prior to their industrialization. Bettelheim (1962: Chapter III) points out that the economies of the advanced countries ‘were neither dependent, distorted, nor in disequilibrium, but rather integrated and autocentred’.

Despite strong warnings from Polly Hill (1966) and Paul Wheatley (1969) against the dangers of ethnocentricity, the influence of Western theories is sufficiently strong to ensure that their supercession will be a slow process. We wonder, as does Gakenheimer (1971:55–66), whether ‘it would not be better to categorically refuse imported methods and start from scratch, i.e. with the formulation of the initial’.

The spatial characteristics of underdevelopment

Two fundamental deficiencies impel us to propose an analysis based upon the organization of space. Little of the work on underdeveloped countries has involved a rigorous analysis of spatial dynamics. Additionally, most of the available studies were undertaken in the 1950s and early 1960s when insufficient was known about the wide-ranging effects of high technology on spatial organization. Never has there existed a greater need for an assessment of the comparative spatial organization of both developed and Third World countries.

The essential components of spatial reality are universal and form an historical continuum, varying nevertheless in their quantitative and qualitative balance, interaction and recomposition on the basis of location; thus we see the emergence of spatial differentiation. Though the constitution and reconstitution of space in underdeveloped countries is conditioned by external interests often operating on a world-wide scale, their impact on spatial factors is localized and subject to considerable inertia (Santos and Kayser 1971). However, the differential impact of modernizations, whether these have internal or external origins, is highly selective, making itself felt at different times and locations to different extents. At every phase of modernization, new zones of formerly ‘neutral’ space are drawn into the orbit of ‘operational’ space; with the advent of continuous imbalance and adjustment, instability in spatial organization becomes the dominant trend.

In the underdeveloped countries there are enormous income disparities. At the regional level, they are manifested in the hierarchical employment-structure; at the local level, they can be felt in the co-existence of two economic systems, each operating on a different level. Income disparities are much smaller in developed countries and have little influence upon the accessibility of a wide range of commodities. An individual’s capacities to both produce and consume largely depends on his location; consequently, in underdeveloped countries, such potentialities are subject to much greater variability than in the developed world.

The whole spatial dynamic is thus influenced by enormous geographic and individual disparities. Such spatial selectivity at an economic as well as a social level appears to hold the key to the elaboration of a spatial theory. Spatial selectivity can be interpreted in two ways, according to whether production or consumption is considered. Production, especially that requiring a high level of technology, tends to be concentrated at specific points. Consumption responds to forces of dispersion; since, however, spatial factors strongly influence the ability to consume in both qualitative and quantitative terms, such social differentiation operates as a brake on the forces of dispersion.

At the national level, new economic demands are superimposed over existing ‘traditional’ ones. The economic system is thus forced to accommodate both new and inherited social realities, and faces the need for dynamic modernization. This applies equally to the productive and distributive systems. Two economic circuits are created, responsible not only for the economic process, but also the process of spatial organization.

Two circuits

The city, therefore, can no longer be studied as a single homogeneous entity, but should be thought of as two subsystems, namely the ‘upper’ or ‘modern circuit’ and the ‘lower circuit’.

The first objective is to define adequately each circuit of the urban economy, their reciprocal relations, and their relations with society and their surrounding space. Urban life is condition...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Author index
• Subject index