Social Process and the City

Peter Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135670795
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Contemporary urban studies engages a wide range of approaches in the analysis of the processes at work in urban areas. These approaches derive from anthropology, economics, geography, history, politics and sociology as well as from the professional experience of town planning and architecture.

Social process and the city reflects this growing cross-disciplinary engagement. This shows the important, problematic, role which cities in particular, and urban change in general have played in the growth of Australia. The overriding concern of each essay in this collection is to develop an understanding of the ways urban areas function and an awareness of how differing interpretations of 'urban phenomena' might be applied. This attention to the nature of the forces at work, and the processes these forces manifest themselves in, is extended both empirically and conceptually.

This book was first published in 1983.

1
When is an urban problem not an urban problem?

Evan Jones and Frank Stilwell

It is widely recognised that cities are characterised by a range of problems: atmospheric pollution, long journeys to work, congestion in public facilities and poor access to these facilities in many areas, sub-standard housing, pockets of high unemployment, rising incidence of crime, and so on. Some analysts talk of an “urban crisis” (Stilwell, 1979). What are the origins of these problems? One possible consequence of an examination of such problems from a specialist discipiine of ‘urban studies’ is the attribution of their cause to the character of urban structure itself. The issue of causation is vital. To use Alonso’s phrasing, it is tempting to interpret all problems manifest in cities as problems of cities (Alonso, 1971). However, it is important to ask whether the problems arise from spatial considerations, for example, city size, the spatial structure of the cities or inadequate planning of urban development. Or are the problems due to other causes and their appearance in spatial form merely a manifestation of these less obvious causes? Can we posit distinctive effects due to (a) the effects of the inherited environments, both physical and human-made, (b) the imperatives of the mode of production, (c) the impact of the state apparatus and (d) the role of space per se? In general, is the spatial character of ‘urban and regional’ problems causal or symptomatic?

The issue is of some considerable significance. First it raises questions of academic importance. The study of social phenomena within the last one hundred years has been characterised by substantial compartmentalisation into academic ‘disciplines’. Although this compartmentalisation is understandable in terms of attempts to develop a partial understanding with specific analytical tools, the process has been accentuated by traditional academic structures. New generations of would be intellectuals are schooled within a preexistent disciplinary structure, and many successful researchers stay within an inherited analytical framework without making any conscious decision as to its methodological advantages. For example, although urban and regional economics has developed separately from its ‘parent’, orthodox economic theory (because of the lack of a spatial dimension to the latter), its vision, analysis and emphasis have remained influenced by the vision, analysis and emphasis of orthodox economics. Traditional academic structures also make it more likely that an urban economist will have had more exposure to economics than to urban sociology, for example. Such disciplinary isolation tends to produce specific analyses that may be rigorous on their own terms, but also potentially distortive of the ‘global’ picture. The problem is perhaps most acute for the geographers, who naturally emphasise spatial considerations. Fortunately, the last ten years has witnessed a variety of attempts to build a more comprehensive analysis of spatial forms (for example, Harvey, 1973, 1976 and 1978; Castells, 1977, 1978; Tabb and Sawers, 1978; Harloe, 1977; Carney, Hudson and Lewis, 1980; Mullins, 1981). Our contention is that an interdisciplinary approach is not only desirable, but essential if “urban problems” are to be systematically analysed.

Secondly, the issue is important because of its vital implications for public policy. The emphasis on spatial causes of urban problems tends to provoke calls for remedial policies such as decentralisation, improved urban planning, and so on. However, if the problems are simply manifestations of more fundamental factors, then such remedial policies do not attack the cause: different and/or more drastic responses are needed in conjunction with spatial policies. This perspective would suggest that “urban problems” can only be resolved through a more general assault on the socio-economic system which generates social inequalities, inefficiencies of resource allocation and utilisation, and environmental decay. As a consequence, policies which are appropriate for urban problems may range from the most superficial to the most profound. Indeed, it is not inconceivable that some problems may be deemed insoluble.

The practical significance of these policy considerations in the Australian context is obvious: the last Labor Federal Government sought to redress social inequality through the spatial policies of the Department of Urban and Regional Development with quite limited success (Lloyd and Troy, 1981). What a reformist party could - or should - attempt on coming to office again is a matter deserving the most careful consideration and requiring a coherent analysis which the last Labor government lacked. The approach of this paper gives priority to these implications for policy: thus, the degree of difficulty involved in remedial ‘policies’ is a dominant consideration in the grouping or ordering of the factors.

It should be stressed that what follows is not intended as a definitive and unique work. We are not concerned here with the development of a conceptual structure adequate for an holistic analysis of urban problems. Neither do we claim complete originality. The issue of causality has even been formally acknowledged by the applied neo-classical economists who now generally acknowledge the importance of the distinction between problems of cities (that is, caused by spatial factors) and problems in cities (that is, having non-spatial causes). Such writers use the existence of the latter to support the critique of government intervention to limit city size (for example, Richardson, 1973). Marxists have also confronted the question more formally, predictably locating the roots of urban problems in the nature of capitalism as a mode of production. Our concern is to clarify the issue of causality by some simple propositions: (a) to posit the concept of a ‘locus’ of causation - there exist several readily discernible loci of causation of urban problems; (b) that the most adequate analysis of causation would place urban problems as predominantly non-spatial in origin and spatial only in manifestation; (c) that the non-spatial causes of urban problems, though related, are relatively autonomous in that they cannot be reduced to a single cause, and each presents its attendant degree of difficulty for an appropriate public policy. In addition, the use of Australian examples should highlight the significance of the issues in a specific context.

We begin by examining historical and geographical influences which shape the “built environment” and impose severe limits on public policies. Secondly, we study the influence of the mode of production on urban problems. Though the policy implications arising from this approach are, in general, revolutionary rather than reformist, we indicate some areas in which there is scope for improvement within the structural constraints imposed by capitalism. Thirdly, we examine certain aspects of the state apparatus which have influence on urban problems, and discuss whether particular problems stemming from the nature of the bureaucracy transcend the constraints imposed by the mode of production. Finally, we consider the influence of spatial form per se.

Geographical and Historical Influences

Geographical influences impose major constraints on the pattern of urban and regional development. Indeed, the Australian physical environment probably provides the ideal supporting example. The lack of adequate and reliable rainfall, the limited distribution of arable soil, and the impediments to communication created by the Great Dividing Range have set significant limits on development. This ‘determinist’ position was forcefully represented earlier in the century by a geographer, Griffith Taylor, whose persistent arguments against an optimistic view of Australia’s future akin to the possibilities, say, of the United States, gained him little gratitude. Taylor believed that “the best economic programme for a country to follow has in large part been decided by Nature. Man is able to accelerate, slow or stop the progress of a country’s development. But he should not, if he is wise, depart from the directions as indicated by the natural environment” (Taylor, 1940). With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that Taylor understated the case of the extent to which political-economic factors may influence the structure of development. Changes in agricultural technology have opened up more possibilities of rural development. Even more dramatically, the extraction of Australia’s abundant mineral resources has led to the development of new settlements in various areas, most notably in the north-western region of Western Australia. Nevertheless, the restrictions of soil, climate and topography continue to provide a physical basis for the lack of intensive agriculture and the extra-ordinary concentration of population and economic activities evident in Auatralia.

Historically, geographical considerations have interacted with political-economic considerations in shaping the spatial distribution of population and economic activity. The high degree of urbanisation in Australia - and its concentration in the six state capitals in particular - is closely linked to the colonial relationship with Britain. Separate colonies were established for reasons of defence, isolation of penal colonies and the need to control free settlement. Within each of the individual colonies, public administration was and is highly centralised. The focus on the major ports as the trans-shipment points for the export of primary goods and the import of labour and other commodities further reinforced the tendencies towards centralisation. In a sense, the general unevenness in the Australian economy which was the outcome of colonial dependence can be seen to have manifested itself spatially in a striking unevenness in the development of urban and rural areas. This duality in the economic structure - and in the spatial structure - Is a general feature of dependent Third World economies, and Australia’s colonial origins have stamped its spatial structure partly in this mould. Indeed, particular features of the Australian situation, such as the absence of any significant pre-capitalist rural peasantry and the ability to exploit the resources of the interior through radial rail networks, provided additional reasons for the dominance of the capital city within each colony. Simultaneously, of course, the separate development of the individual colonies prevented the growth of metropolitan primacy in the continent as a whole.

Having developed for this assortment of historical reasons, the capital cities came to have cumulative advantages, as they attracted investment in manufacturing and service activities, and developed a wide range of commercial, financial and social facilities. New businesses - other than those based on natural resources - have typically preferred a metropolitan location because of the large labour market, access to market and ancillary services. Moreover, the immigrant groups - especially those from Southern Europe (who accounted for about half of the population growth since World War II) - have tended to be disproportionately concentrated in the cities, seeking proximity to jobs in the manufacturing sector and social contact with their own ethnic groups (Collins, 1975). Thus the forces of “circular and cumulative causation” have tended to reinforce the high degree of metropolitan dominance.

It should be stressed that the last decade has seen something of a reversal of this process as Sydney and Melbourne in particular have failed to secure the share of population growth experienced during the “long boom” of the 1950s and 1960s. Explanations for this vary and might include the effect of the structural change in the economy towards mineral extraction and processing and away from city based manufacturing industries (Stilwell, 1980) as well as the relative attractiveness of the non-metropolitan environment (Lansdown, 1977). The changing balance between the State capitals in their shares of population and employment growth is also striking. Nevertheless, these changes in the pattern of urban and regional development occur at the margin, and for all the cities - including those whose share is no longer growing - the historically determined structure imposes great constraints on the process of capital accumulation.

The overwhelming feature of the built environment is its inertia (Harvey, 1978). Whatever the causal influences operating historically, the vast investment in urban development, once undertaken, make for a great “stickiness” in the workings of the space economy. Of course, the constraints are not absolute. The private sector of the economy certainly does not treat them as such. Restructuring of the built environment is occurring constantly as the present interests of investors conflict with the concretised ‘past’ interests of previous investors. We are witness to the continual replacement of shops/residences/offices in and around the central business district by buildings of greater density; the segmentation of inner-city communities and destruction of parklands by intra-urban freeways; the closure of manufacturing business in the inner-city resulting from movements of capital to the outer suburbs and overseas; and the disapperance of whole towns subsequent to the closure of key mining or manufacturing businesses. Lamarche (1976) argues that urban restructuring is a crucial element in creating the conditions for capital accumulation in that it helps reduce the circulation time of capital (the average time period for which capital is tied up in a particular project). Yet the temporal limits to this process of spatial restructuring necessary for capital accumulation impose important constraints on the pace and the form of capital accumulation. In Harvey’s words, ‘’capitalist investment has to negotiate a knife-edge path between preserving the exchange value of past capital investments in the built environment and destroying the value of those investments in order to open up fresh room for accumulation.” (Harvey, 1978).

Policy Implications

Changing the physical environment is a matter of technical expertise, adequate finance and collective will. Endowed with copious quantities of the last resource, the Israelis, at least for the time being, have transformed their country. The Chinese are outstanding in their attempts to make productive use of their water resources. Australian governments have made intermittent attempts to transcend the imposing frontiers facing viable settlement, for example, In the Snowy Mountain project and the Ord River Scheme, although such projects are notable for their rarity as much as for their success. The ravages of leaching, drought and flood continue to impede rural decentralisation. Given also an apparent cultural tradition which is antagonistic to a role for government which is strongly interventionist, far-sighted and coordinated, these sorts of geographical influences impose substantial obstacles to remedial public policy.

Similarly, the built environment - shaped by the historical needs of capital and constrained by geographical factors - is both the object of public policy and a constraint on its operation. As we have seen, the interests of profit are constrained by the built environment: the constraints on public policy are that much stronger because of the potential conflicts both with the inertia of the built environment (partly embodying the interests of past investment) and with the interests of contemporary private investment.

Decentralisation policy, which has attracted a long-standing commitment in Australia (in rhetoric if not in action), provides an obvious example. Steering growth away from the major capital cities has been an objective accepted by all the major political parties, and has led to the development of an array of public policies, particularly in the South-Eastern States (Neutze, 197S:Ch.4, Stilwell, 1974:Ch.l3). Most of these policies involve direct subsidies to capital such as low-interest loans for the purchase of land and the construction of factories, rail-freight subsidies, subsidies for training of workers, payroll tax rebates, and so on. However, it is a strategy that has operated “against the wind”, in that the perceived advantages of a metropolitan location have remained dominant for most industries. Each of the six State capitals continued to capture a rising share of their respective State population (see figures in Stilwell, 1974:17). It is true that the cumulative growth of the major cities has slowed in the past decade but, as previously noted, this is at least partly the result of structural change in the economy towards an emphasis on the mineral sector. There have also been major changes in the immigration flow and the rate of natural increase (Borrie, 1978) which have slowed metropolitan growth but which cannot be considered to be directly contributable to the effects of regional policy. The very fact that the major urban areas contain the majority of the national population makes it likely that they will have to accommodate the majority of population growth (on the conservative assumption that fertility rates are similar between city and country and that immigration is distributed between city and country in rough proportion to the existing population). The normal tendency would be for both public and private investment to accommodate to these trends in respect to the provision of housing and social services. Thus, the cumulative tendencies a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Theory and Process in Urban Studies
• 1 When is an Urban Problem not an Urban Problem?
• 2 The Crisis in British Planning Education and Research
• 3 On the Shoulders of which Giant? The Case for Weberian Political Analysis
• 4 Women and Suburban Housing: Post-War Planning in Sydney, 1943–61
• 5 Population Mobility in Australia’s Urban Areas
• 6 The City, State and Resource Development in Western Australia
• 7 The City-Bred Child and Urban Reform in Melbourne 1900–1940
• 8 The Development of Urban Planning in Australia 1888–1948: a Bibliography and Review
• Policy Review
• Review Articles
• Books Received