Urban Sociology

Critical Essays

C.G. Pickvance

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135673314
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

This book applies the historical materialist, or Marxist view of urban sociology and collates some fundamental sources of this perspective available.

This book was first published in 1976.

1	Introduction Historical materialist approaches to urban sociology

The aim of this book is to make available to English-speaking readers a sample of recent French-language writings on urban sociology by authors adopting a historical materialist, or Marxist, viewpoint. These writings are not only generally inaccessible to many English-speaking readers but, more important, represent a quite new theoretical perspective in urban sociology.

It is this common theoretical viewpoint which distinguishes the writings collected in this book rather than the fact that they all originally appeared in French — a fact which conceals the varied nationalities of their authors (French (Lojkine); French-Canadian (Lamarche) and Spanish (Castells, Olives)) and the existence of non-Marxist French urban sociology. Nevertheless it is no coincidence that this new perspective in urban sociology should have taken root on the Continent where the Marxist political and intellectual tradition is much stronger than that in the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ countries.

While it is beyond the scope of this Introduction to provide an adequate definition of historical materialism, its origins and principal variants, we may describe it briefly as the theoretical corpus based on Marx's fundamental theses that the material economic base of society determines the superstructure of social, legal and political institutions, rather than vice versa, and that each historical society is characterized by struggles between the opposing social classes arising from the particular processes of production within it. Within this general position however the contributions in this book (which reflect their authors’ views up to ten years ago) vary in the emphasis they give, for example, to economic trends and to political organization. Thus chapter 4 places more emphasis on the former, chapters 6 and 7 on the latter, while Chapter 5 places equal emphasis on both.

Interest in the application of historical materialism in the field of ‘urban sociology’ developed during the 1960s, and was given an extra impetus by the ‘events’ of May 1968 in France, and their repercussions. Institutionally, this interest was helped by the French government's provision of finance for urban research in universities or independent research institutions¹ following its interpretation of the ‘events’ as in part due to urban malfunctioning. That this finance has helped develop a new and critical approach not only within urban sociology but also in the form of political action regarding urban issues is a curious paradox. In 1970 there was sufficient support for a new journal to be founded devoted to a critical study of the urban field (and embracing architecture and planning).² And in 1973 an important series of monographs started to appear in which the first book-length products of historical materialist work in urban sociology became available.³ Thus all the signs are present for one to be able to assert with confidence that an important new theoretical current has appeared in the field of urban sociology, and one which English-speaking readers cannot afford to ignore.

The articles selected for inclusion in the present volume were deliberately chosen to complement the monographs mentioned above, which, one hopes, will eventually be translated into English. The first two articles (chapters 2 and 3), by Castells, provide an assessment from an historical materialist standpoint of the theoretical significance of previous work in urban sociology. The next three articles outline historical materialist modes of analysis in three fields: (i) land, housing and property (Chapter 4, by Lamarche), (ii) urban development (Chapter 5, by Lojkine) and (iii) urban social movements Chapter 6, by Castells). The sixth article, on protest against urban renewal (Chapter 7, by Olives), indicates how Castells's theoretical approach to urban social movements might be applied, and the final article (Chapter 8) has been added to provide a more detailed assessment of certain aspects of the recent studies of urban protest (including that of Olives) which follow Castells's approach.

The remaining sections of this Introduction will be devoted to clarifying and discussing the main arguments advanced in chapters 2 to 7. In the next section we discuss Castells's argument regarding the theoretical status of urban sociology, in section III we discuss Lamarche and Lojkine's theses on the role of the city in the capitalist mode of production, and in section IV we discuss Castells's theoretical framework for the study of urban social movements and the studies which adopt it.

II The scientific status of urban sociology

To anyone who puts the question, ‘What is urban sociology?’, the answer may be given, ‘What urban sociologists do’. However fashionable such an answer is, it essentially sets aside the original question of the theoretical specificity of the field of urban sociology as irrelevant. The fact that researchers are employed to resolve ‘urban’ problems and are labelled ‘urban sociologists’ does not suffice to establish the scientificity of urban sociology.

At first sight chapter 2 (‘Is there an urban sociology?’) and chapter 3 (‘Theory and ideology in urban sociology’) might be read as reviews of the Anglo-Saxon literature on the subject (besides containing a useful summary of recent French literature — in chapter 2). To make such a reading would be basically to misunderstand their author's purpose.

The import of the two essays is rather an insistence that the question of the scientific status of urban sociology cannot be set aside as irrelevant, and that its precise status must be determined, since if it is not scientific the field must be reformulated or else denounced.

Since it is likely that the terms in which Castells's examination of the status of urban sociology is couched will strike many readers as unfamiliar, a brief introduction will be supplied here.⁴

These terms in fact derive from the Althusserian reading of Marx. For Althusser, Marx constituted a science, historical materialism, in a field, political economy, where until that time bourgeois or ideological conceptions had held sway. Similarly, Castells's aim is to found a science in the theoretical space occupied by urban sociology. To do this it is necessary to separate ‘ideological’ aspects of the knowledge produced in this field from those which have some ‘scientific’ relevance. For Casteils, like Althusser, the term science, by definition, refers to historical materialism, the science of social formations.⁵ Hence the opposition in the title of Chapter 3 between ‘theory’ and ‘ideology’.

Castells formulates the question of the scientificity of urban sociology in the following terms:

Does urban sociology have a theoretical object?

If so, is that theoretical object ‘urban’?

If not, does urban sociology nevertheless have a real object which could be described as ‘urban’?

This formulation of the question is based on the thesis that if a science has neither a theoretical object nor a real object to which it applies theoretical concepts, then it does not merit the name ‘science’: it is an ‘ideology’. In the particular case of urban sociology, it would be necessary to show that it has either an urban theoretical object, or is applied to an urban real object. The term theoretical (or scientific) object belongs to the opposed pair: theoretical object-real object. These terms in turn belong to the Althusserian conception of knowledge. Whereas in the conventional (‘empiricist’) conception of knowledge, theoretical objects, or concepts, are produced as a result of abstraction from reality (real objects), Althusser dismisses abstraction as an ‘empiricist’ process which has no place in his ‘materialist’ epistemology. Since the precise relation between theoretical object and real object is the matter of some debate,⁶ let us simply say that the real object refers to some aspect of reality, ready-wrapped in preconceptions which are usually ‘ideological’, which the science seeks knowledge of in the form of a theoretical object. (Theoretical knowledge is seen as arising not from the action of a subject (thinker) on the real object, but by the action of theoretical concepts on the real object.)

Castells examines the question of the scientificity of urban sociology in four stages:

(1)Has urban sociology had an urban theoretical object in the past?

(2)Could it have an urban theoretical object in the future?

(3)Does urban sociology have an urban real object?

(4)If it has neither urban theoretical objects nor urban real objects, can the (non-urban) theoretical and real objects it has sought to understand be retrieved and made the basis for a ‘scientific’ urban sociology?⁷

(1) Firstly, Castells argues that research in urban sociology is fragmented ‘into several branches each with a quite different scientific object’ (p. 35), e.g. urbanization, social disorganization, community power. According to Robert Park's research programme, urban sociology was to study every social phenomenon occurring in the urban context (‘a non-specific theoretical object’). In fact the research carried out was much more limited in scope, e.g. it focussed on the process of acculturation of immigrant groups (or their resistance to acculturation) to American society (‘a different and non-explicit scientific object’). A second major field within urban sociology was the study of spatial organization, e.g. urbanization. Castells argues that the object of this field, space, is a real object or ‘material element’, and not a theoretical object. A third field, the ‘ecological complex’ approach developed by Duncan, is argued to be no less than a general theory of social structure, and not an urban theoretical object.

In brief, while urban sociology in the past has had theoretical objects (if not always explicit) it has not had an urban theoretical object. So it cannot justify a claim to be a science based on the specificity of its theoretical object.

(2) In view of this conclusion, is there any prospect that urban sociology will have an urban theoretical object in the future?

Castells rephrases this question in the following, rather unfamiliar, form, viz. what is the likelihood that a ‘social unit’ will coincide with a ‘spatial unit’? A ‘social unit’ may be defined within any one of the three approaches distinguished by Touraine:⁸ within a functionalist approach the ‘social unit’ is a social system; within a historical approach, a ‘system of action’; and within a semiological. approach, a ‘system of signs’. In the first case, when a social system exists within a given spatial unit, or area, the term ‘community’ is usually used to describe the result. (As, for example, in Coing's study of urban renewal, discussed by Castells.) But Castells argues that communities are on the whole only ‘vague recollections’, and in any case not exclusive to urban areas. (We shall return to the latter point below — p. 8.) Hence the search for communities is a somewhat ‘precarious’ base on which to found an urban sociology.

In the second case, when a ‘system of action’ coincides with a spatial unit, the term ‘urban institution’ is usually used. By ‘system of action’ Touraine means the system of means which underlies the process of transformation of society. Thus, in Weber's description of the medieval city in The City, the political-administrative system had a large degree of autonomy and did have such a shaping role in society. While referring approvingly to the Belgian economist Rémy's conception of the city as source of innovation and exchange (hence, of change) and at the same time as means of controlling change, Castells doubts whether autonomous urban institutions are likely to be found in societies today.⁹ Hence this second possibility seems an unlikely basis for an urban theoretical object on which to found urban sociology. (The third case, where a system of signs coincides with a spatial unit, i.e. an urban sociology based on a semiological approach, is not discussed by Castells.)

Thus while the two cases discussed suggest that urban theoretical objects may have existed in the past, they also suggest that the prospects of a ‘scientific’ urban sociology based on an urban theoretical object in the future are remote.

(3) The third stage in the argument is to inquire whether urban sociology has an urban real object (in the same way that industrial sociology is the application of sociological theory to a specific real object, the firm), or whether it covers a motley collection of non-urban real objects.

We have already noted that a major theme within urban sociology has been the study of space (as in studies of ‘spatial structure’, ‘urbanization’, etc.). Now Castells describes space as a ‘material element’ whose relationships with other aspects of society certainly constitute an important field of study, but which itself is a real object.

At this point the question arises whether space is an urban real object or not. In order to answer this question we must examine the definition of urban a little more closely. In stage (1) of the argument — where it was denied that urban theoretical objects had existed in the past — no definition of urban was offered! And in stage (2) we accepted Castells's rephrasing of the question as to the future prospects of an urban theoretical object in terms of whether a spatial unit coincided with a social unit.

Clearly urban has a number of referents: it may refer to a spatial form (city as opposed to country), to a cultural pattern (‘urbanism’ as opposed to ‘ruralism’, as ways of life) or to a structural form (e.g. the city as a source of ‘control’ in an urban hierarchy). And often definitions will link one or more of these aspects: thus, in Wirth's theory of urbanism, the urban ‘way of life’ is seen as a characteristic tendency produced by the city. Now whereas in feudal society city and country as spatial forms were also opposed as cultural patterns and structural forms, as Pirenne and Weber showed, in most industrialized societies the spatial and cultural distinction between urban and rural is increasingly difficult to make. As Pahl, for example, showed in Urbs in Rure,¹⁰ the ‘urbanized fringe’ with its ‘commuter villages’ cannot be meaningfully regarded as either urban or rural in a spatial sense. And any distinction between urban and rural cultural patterns is increasingly difficult to make.

Castells concludes from this that in highly urbanized societies the spatial and cultural distinctions between urban and rural are unfounded and that the persistence of the contrast in sociological usage is due to (a) the identification of urban in the cultural sense with industrial modern (W...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Translator's Note
• 1 Introduction: historical materialist approaches to urban sociology
• 2 Is there an urban sociology?
• 3 Theory and ideology in urban sociology
• 4 Property development and the economic foundations of the urban question
• 5 Contribution to a Marxist theory of capitalist urbanization
• 6 Theoretical propositions for an experimental study of urban social movements
• 7 The struggle against urban renewal in the ‘Cité d'Aliarte' (Paris)
• 8 On the study of urban social movements†
• Name Index
• Subject Index