bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Identifying Class Struggle outside Commodity Production
Authors: Fincher R
Published: October 2006

The question addressed in this paper is how to identify class struggle in conflicts outside commodity production in advanced capitalism. The paper has six sections, After a brief introduction (section 1), it is shown in section 2 why it is important to delimit class struggle theoretically and empirically. In section 3, the recent recognition that struggles outside the capitalist workplace can be class struggles is documented. Criteria to identify class struggles in empirical practice are presented in section 4, with the focus on the definition of class struggle as activities which increase class capacity (the capacity of a class to act in relation to other classes), In section 5, three recent conflicts in inner-city Montreal are assessed using the criteria proposed. In each conflict a local community and a working class confronts the state over the form of state-funded housing or health care. In section 6, the conclusion, problems which remain in the conceptual formulation of class struggle in community conflicts are described.
The Geographical Transfer of Value: Notes on the Spatiality of Capitalism
Authors: Hadjimichalis C
Published: October 2006

Marxist research on the geographical unevenness of capitalist development remains highly heterogeneous. Although virtually all Marxists agree on certain general concepts, such as capital accumulation, agglomeration in space, spatial division of labor, capital mobility, the role of the state, etc, there is strong disagreement on how these processes operate and on the nature of their impact on various places. In this paper, a critical evaluation of two dominant lines of thought, the autonomous or semiautonomous development thesis and the transfer-of-surplus-development thesis, is presented, A third approach, based on the notion of the geographical transfer of value, an attempt to use the labor theory of value in geographical terms, is also introduced. This view is further elaborated by focusing first on the articulation of production and circulation, second on state and local state intervention in this articulation, and third on the contradiction between equalization and differentiation. Throughout the paper, a special emphasis is given to the determinant role of class struggle and to the absence of any ‘iron laws of motion of capitalism’.
The Rise and Fall of Urban Movements and the Role of Comparative Analysts
Authors: Pickvance C
Published: October 2006

The paper is concerned with the changing incidence and militancy of urban movements since the 1960s, The diversity of experience between countries, and within countries over time, poses a problem of comparative analysis. This can be tackled by advancing a single model applying in highly diverse situations—as in Castells's The City and the Grassroots—or by constructing a series of submodels each of which applies in specific conditions. Castells's work is criticized for stressing movement characteristics at the expense of contextual characteristics, and an alternative approach is argued for in which urban movement experience is shaped by five contextual features: urbanisation conditions, state action, the political context, the development of middle class, and the general economic and social conditions. Submodels drawing on these features are used to make a comparative analysis of urban movement experience in France, Italy, and Spain. A typology of urban movements is drawn up: movements for the provision of and access to housing and urban services, for control and management, and for the defense of housing and neighbourhood. These relate to three distinct notions of urban—collective consumption, local political process, and spatial proximity—and the differential impact of the contextual features on each type of movement is shown. The paper is concerned with all types of urban movement, and uses the term ‘urban social movement’ to refer only to the extremely rare cases of a major change in urban power relations.
Regional Intervention, Defence Industries, and the Structuring of Space in Britain: The Case of Bristol and South Wales
Authors: Lovering J
Published: October 2006

This paper is an Illustration of how different state practices have had a direct impact on uneven development between, and within, two adjacent regions in the United Kingdom. In one case, South Wales, state intervention has taken the form of regional assistance, nationalisation of the dominant industries, and public-sector employment. In the other case, the Bristol subregion, it has taken the form of defence activities, and especially support for the aerospace industry. These influences have had a major impact on the spatial pattern of investment, regional specialisation, and the internal articulation of each subregion. Defence procurement has resulted in an inflow of government spending to the Bristol area, which is greater than that going to South Wales via regional assistance. The paper concludes with a comment on the spatial significance of different coalitions of interests, and a suggestion that more attention should be given to the specificities of nation-states.
Routine Action, Reproduction of Social Relations, and the Place Market: Consett after the Closure
Authors: Robinson F , Sadler D
Published: October 2006

Reproduction of social relations has been most problematic in communities undergoing drastic and sudden economic and social change. Through the experience of one such community, the town of Consett, County Durham, this analysis is an attempt to draw out the broader implications of this reproduction. Two particular policy measures are highlighted as expressions of the general aim of the reintroduction of the commodity form: a conventional reindustrialisation strategy through a local development agency, and initiatives sponsored by the Manpower Services Commission. Given the lack of success of such measures in terms of their stated objectives, the question of why they are actively accepted is addressed. The answer lies in the dominance of the work ethic for routine action, seen in Consett through the legacy of the company town and in the nature of the anticlosure campaign. More generally, the broader consequences of this acceptance of unemployment in the marketplace can be seen through the development of a place market, demonstrated with reference to North East England.
Possibilities of a Territorial Ordering for the Transition in Nicaragua
Authors: Coraggio J L
Published: October 2006

The object of this paper is an analysis of the possibilities of a politically oriented territorial transformation in the process of building a new state in Nicaragua. Three central questions are posed. How should the struggle of popular sectors be connected with the contradictions associated with territorial organization? Is there an autonomy of the spatial, that is, is spatial concentration simply a product of capitalism? Does the construction of socialism necessitate decentralization, or does spatial concentration remain in socialism because it is a universal tendency associated with the nature of technology? Not even neoclassical conceptions of territorial organization, nor those of the new Marxist school (which analyzes the society–space relationship in universal terms), are effective in orienting popular struggles. To advance the analysis of the relationship between the political and the territorial, we require an examination of concrete situations. In the paper are thus presented some basic concepts relating to the territorial or spatial and the social, the specific relationship between a society in transition and space; the present territorial transformations in Nicaragua and the problems and contradictions they have generated are then analyzed. It is argued that it is political orientation that should regulate the definition of new patterns of territorial organization. Spatial structures show a certain rigidity which retards transformation and they therefore cannot be part of the revolutionary project, but must rather be a consequence of the social transformations. Regionalization is an end-state and not a point of departure. If the politico-administrative structures do not coincide with those of production and reproduction, it will be difficult to establish a substantive democracy and decentralization.
Cities, Socialism and War: Hanoi, Saigon and the Vietnamese Experience of Urbanisation
Authors: Thrift N J , Forbes D K
Published: October 2006

The processes of urbanisation and urban development in the developing countries of the socialist world are poorly understood, yet they are clearly of some significance. In comparison with the rate of urbanisation in developing countries with predominantly market economies, the rate of urbanisation in socialist developing countries usually slows down considerably after the revolution that brings the socialist regime to power, In the Murray–Szelenyi model this slowdown in the rate of urbanisation is attributed to class struggle, as a newly formed state class attempts to wrest power from the bourgeois class. With Vietnam as a case study this article is an examination of urbanisation under socialism in the light of the Murray–Szelenyi model, It is argued that the model attributes too much importance to the power of the state in socialist societies. As a result it underestimates the significance of external pressures, particularly warfare, and the structure of civil society, especially ethnic conflict, in shaping the rate and pattern of urbanisation.
The Neighbourhood Organisation as a Pedagogic Project
Authors: Hasson S
Published: October 2006

This study is a look at the neighbourhood organisation as a pedagogie project wherein local residents undergo a subjective transformation in their level of consciousness. Within this context, two pedagogies are examined. One, which has close affinities with Marxism, seeks to expose the structural contradictions underlying the problems confronted by the organisation, and attempts to translate this knowledge into practice. The other, which is closely associated with the humanist tradition, tries to decipher intersubjective and intrasubjective barriers, to expose repressed desires, and to encourage their fulfillment in a creative manner. Neither of these pedagogies is found to be satisfactory. The Marxist pedagogy subordinates human values, that is, ‘what is' to the absolute of ‘what ought to be’. In contrast, the humanist pedagogy tends to relativise the organisation's values, and accept them uncritically and thus infer the ‘what ought to be’ from the ‘what is’. In a preliminary attempt to break away from moral objectivism and moral subjectivism, a third pedagogy is tentatively suggested: one whose essence lies in a synthesis between the two at the level of practice.
The Spatial and Temporal Constitution of Social Action: A Critical Reading of Giddens
Authors: Storper M
Published: October 2006

A number of social theorists have attempted to elaborate poststructuralist analytics that capture the dialectics of social structure and human agency. Giddens proposes a ‘general theory’, centered on the notion of ‘structuration’. He is particularly important to geography because he suggests that the spatiality of social practices belongs at the center of social theory and historical analysis. Systems of social practices are defined by their time–space characteristics. There are problems in the corpus of Giddens's work that require attention, however, before such a theory can be fully viable. These include: Giddens's derogation of intentional action in favor of practical knowledge; his notion that structure is ‘instantiated’; his concept of power; his treatment of material resources; and his lack of attention to discursive strategies. From an examination of these areas of Giddens's work, it can be seen that he advances several, inconsistent, theories of social change. In a reinvigorated theoretical human geography, based on the analysis of interaction in time and space, these problem areas must be tackled.
Nationalized Industry Policies and Regional Policies: The Role of the State in Capitalist Societies in the Deindustrialization and Reindustrialization of Regions
Authors: Hudson R
Published: October 2006

This paper is an exploration of the relationship between stale policies and regional industrial change. It is argued that the main proximate cause of deindustrialization in peripheral regions of Great Britain has been nationalized industry policies. The formation, implementation, and effects of regional policies to provide new jobs must be considered in this context. The relationships between these different state policies are explored and their implications for development in peripheral regions are discussed.
Beyond Separate Spheres: Linking Production with Social Reproduction and Consumption
Authors: Klausner D
Published: October 2006

The division between the spheres of production and of social reproduction and consumption is common in social geography. In this paper it is argued that a more complete view of social reality and of social change may be gained by looking at links between these spheres in a given locality. This contention is supported by a case study of some of the housing policies of the London Docklands Development Corporation. This government-sponsored agency, it is argued, set out to affect a simultaneous transformation of both spheres in its area of operation. The implications of this policy are discussed.
Persistence or Change? Conflicting Interpretations of Peripheral Minorities
Authors: Sibley D
Published: October 2006

In studies of the relationship between peripheral ethnic minority groups and the larger society in industrialised societies, it is commonly assumed that the minority is in the process of assimilation or is becoming economically dependent, A number of theoretical arguments on the nature of change are reviewed. The case of Gypsy communities in Europe and North America is used to demonstrate the inappropriateness of theories that predict a transformation of the minority group's culture—a picture of continuity and persistence appears more reasonable in the light of historical and fieldwork evidence.
Pastoral Nomads and the Dialectics of Development and Modernization: Delivering Public Educational Services to the Israeli Negev Bedouin
Authors: Meir A
Published: October 2006

Pastoral nomads in Africa and the Middle East have recently come under intensifying contacts with governments through processes of sedentarization and social modernization. The dialectics of these processes have the capacity to make nomads dependent upon public goods, thus equipping governments with manipulative tools to bring nomads under political control. A major tool in this regard has been the delivery of public educational services. This paper is an attempt first to provide a theoretical framework of the spatial, social, and cultural manipulation of pastoral nomads through the process of delivering educational services. The case is then examined of delivering these services to the Israeli Negev Bedouin who, unlike other nomadic societies, have been undergoing processes of sedentarization and social modernization within a modern Jewish state.
Collective Consumption, Urban Segregation, and Social Classes
Authors: Preteceille E
Published: October 2006

Although collective consumption is recognized as a major issue for urban research, the specificity of the urban field should not be limited to it, thus reproducing theoretically the dominant separation enforced ideologically and practically between production and reproduction, Production, and more generally work relations and practices, should be considered as basic determinants of the urban, not only because of their direct spatial dimensions and implications, but also because of their relations to reproduction practices.

These relations are not mechanistic determinations but complex, contradictory, mediated, and retroactive processes. Therefore social differentiations or cleavages related to consumption practices, like urban social segregation and unequal access to collective consumption, are not simple translations of class structure in the most general and abstract sense. They contribute both to the strengthening of class identities and social solidarities in certain situations, areas and conjunctures, and to class fragmentation and competition or conflict in others.

Nevertheless, they are but another aspect of the complexity of class structures and not an independent mode of social cleavage. This can be seen in class differentiations of consumption practices as well as in the related stakes for urban social struggles.
Regulatory Legislation and the Legitimation Crisis of the State: The Enforcement of the Shops Act (1950)
Authors: Blomley N K
Published: October 2006

The Shops Act (1950), which regulates hours and conditions of retail operation and employment in England and Wales, reflected the wishes of certain retail sectors relating to economic factors such as the intensity of competition and the prevailing form of labour use extant in the first half of the 20th century. At present, changing retail conditions have brought the state, through the Act, into conflict with some sectors of the retail trade who often openly defy the law, The state is forced simultaneously to redefine its intervention within the market and to preserve its legitimacy as an independent law-making and law-enforcing body, The inertia of the state apparatus, coupled with the influence of certain fractions of retail capital who perceive major change in the law as being deleterious to their interests, has prevented legislative change, despite numerous attempts at repeal and reform. The problem is aggravated by the contradictions involved between the preservation of the concept of the ‘rule of law’ and the moral ambivalence felt by consumers, retailers, and enforcement agents toward the law itself.
Regional Development: Some Comments on the Discourse in Latin America
Authors: Hecht S B
Published: October 2006

A recent issue of Society and Space was concerned with regional planning in Latin America. The papers focused either on sweepingly macrolevel analysis or on local community-based development strategies. This paper is an outline of some of the problems with this discourse as it was presented in the journal, and it is suggested that both groups have neglected the theoretical, empirical, and practical importance of ‘middle level’ analyses. It is at this level where the larger processes and local dynamics unfold, and where the real constraints and contingencies occur. Given the current complexity of Latin American development processes, comforting notions about transnational corporations or romantic views of community development will not advance our analytics or address the practical challenges.
The Los Angeles Automobile Industry in Historical Perspective
Authors: Morales R
Published: October 2006

From the turn of the century to the present, industrial production has taken various forms from an initial craft orientation, to a period of ‘Fordism’ when industrialization was characteristically dominated by mass production, to the present when increasing numbers of sectors are adopting ‘flexible specialization’ techniques which incorporate aspects both of mass production and of the craft tradition. As a location with strong craft and mass production lineages, Los Angeles offers unusual insights for understanding developments in the industry. In this paper the evolution of both sides of the Los Angeles automobile industry is traced and its prospects for remaining a viable economic entity are discussed in the region in light of overarching trends.
Industrialisation in the Global Periphery: The Significance of the Newly Industrialising Countries of East and Southeast Asia
Authors: Browett J G
Published: October 2006

Despite the benefits of ex post facto reasoning, what remains in dispute is the interpretation of the factors responsible for the emergence of the newly industrialising countries (NICs) of East and Southeast Asia. Here it is argued that the dominant perspective, that deriving from neoclassical economics, is both defective and misrepresentative. In an attempt to overcome these inadequacies recourse is made to radical political economy perspectives to understand better the significance of industrialisation in the NICs.
State and Class in Africa: A Case for Extending Analyses of the Form and Functions of the National State to the Urban Local State
Authors: Rakodi C
Published: October 2006

Four alternative theoretical approaches to analysing the form of the national state are outlined, their use in studies of African countries noted, and their appropriateness assessed, to provide background for a consideration of the possible utility of the concept of a local state in analysing African urban situations. Instrumentalist views of the national state In Africa are now less widely used than structuralist approaches, and so structuralist approaches have been considered in more detail, A review is presented of the findings of recent studies with respect to the form of the state and the class structure and processes of class formation in developmentalist African states, with particular reference to urban areas. The functions of the state in general terms at national and local levels are discussed, by use of Sandbrook's categorisation of development strategies in Africa. In the absence of studies of urban local government in Africa within the theoretical framework provided by debates on the form and functions of the state, some work on the functions of the local state in the United Kingdom is reviewed, and an initial assessment made of the extent to which the local state in Africa fulfils the same functions and has a similar, albeit limited, degree of autonomy from the national state. It is concluded that there is a case for focusing enquiry on subnational levels of the state in Africa, including the urban local state, and that structuralist views of the form and functions of the national state may be extended to providing a theoretical analysis at the local level, providing that the continuously changing nature and functions of the state, the dynamism and ambiguity of evolving class structures, and the importance of nonclass interests and identities are recognised.
The Built Environment and the Urban Question
Authors: Ball M
Published: October 2006

Debates over the content of urban studies flowered in the early 1970s and died in the 1980s. The rise and fall was closely mirrored by the fashionable status of the urban theories of certain Marxists. This paper is a look at the reasons why this urban debate, like its predecessors, failed to incorporate an adequate analysis of the provision of the built environment, the physical framework of cities. The work of Castells, Lojkine, amd Harvey is examined in this respect and the concept of collective consumption questioned. An approach to studying the built environment is then suggested which hopefully will help to get Marxist urban analysis off its functionalist petard.
‘Coalfield Culture’ and the 1984–1985 Miners' Strike: A Reply to Sunley
Authors: Rees G
Published: October 2006

Sunley's advocacy of ‘coalfield cultures’ as an element in the determination of the 1984–1985 miners' strike in Britain is critically evaluated. Although there are substantial differences between coalfields in their historically rooted political and industrial behaviour, and in their wider social relations and practices, the nature and determination of such ‘cultures’ is more complex than Sunley suggests. This complexity reinforces the arguments of my original paper, especially with respect to the contingent nature of industrial and political ‘cultures’.
The Problem of Reference and Geographic Structuration
Authors: Rose C
Published: October 2006

In geographic structuration, a view urged in several recent methodological papers in human geography, it is suggested that an explicit theory of social action can only be developed by theorizing about the spatial and the social dimensions of society which are fully constitutive of individual human action. This paper begins with the question of whether any theories of reference, meaning, or truth would be possible within such a view of society. In the first part of the paper, some of the historical approaches taken to reference in both space–time languages and attribute languages are discussed. A distinction is made between the more formal types of reference used in such languages and reference as it is used in everyday discourse. In the second part of the paper, an alternative view of reference, derived from Quine's web-of-belief concept, is suggested, and it is demonstrated that this view of reference is capable of dealing with fictional as well as nonfictional entities. Reference is relativized to a language, sentences are true or false, and words can refer or ‘talk about’ different entities, but this is all within a particular discourse.
Of Yuppies and Housing: Gentrification, Social Restructuring, and the Urban Dream
Authors: Smith N
Published: October 2006

The question of whether gentrification can and should be explained as the result of contemporary processes of social restructuring is considered. It has been proposed, in particular, that gentrification is caused by the rise of a ‘new middle class’, and this argument is evaluated in theoretical and empirical terms. There is, in fact, better evidence for the significance of women in the gentrification process, because of changing work patterns, changing patterns of reproduction, and the changing relationship between work and reproduction. In light of these arguments, issue is taken with the claim that gentrification is a ‘chaotic conception’ and it is suggested how, instead, the social restructuring that is currently being observed is closely related to an economic restructuring, and that both together involve a dramatic spatial restructuring of which ‘gentrification’ is one part. The new urban patterns now unfolding do involve the construction of ‘consumption landscapes’ in the city, and the emergence of an incipient ‘urban dream’ parallel to the suburban dream of the last decade, but this docs not imply that urban geographical change is now somehow demand led.
The State and Industrial Restructuring: Government Policies in Industrial Wales
Authors: Morris J L
Published: October 2006

This paper is an outline of recent industrial restructuring which has occurred in Wales and the role of the state through industrial policies in these changes, It is shown that, although the state has made strenuous efforts to attract investment—particularly from overseas—to Wales, it has operated its policies on nationalised industries on narrow profit-or-loss lines irrespective of regional dimensions. The contradiction between the two strands of policy is illustrated with a critical analysis of the treatment of the coal and steel industries and an appraisal of regional policies. New policies for the regions are then described.
On Development Theory and the Warren Thesis: Arguments against the Predominance of Economism
Authors: Slater D
Published: October 2006

Six key weaknesses of the Warren thesis on capitalist development in the Third World are identified and examined. This critical evaluation is located in the context of the formation of development theory. In particular, the discussion of Warren's work provides a basis for marshalling arguments against the pervasiveness of economism. Arguments are presented not only against the rule of economism but also against the theoretical sovereignty of the economic (econocentrism). By way of conclusion, a few suggestions are offered for a possible reorientation of our theoretical approach to Third World development.
Survey 12: Society, Space, and Locality
Authors: Urry J
Published: October 2006

It is shown in this paper that the explanation of the social relations found within a particular locality is a singularly problematic exercise. Attention has to be devoted to (1) the relationship between the ‘social’, and ‘space’ and ‘time’; (2) the very nature of social relations themselves and of the ways in which they are spatially and temporally constituted; and (3) the different senses that can be given to the term ‘local’ or ‘locality’, which relate in a variety of ways to the analyses of society and space. The article is concluded with an elaboration of ten different locality effects and the suggestion that these are of greater importance than other writers have maintained.
The Social Space of Terror: Towards a Civil Interpretation of Total War
Authors: Hewitt K
Published: October 2006

In the paper I seek to interpret modern warfare from the perspective of civil society and its geography. I emphasize the predicament of civilians who are subject to direct and deliberate armed assaults. Particular attention is given to enforced uprooting or removals of population, and to annihilation of urban places with weapons of mass destruction. Two case histories are explored, both taken from the last months of the Second World War. They are, the expulsion of German civilians from Eastern Europe, and the firebombing of Japanese cities, especially Tokyo. Damages and casualties are detailed. However, the main concern is to establish the composition, plight, and responses of civilian populations, and this includes their relation to national war efforts. It is concluded that the vast majority, because of gender, age, health, occupation, and class, were essentially marginal to, and little involved in, the war efforts of their respective states. This contrasts sharply with the assumptions or rhetoric of the theory of ‘total war’, and the practice of targetting civilians and nonmilitary areas. It is suggested that the majority of home populations remain civilians in the fullest sense of the term, even in wartime. From this it follows that assaults upon them by military forces are primarily strategies of terror, and that the ‘social space’ attacked is essentially civilian. Such uprootings and mass destruction of human settlements have, however, become an ever larger part of the war strategies, and the history of warfare, of most powers since 1945.
Cities, Consumption, Culture, and Postmodernism: Books in 1986
Authors: Dear M J , Jackson P , Thrift N J , Williams P R
Published: October 2006

This paper is a review of books published in 1986 and likely to be of interest to readers of Environment and Planning D. Once again, the usual mixture of the theoretical and the empirical, the transcendental and the whimsical, is discovered and described.
A Painter, Geographer of Arizona
Authors: Quoniam S
Published: October 2006

The art of painting represents for the geographer, perhaps more than for another individual, the search for an image of the world as a sort of ecstasy of spaces. The apparent objectivity of scientific concepts, beloved by geographers, must be moderated by their hidden subjectivity. This is why, as a geographer, I continue to ask questions about space and landscapes, about their social and symbolic meanings through an unusual media: painting.
(Re)Reading the Landscape
Authors: Duncan J , Duncan N
Published: October 2006

Insights from literary theory are applied to the analysis of landscapes. It is suggested that the concepts of textuality, intertextuality, and reader reception may be of importance to those interested in the notion that landscapes are read in much the same way as literary texts. It is further suggested that landscapes can be seen as texts which are transformations of ideologies into a concrete form. This is an important way in which ideologies become naturalized. What is lacking in the radically relativistic theoretical perspective of much of twentieth-century literary theory, however, is a consideration of the sociohistorical and political processes through which meaning is produced and transformed. Examples of the relation between texts and landscapes from several different types of societies are then offered.
Cultural Hegemony and the Race-Definition Process in Chinatown, Vancouver: 1880–1980
Authors: Anderson K J
Published: October 2006

The study of systems of racial classification is not well developed in the social sciences. Within the liberal tradition of race relations research, race has more often been taken for granted than made an object of explanation itself. Marxist analysts, on the other hand, have tended to treat race, like other ideologies, as derivative of more decisive economic pressures under capitalism. Neither of these ‘idealist’ or materialist’ perspectives gives sufficient recognition to the contribution which ideological formulations about ‘race’ have made to the structuring of the society and space of Western countries. That challenge is taken up in this paper and the history of the race-definition process in Vancouver, British Columbia, is examined. Attention is paid to the social construction of the racial category, ‘Chinese’, which persisted in white European culture for a century, from 1880 to 1980. It is demonstrated how the racial category is structured at the local level through the nexus known as ‘Chinatown’, and legitimized through the institutional practices of the three levels of the Canadian government. In reconstructing the historically evolving relationship between racial discourse, place, and government policy in one setting, the workings of one of the most influential of socially based hegemonies are uncovered.
Locality, Politics, and Culture; Poplar in the 1920s
Authors: Rose G
Published: October 2006

The relationship between a local polity and its civil society is explored, and it is argued that local polities cannot be understood in isolation from the specific institutions, practices, and culture of the locality. This is no longer a particularly novel claim to make, of course; yet it is a claim interpreted in a peculiarly narrow way by current theorists of the locality and the local state, who see the influence of civil society on local politics wholly in terms of class. The author begins this paper by offering an alternative theoretical framework which unites locality, politics, and culture, In the second section the political beliefs and policies of the Labour Party in the cast London borough of Poplar in the 1920s are examined and it is shown how local cultural values and ways of understanding the world shaped those political commitments to a very large degree. In the third part the social power relations are explored which developed between the Labour-controlled local state and the institutions of its civil society and which sprang from those local Labour Party values, These power structures changed during the 1920s, shifting from a participatory form of mass politics in the early 1920s to a much more exclusionary and elitist mode later in the decade. It will be argued that both types of power relations can be linked very closely to Poplar's local culture, and in the final section some conclusions will be drawn from this about the politics of local culture.
Landscape as Spectacle: World's Fairs and the Culture of Heroic Consumption
Authors: Ley D , Olds K
Published: October 2006

The meaning of a public spectacle, world's fairs, is examined, with particular emphasis on the 1986 world's exposition in Vancouver. Various theoretical readings of mass culture and popular culture are analysed: on the one hand, the view of the culture industry, imposing hegemonic meanings through spectacles onto a depoliticised mass audience, and on the other the view of an active interpenetration of cultural producers and consumers, which includes the capacity for resistance to the web of signification spun by dominant elites. The thesis is considered that world's fairs are an instrument of hegemonic power. Although Expo 86 was organised by a political and economic elite, evidence from 2200 visitors points to a fractured and negotiated power that was never absolute.
New Technologies, New Modes of Regulation: Some Spatial Implications
Authors: Leborgne D , Lipietz A
Published: October 2006

New technologies can be implemented by means of intensified polarization of skills or by means of increased responsibility (involvement) for workers. These outcomes may be associated with rigid or flexible forms of wage contracting and with individual or collective forms of negotiation. Three classes of models emerge, labelled here neo-Taylorist, Californian, and Saturnian. In terms of industrial organization, new technologies tend to engender specialized firms and vertical quasi-integration, together with territorial integration or disintegration. These different tendencies give rise to distinctive patterns of regional development namely, specialized productive areas, local productive systems, and system-areas.
New Technologies, Flexible Work Practices, and Regional Sociospatial Differentiation: Some Observations from the United Kingdom
Authors: Morris J L
Published: October 2006

Changes in production in the 1980s from Fordist to post-Fordist or flexible accumulation strategies are analyzed. After a discussion of the rise of the ‘flexible firm’, empirical evidence is drawn from the United Kingdom, and possible sociospatial scenarios that may arise from these changes are discussed.
Political Interpretations of ‘Racial Segregation’ in Britain
Authors: Smith S J
Published: October 2006

Perhaps because Britain has no history of de jure segregation, the politics of ‘race’ have received little attention in theories of residential differentiation based on the experience of that country. Segregation has, however, been of concern to British politicians throughout the postwar period. In this paper it is shown how, and it is suggested why, their responses have inadvertently sustained rather than ameliorated racial inequalities in the structure of residential space. It is argued that the politics of ‘racial segregation’ have played a key role in undermining the rights of citizenship to which black Britons are entitled.
The Practice of Theory and the Theory of Practice: Books in 1987
Authors: Dear M J , Gore C G , Thrift N J , Williams P R
Published: October 2006

This paper is a review of books published in 1987 and likely to be of interest to readers of this journal. There is the usual mixture of systematic survey and serendipitous ‘finds’.
Worker Cooperatives—Panacea or Radical Enterprise?
Authors: Lowe M S
Published: October 2006

The role of the ‘new wave’ of worker cooperatives that have grown up in the United Kingdom as part of alternative local economic strategies is examined. It is argued that unlike conventional national and local policies to deal with economic demise—which have only been responsive to the requirements of capital—cooperatives are able to deal with the problems of specific groups; for example, black people, women, the young, and the long-term unemployed. However, it is dangerous for cooperatives to be adopted as a panacea without attention being paid to the way in which they could easily become a part of Mrs Thatcher's government's emphasis on enterprise and individual initiative.
Homeownership and the Accumulation of Real Wealth
Authors: Badcock B A
Published: October 2006

The contention surrounding the significance of homeownership for social theory is reviewed, after which it is suggested that the conceptualisation of wealth accumulation for homeownership has yet to comprehend fully the ‘generative mechanisms' underlying capital gains or losses. There is a need to advance beyond the rather limited analysis developed by Thorns in 1981, to a consideration of the connections between urban restructuring, the transfer of value, and capital growth within the urban housing market. Trends in Adelaide's separate-housing market, 1968–75, are outlined to provide a context for the central question; that is, what is the relationship between class position and house price inflation? Too much temporal and spatial variability is encountered in a number of estimates of capital growth in the separate-house submarket to sustain the claim that this source of accumulation systematically favours those homeowners with the greatest real investment in housing. Regression analysis is used to demonstrate that at least some of the variability in capital gains or losses can be accounted for by indicators that relate to processes of urban restructuring. Further clarification of the theoretical significance of homeownership for social reconstitution must await a longitudinal study of the passage of households through the domestic property market in the course of a lifetime.
Working-Class Privatism: An Historical Case Study of Bedminster, Bristol
Authors: Franklin A
Published: October 2006

Against those who have recently argued that the working class in England and Wales have increasingly retreated into the private sphere of the home, historical data are presented from Bedminster, Bristol where the opposite appears to have occurred. In Bedminster at least, the early part of the 20th century was characterised by restricted sociability, small networks, and a highly privatised, family-centred, home-based life-style. It is shown how the arrival of new industries and labour processes, together with the new leisure industries and necessary or preferred housing moves outside crowded natal localities created a local working class with new social expectations and the social skills to achieve them. In addition to the new leisure centres of workers' lives, the home was thus opened up to more elaborate forms of social use by the friendship networks of men, women, ‘couples’, and children.
Social Spatialization and the Built Environment: The West Edmonton Mall
Authors: Shields R
Published: October 2006

The West Edmonton Mall, situated on the northwestern extremities of the Canadian Prairies, and the largest shopping–leisure complex at the time of writing, draws shoppers from all over North America and even Japan. As a privatized public space which diverts consumers from other urban areas it has occasioned much civic boosterism. It presents a fascinating set of interventions in the local social spatialization of a regional capital on the North American cultural periphery. The Mall both imposes and implies changes in the spatial patterns of everyday life, in the imaginary geography of sites of consumption in North America, and in conceptions of the world as a space of distance and difference. To draw on Lefebvre, the creation of such a space in the built environment, called a hyperspace by some, amounts both to a new representation of the spatial and to a ‘space of representation’. Building upon the work of Benjamin and Bakhtin, an analysis of liminality and carnival in the Mall's reunion of the rational and the ludic provides a critical perspective from which to evaluate recent work by Gottdiener on shopping malls. This leads to a view which pays close attention to users' resistance to the above suggestions through refunctioning and ‘hijacking’ the mall space for their own purposes.
Constructing and Deconstructing Plausibility
Authors: Milroy B Moore
Published: October 2006

Deconstruction is a useful method for studying how planners construct plans that are plausible to the profession and the community. This paper is an attempt to illustrate the theoretical ground of deconstruction, its relationship to other critical methods, and how it works. Reading in deconstructive fashion is compared with reading literally, and a deconstructionist analysis of part of a planning practitioners' report is offered. In it the notion of exchange, or quid pro quo, as an aspect of planning practice is handled with technical skill by the authors of the report, yet ultimately it subverts the logic of the report and the logic of planning.
Historical Space, Political Space, and Systems of Representations: A Survey on Revolution in France
Authors: Lévy J , Mattei M-F
Published: October 2006

The images of the French Revolution and French political space are simultaneously experiencing rapid and deep changes. Using a qualitative survey and cartographic materials, the authors try to establish a link between both dynamics. After a long period in which the French political map remained very similar to that of revolutionary times, a new geography, which also has a new relationship to politics, is emerging. Mental and objective maps provide interesting instruments to understand these major mutations.
Between Modernity and Postmodernity: The Ambiguous Position of US Planning
Authors: Beauregard R A
Published: October 2006

In the last half of the 20th century in the United States of America, the modernist planning project that emerged in the first half is being challenged by the political and economic manifestations of postmodernity and its corresponding cultural practices, Despite a serious erosion of its rationalist roots, critical distance, reformist intentions, commitment to master narratives, and focus on the city as object of theory and practice, that project persists. Modernist planning seems suspended between modernity and postmodernity. In order to resolve these tensions, planners need to refocus their work on the built environment (specifically the process of city building), to reestablish a mediative role between capital, labor, and the state, and to project a more democratic profile in public debates surrounding the meaning and consequences of urban and regional development.
Planning According to the ‘Scientific Conception of the World’: The Work of Otto Neurath
Authors: Faludi A
Published: October 2006

Neurath, a prominent member of the Vienna Circle, was involved in much practical reform work. He was also a member of CIAM, and participated in the famous Athens meeting where its basic principles were formulated. But his plans for intensive cooperation with CIAM did not come to fruition, because of fundamental differences regarding the role of scientific evidence in decisionmaking and planning. CIAM members were looking for a solid bedrock on which to base design norms and principles. Neurath was a sceptic and emphasised the pluralistic nature of knowledge. He also held that decisions were to be taken on pragmatic grounds, reflecting one's chosen “path of life”. Experts had no superior skill in this. Neurath developed the Vienna Method of pictorial statistics to allow people to make their own inferences from such evidence as there was. Neurath's views of decisionmaking in planning are very modern, and suggest that the critique of positivism in planning needs to be reconsidered.
Applied Geography and Area Research in Nazi Society; Central Place Theory and Planning, 1933 to 1945
Authors: Rösslør M
Published: October 2006

The earliest ventures in applied geography and area research were developed during the Weimar Republic. In 1933 the first theoretical study appeared: the central place theory by Walter Christaller. Under National Socialism good research conditions existed for social scientists (at least, those who were not persecuted, exiled, or murdered) who wanted to implement their theories. Law and central planning organizations provided the political and institutional basis for scientific research. Power struggles and conflicts concerning competence between different institutions headed by Hitler, Himmler, and Rosenberg afforded scientists freedom to develop new approaches and conduct research within the control imposed by a central organization. Walter Christaller, who was too old for a university career, worked in such institutions under Himmler. His personal and political biography is imbued with paradoxes: a former member of the Social Democratic Party, he switched to the Nazi Party in 1940, in 1945 to the Communist Party, and once again to the Social Democratic Party in 1959. However, these events merely hint at the complex nature of the political context in which Christaller and other scientists worked from 1933 to 1945. This paper is an attempt to illuminate the ‘reactionary modernism’ of the Nazi State, drawing from archival material and recent historical studies on social science in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.