The Urban ~uestion

A Marxist Approach

Manuel Castells

Translated by Alan Sheridan

for Katherine

(j)
Edward Arnold
72 The Historical Process of Urbanization I
(.

'fi't This is the opposite of a macro·historical overview, .

~~;;;~~'.J: 'serve no other purpose than reconnai~sance of the t~rram
f work of the raw material to be transformed If we are to amve
i: I
11 The Urban Ideology
°t knowiedge. For this research is in turn dependent on the elab?ra'
~. of theoretical tools that make it possible to go be~ond partlcu,
l:~~escriptions, while positing the conditions for the dl~covery
(forever incomplete) of the laws that link space and society.

(.

Is the city a source of creation or decline?

Is the urban lifestyle an expression of civilization? Is the
environmental context a determining factor in social relations? One
might well deduce as much from the most common formulations
about urban questions: high·rise housing estates alienate, the city
'. centre animates, the green spaces relax, the large city is the domain
of anonymity, the neighbourhood gives identity, slums produce
crime, the new towns create social peace, etc.
H there has been an accelerated deVelopment of the urban
thematic, this is due, very largely, to its imprecision, which makes
it possible to group together under this heading a whole mass of
questions felt, but not understood, whose identification (as 'urban')
makes them less disturbing: one can dismiss them as the natural
misdeeds of the environment.
In the parlance of the technocrats, the 'city' takes the place of
explanation, through evidence, of the cultural transformations that
one fails to (or cannot) grasp and control. The transition from a
'rural culture' to an 'urban culture', with all its implications
of 'modernity' and resistance to change, establishes the (ideological)
framework of the problems of adaptation to new social forms.
Society being conceived as a unity, and this society evolving through
the transformation of the values on which it is based, nothing re.
mained but to find a quasi-natural cause (technology plus city) for
this evolution, in order to establish oneself in the pure administra.
tion of a classless society (or one naturally and necessarily divided
into classes, which amounts to the same thing) and at grips with the
discontinuities and obstructions imposed upon it by its own internal
rhythm of development.
The urban ideology is that specific ideology that sees the modes
and forms of social organization as characteristic of a phase of the
evolution of society, closely linked to the technico·natural condi.
tions of human existence and, ultimately, to its environment. It is
74 The Urban Ideology

this ideology that, in the final analysis, has very largely.made

possible a 'science of the urban', u'.'derstood as theoretical space.
defined by the specificity of it~ object. Indeed: as soon as '.me thmks
5
one is in the presence of a specIfIc form o~ s?Clal orga~lZatlon -
urban society - the study of its charactenstlcs. and of It.S laws be-
comes a major task for the social sciences ";,,d It~ ~alys.ls may. ~ven
govern a study of particular spheres of reality Within thi.s specific
form. The history of 'urban sociology' shows the cl~se hnk bet~een The Myth of Urban Culture
the development of this 'discipline' and the culturalist perspective
that sustains it. . .
The consequence of this double status ?f urban Id~ol?gy IS that
although, qua ideology, one may analyse It ~nd .explam It on the.
basis of the effects it produces, qua theoretl~alldeol0!fY (prod~cmg
effects not only in social relations, but also m the."retlcal practl.ce),
one must learn to recognize it in its different verSIOns, through ~ts
most rigorous expressions, those that give it i.ts 'le~timacy', while When one speaks of 'urban society', what is at issue is never the
at the same time knowing that these are not ItS socla~ source .. mere observation of a spatial form. 'Urban society' is defined above
For,like all theoretical ideology, it has a histo~y, whlc~ we Will all by a certain culture, urban culture, in the anthropological sense
trace briefly in order to bring out and discuss ItS essential themes. of the term; that is to say, a certain system of values, norms and
social relations possessing a historical specificity and its own logic
of organization and transformation. This being the case, the quali-
fying term 'urban', stuck to the cultural form thus defined, is not
innocent. It is surely a case, as I have indicated above (see Part I),
of connoting the hypothesis of the production of culture by nature
or, to put it another way, of the specific system of social relations
(urban culture) by a given ecological context (the city). (Castells,
1969.)
Such a construction is directly linked to the evolutionist-
functionalist thinking of the German sociological school, from
Tonnies to Spengler, by way of Simmel. Indeed, the theoretical
model of 'urban society' was worked out above all in opposition
to 'rural society' by analysing the passage of the second to the first
in the terms used by Tonnies, as the evolution of a community
form to an associative form, characterized above all by a segmenta-
tion of roles, a multiplicity of loyalties and a primacy of secondary
social relations (through specific associations) over primary social
relations (direct personal contacts based on affective affinity).
(Mann, 1965.)
In extending this reflection, Simmel (whose influence on 'Ameri-
can sociology' is growing) managed to propose a veritable ideal type
of urban civilization, defined above all in psycho-sociological terms:
on the basis of the (somewhat Durkbeimian) idea of a crisis of
personality - subjected to an excess of psychological stimulation by
the extreme complexity of the big cities - Simmel deduced the
need for a process of fragmentation of activities, and astrong
76 The Urban Ideology The Myth of Urban Culture 77
limitation of the commitment of the individual in his different roles as and particularly the astonishing city that Chicago was in the 1920s,
the only possible defence against a general imbalance resulting from as a social laboratory , as a place from which questions would emerge,
the multiplicity of contradictory impulses. ;'-mong t?e c~mseq~ences rather than as a source of explanation of the phenomena observed.
that such a process brings about in the SOCIal organIzatIOn, S,mmel (Park, 1925.)
indicates the formation of a market economy and the development On the other hand, the propositions of his most brilliant disciple,
of the great bureaucratic organizations, instruments adequate to the Louis Wirth, are really an attempt tD define the characteristic
rationalization and depersonalization demanded by urban com· features of an urban culture and to explain its process of production
plexity. On this basis, the circle c!os~s ~p.on it~elf and the 'metro·. on the basis of the content of the particular ecological form consti.
politan' human type, centred on ItS mdi~duahty and always free m tuted by the city. In all probability, it is the most serious theoretical
relation to itself, may be understood. (SImmel, 1950.) attempt ever made, within sociology, to establish a theoretical
Now although, in the work of Simmel, there remains ~ ambiguity object (and, consequently, a domain of research) specific to urban
between a metropolitan civilization conceived as a possIble source sociology. Its echoes, thirty·three years later, still dominate dis.
of social imbalance and a new type of personality that adapts to it
cussion. This has induced me, for once, to attempt a succinct, but
by exacerbating his individual freedom, in the prophecies of faithful, exposition of his point of view, in order to define the
Spengler the first aspect becomes overtly domin<m:t .~d ,:,rb~ theoretical themes of 'urban culture' through the most serious of
culture is linked to the last phase of the cycle of cIvIhzatIOns m its thinkers.
which, every link of solidarity having been broken, the whole of For Wirth, (1938; 1964) the characteristic fact of modem times
society must destroy itself in war. But what is interesting in Spengler is a concentration of the human species in gigantic urban areas from
is the direct links he establishes, first, between the ecological form which civilization radiates. Faced with the importance of the pheno.
and the 'spirit' of each stage of civilization and, secondly, between menon, it is urgent that we establish a sociological theory of the city
~urban culture' and 'western culture', which seems to have been
which, on the one hand, goes beyond simple geographical criteria
manifested, above all in this part of the world, by virtue of the and, on the other hand, does nDt reduce it to the expression of an
development of urbanization. (Spen~ler, 1928.) We.know ~hat economic process, for example, industrialization or capitalism. To
Toynbee took these theses as his basIs when proposmg, qUIte say 'sociology', fDr Wirth, is equivalent to centring one's attentiDn
simply, an assimilation between the terms 'urbanization' and on human beings and on the characteristics of their relations. Given
'westernization'. Spengler'. formulation has, no doubt, the this, the whDle prDblematic is based on a definition and a questiDn.
advantage of clarity; that is to say, he carries the consequence~ of A sociological definition of the city: 'A permanent localization,
the culturist perspective to their logical conclusion, by grounding relatively large and dense, of socially heterogeneous individuals.' A
the historical stages in a 'spirit' and linking its dynamics tD a sort question: What are the new forms of sDciallife that are produced
of natural, undifferentiated evolution. Max Weber's The C,ty (1905) by these three essential characteristics of dimension, density and
which, in fact, formed part of Wirtschaft und Gesellsch~ft, has heterogeneity of the human urban areas?
sometimes been interpreted as one of the first formulatIOns. ~f the It is these causal relations between urban characteristics and
thesis of urban culture. In fact, in so far as he strongly specIfIes cultural forms that Wirth tries to stress. Firstly, to take the dimen.
the economic and political conditions of this ad~inistrat!ve auton· sion of a city: the bigger it is, the wider its spectrum of individual
omy which, according to him, characterizes the CIty, I thmk that variation and, also, the greater its social differentiation; this deter.
it is rather a question of a historical localization ?f the urban, mines the loosening of community ties, which are replaced by the
opposed to the evolutionist thesis of the culturallst current, for mechanisms .of fDrmal control and by social competition. On the
which urbanization and modernization are equivalent phenomena. .other hand, the multiplication of interactiDns produces the segmen-
All these themes were taken up again with a good deal of force tation of social relations and gives rise to the 'schizoid' character of
by the culturalists of the Chicago School, on the basis of the. dire~t the urban personality. The distinctive features of such a system of
influence undergone by Park, the founder of. the school, d~nng his behaviour are therefore: anonymity, superficiality, the transitory
studies in Germany. This was how urban SDcIOlogy, as a sCI~nce of character of urban social relations, anomie, lack of participation.
the new forms of social life appearing in the great met~opolises.' This situation has consequences for the economic process and for
came about. For Park, it is a question, above all, of uSIng the CIty, the political system: on the one hand, the fragmentation and utili.
78 The Urban Ideology The Myth of Urban Culture 79

tarianism of urban relations leads to the functional specialization of what we mean in saying that the folk society is characterized by a
activity, the division of labour and the market economy; on the "culture".' Behaviour is 'conventional, custom fixes the rights and
other hand, since direct communication is no longer possible, the duties of individuals and knowledge is not critically examined or
interests of individuals are defended only by representation. obje.ctively and systematically formulated ... behaviour is personal,
Secondly, density reinforces internal differentiation, for, para· not Impersonal ... traditional, spontaneous and uncritical.' The
doxically, the closer one is physically the more distant social kinship system, with its relations and institutions, is derived directly
contacts are, from the moment when it becomes necessary to from the categories of experience and the unit of action is the
commit oneself only partially in each of one's loyalties. There is, familial group. The sacred dominates the secular; the economy is
therefore, a juxtaposition without mixture of different social much more a factor of status than a market element.'
milieux, which leads to the relativism and secularization of urban The urban type is defined by symmetrical opposition to the set
society (an indifference to everything that is not directly linked to of factors enumerated above. It is centred, therefore, on social
the objectives proper to each individual). Lastly, cohabitation with· disorganization, individualization and secularization. The evolution
out the possibility of real expansion leads to individual savagery from one pole to the other occurs almost naturally, through the
(in order to avoid social control) and, consequently, to aggressiveness. increas: in social heterogeneity and possibilities for interaction, as
The social heterogeneity of the urban milieu makes possible the the socIety grows; furthermore, the loss of isolation, caused by the
fluidity of the class system and the high rate of social mobility contact with another society and/or another culture, considerably
explains why membership of groups is not stable, but linked to the acc~lerates the process. Since this construction is ideal-typical, no
transitory position of each individual: there is, therefore, a pre· socIety corresponds to it fully, but every society is placed Some·
dominance of association (based on the rational affinity of the where along this continuum, so that the different features cited are
interests of each individual) over community as defined by member· present in various proportions according to the degree of social
ship of a class or possession of a status. This social heterogeneity is evolution. This would indicate that these characteristics define the
also in keeping with the diversification of the market economy and central axis of the problematic of society and that, consequently,
a political life based on mass movements. the gradual densification of a collectivity, with the social complexity
Lastly, the diversification of activities and urban milieux causes it gives rise to, is, then, the natural motive force of historical evolu·
considerable disorganization of the personality, which explains the tion, which is expressed materially through the forms of the occupa·
growth of crime, suicide, corruption and madness in the great tion of space.
metropolises. It is in this sense that Oscar Lewis's criticisms of Redfield's thesis,
On the basis of the perspectives thus described, the city is given showing that the 'folk' community, which had served him as his
a specific cultural content and becomes the explicative variable of first terrain of observation, was torn by internal conflicts and
this content. And urban culture is offered as a way of life. accorded an important place to mercantile relations, are somewhat
In essence these theses concerning urban culture in the strict ill-founded (despite their verve), for the theory of the folk-urban
sense constitute only variations on Wirth's propositions. However, continuum is intended as a means of defining the essential elements
they have been used as an instrument of an evolutionist interpreta· of a problematic of social change, rather than of describing a reality.
tion of human history, through the theory deVeloped by Redfield (Lewis, 1953, 121-34.)
(1941; 1947) of the folk-urban continuum, which has had an On the other hand, Dewey's fundamental critique (1960) consti-
enormous influence in the sociology of development. (See also tutes a more radical attack on this perspective by indicating that,
Miner, 1952; Redfield and Singer, 1954.) although there are, obviously, differences between town and
Indeed, Redfield takes up the rural/urban dichotomy and country, they are only the empirical expression of a series of pro-
situates it in a perspective of ecologico-cultural evolution, identi· cesses that produce, at the same time, a whole series of specific
fying traditional/modern and folk/urban. With this difference that, effects at other levels of the social structure. In other words, there
setting out from an anthropological tradition, he conceives of urban is a concomitant variation between the evolution of ecological
society in relation to a previous characterization of folk society: it forms and cultural and social forms, without it being any the more
is a question of a society 'small, isolated, non· literate, and homo· possible to affirm that this co-variation is systematic, let alone that
geneous, with a strong sense of group solidarity. Such a system is the second are produced by the first. This may be proved by the
80 The Urban Ideology The Myth of Urban Culture 81

fact that there may be a diffusion of 'urban culture' in the country, organization, above all in cultural terms (the cities of the Renais·
without any blurring of the difference of ecological forms between sance or 'modern', that is to say, advanced capitalist, cities)? Perhaps,
the two. We must, therefore, keep the descriptive character of the but then one slips into a purely cultural definition of the urban,
'folk-urban continuum' thesis, rather than treat it as a general theory outside any spatial specificity. Now, it is this fusion-confusion
of the evolution of societies. between the connotation of a certain ecological form and the
This critique of Dewey's is one of the few, in the literature, that assignment of a specific cultural content that is at the root of the
go to the root of the problem for, in general, the debate on urban whole problematic of urban culture. One has only to examine the
culture, as formulated by Wirth and Redfield, has revolved around characteristics proposed by Wirth to understand that what is called
the purely empirical problem of establishing the historical existence 'urban culture' certainly corresponds to a certain historical reality:
or non· existence of such a system, and around discussion of the the mode of social organization linked to capitalist industrialization,
anti·urban prejudices of the Chicago School, but without going in particular in its competitive phase. It is not to be defined, there·
beyond the problematic of the culturalist terrain in which it had fore, solely in opposition to rural but by a specific content proper to
been defined. Thus, authors such as Scott Greer (1962) or Dhooge, it, above all at a time when generalized urbanization and the inter-
(1961) indicate the importance of the new forms of social solidarity penetration of town and country make their empirical distinction
in modern societies and in the great metropolises by exposing the difficult.
romantic prejudices of the Chicago School, who were incapable of A detailed analysis of each of the features that characterize it
conceiving the functioning of a society other than in the form of would show without difficulty the causal link, at successive levels,
community integration which, of course, had to be restricted to between the structural matrix characteristic of the capitalist mode
primitive and relatively undifferentiated societies. In reopening the of production and the effect produced on this or that sphere of
debate, other sociologists have tried to revive Wirth's theses, either behaviour. For example, the celebrated 'fragmentation of roles',
on a theoretical plane, as Anderson has done, (1962) or by 'veri· which is the foundation of 'urban' social complexity is directly
fying' them empirically for the umpteenth time, as Guterrnan has determined by the status of the 'free worker', which Marx showed
tried to do, to mention one of the most recent examples. (1969.) to be necessary to assuring maximum profitability in the use of
More serious are the objections raised in relation to possible labour force. The predominance of 'secondary' relations over
causal connections between the spatial forms of the city and the 'primary' and the accelerated individualization of relations also
characteristic social content of 'urban culture'. At a very empirical express this economic and political need of the new mode of pro-
level, Reiss showed, long ago, the statistical independence (in the duction to constitute as 'free and equal citizens' the respective
American cities) of 'urban culture' in relation to the size and density supports of the means of production and of the labour force.
of the population. (Duncan and Reiss, 1956.) Again, in an extensive (Poulantzas, 1968, 299ff.) And so on, though we cannot develop
inquiry, Duncan found no correlation between the size of the popu· here a complete system of determination of cultural forms in our
lation, on the one hand and, on the other, income, age·groups, societies, the purpose of my remarks being simply to treat this
mobility, schooling, family size, membership of ethnic groups, social content other than by an analysis in terms of urban. How-
active population - all the factors that ought to specify an 'urban' ever, a major objection might be raised against this interpretation
content. (Duncan and Reiss, 1956.) Again, Sjoberg's great historical of urban culture. Since the Soviet, non-capitalist, cities present
inquiry (1965) into the pre.industrial cities shows how completely similar features to those of the capitalist societies, are we not
different in social and cultural content are these 'cities' and the confronted by a type of behaviour bound up with the urban ecolo-
'cities' of the early period of capitalist industrialization or of the gical form? The question may be answered on two levels: in fact, if
present metropolitan regions. Ledrut has described in detail and we understand by capitalism the legal private ownership of the
shown in its specificity the different historical types of urban forms, means of production, this character is not enough to ground the
with extremely different social and cultural contents, which are not specificity of a cultural system. But, in fact, I am using the term
located on a continuum, for they are spatial and social expressions 'capitalism' in the sense used by Marx in Capital: the particular
qualitatively different from one another. (Ledrut, 1968, Ch. 1.) matrix of the various systems at the basis of a society (economic,
Must we, then, with Max Weber (1905) or Leonard Riessman, political, ideological). However, even in this vulgar definition of
(1964) reserve the term city for certain definite types of spatial capitalism, the resemblance of the cultural types seems to be due,
82 The Urban Ideology The Myth of Urban Culture 83

not to the existence of the same ecological form, but to the social as the city. Now, one has only to reflect for a moment to realize
and technological complexity that underlies the heterogeneity and the absurdity of a theory of social change based on the growing
concentration of the populations. It would seem to be a question complexification of human collectivities simply as a result of
rather of an 'industrial culture'. The technological fact ofindustriali· demographic growth. In effect, there has never been, there can never
zation would thus appear to be the major element determining the be, in the evolution of societies, a phenomenon apprehensible solely
evolution of the social forms. In this case, we would be coming in some such physical terms as, for example, 'size'. Any develop-
close to the theses about 'industrial societies'. ment in the dimensions and differentiation of a social group is it-
But, on the other hand, if we hold to a scientific definition of self the product and the expression of a social structure and of its
capitalism, we can affirm that in historically given societies where laws of transformation.
studies have been made of the transformation of social relations, Consequently, the mere description of the process does not
the articulation of the dominant mode of production called capital· inform us as to the technico-social complex (for example, the
ism may account for the appearance of such a system of relations productive forces and the relations of production) at work in the
and of a new ecological form. transformation. There is, therefore, a simultaneous and concomi-
The observation of similar behaviour patterns in societies in tant production of social forms in their different dimensions and ,
which one may presume that the capitalist mode of production is in particular, in their spatial and cultural dimensions. One may
not dominant, does not invalidate the previous discovery, for we pose the problem of their interaction, but one cannot set out from
must reject the crude capitalism/socialism dichotomy as a theoretical the proposition that one ofthe forms produces the other. The theses
instrument. At the same time, this raises a question and calls for on urban culture were developed in an empiricist perspective,
research that should have as its objective: 1. to determine whether, according to which the context of social production was taken to
in fact, the real and not only the formal content of these behaviour be its source.
patterns is the same; 2. to see what is the concrete articulation of Another problem, our problem, is to discover the place and the
the different modes of production in Soviet society, for, indisputably, laws of articulation of this 'context', that is to say, of the spatial
the capitalist mode of production is present there, even if it is no forms, in the social structure as a whole. But, in order to deal with
longer dominant; 3. to establish the contours of the new post- this question, we must first break up the globality of this urban
capitalist mode of production, for, although the scientific theory of society understood as a true culmination of history in modernity.
the capitalist mode of production has been partially elaborated (in For, if it is true that, in order to identify them, new phenomena
Capital), there is no equivalent for the socialist mode of production; have been named according to their place of origin, the fact remains
4. to elaborate a theory of the links between the concrete articula- that 'urban culture', as it is presented, is neither a concept nor a
tion of the various modes of production in Soviet society and the theory. It is, strictly speaking, a myth, since it recounts, ideologi-
systems of behaviour (see Part I). cally, the history of the human species. Consequently, the writings
It is obvious that, in such a situation, the problematic of urban on 'urban society' which are based directly on this myth, provide
culture would no longer be relevant. However, in the absence of any the key-words of an ideology of modernity, assimilated, in an
such research, we can say, intuitively: that there are similar techno- ethnocentric way, to the social forms of liberal capitalism.
logical determinants, which may lead to similarities of behaviour; In a 'vulgarized' form, if one may put it in this way, these
that this is reinforced by the active presence of capitalist structural writings have had and still have an enormous influence on the
elements; that formal similarities in behaviour have meaning only ideology of development and on the 'spontaneous sociology' of the
when related to the social structure to which they belong. For to technocrats. On the one hand, it is in the terms of a passage from
reason otherwise would lead us to the logical conclusion that all 'traditional' society to 'modem' society (Lerner, 1958) that one
societies are one because everyone eats or sleeps more or less transposes the problematic of the 'folk-urban continuum' into an
regularly. analysis of the relations internal to the imperialist system (see
This being the case, why not accept the term 'urban culture' for Part I, Chap. 3, Section Il).
the system of behaviour bound up with capitalist society? Because, On the other hand, 'urban culture' is behind a whole series of
as I have indicated, such an appellation suggests that these cultural discourses that take the place of an analysis of social evolution in
forms have been produced by the particular ecological form known the thinking of the western ruling elites and which, therefore, are
84 The Urban Ideology The Myth of Urban Culture 85

largely communicated through the mass media and form part of the way, producing universal types, formerly opposed by way of being
everyday ideological atmosphere. Thus, for example, the CommIs- unsynchronized bu t never, within any given social structure, opposed
sariat General au Plan (1970), in a series of studies on cities pub- by way of contradiction. This, of course, in no way prevents one
lished as preparation for the sixth French Plan, devoted a small from commiserating with the alienation of this 'unified Man', at
volume to 'urban society' that constitutes a veritable anthology of grips with the natural and technological constraints that impede
this problematic. the full development of his creativity. The city - regarded both as
Setting out from the affirmation that 'every cit~ is the locu~ ?f a the complex expression of its social organization and as the milieu
culture', the document tries to enunciate the condItIons for realizIng determined by fairly rigid technological constraints - thus becomes,
ideal models, conceptions of city-society, while taking into account in turn, a focus of creation and the locus of oppression by the
the 'constraints of the economy'. This is highly characteristic of a technico-natural forces brought into being. The social efficacity of
certain technocratic humanism: the city (which is simply society) this ideology derives from the fact that it describes the everyday
is made up of the free initiatives of individuals and groups, which problems experienced by people, while offering an interpretation of
are limited, but not determined, by a problem of means. And them in terms of natural evolution, from which the division into
urbanism then becomes the rationality of the possible, trying to link antagonistic classes is absent. This has a certain concrete force and
the means at one's disposal and the great objectives one sets oneself. gives the reassuring impression of an integrated society, united in
For the urban phenomenon is 'the expression of the system of facing up to its 'common problems'.
values current in the culture proper to a place and a time', which
explains that 'the more a society is conscious of the objectives it
pursues ... the more its cities are typed'. Lastly, on the basis of
such a social organization, one finds the ecological factors that have
long been advanced by the classics of urban culturalism: 'The basis
of urban society lies in the grouping of a collectivity of a certain
size and density, which implies a more or less rigorous division of
activities and functions and makes necessary exchanges between
the sub-groups endowed with a status that is proper to them: to be
differentiated is to be linked' (p. 21). Here we find a whole theory
of the production of social, spatial and cultural forms, simply on
the basis of an organic phenomenon of growth - as if it were a
question of a sort of upwards, linear movement of matter towards
spirit.
Now, although it is clear that there are cultural specificities in
the different social milieux, it is just as obvious that the cleavage
no longer passes through the town/country distinction, and the
explanation of each mode of life requires that one should articulate
it in a social structure taken as a whole, instead of keeping to the
purely empirical correlation between a cultural content and its
spatial seat. For our object is quite simply the analysis of the.
process of the social production of the systems of rep:esenta~\On
and communication or, to put it another way, of the IdeolOgical
superstructure. . ' .
If these theses on 'urban society' are so Widespread, thiS IS pre-
cisely because they permit one the short cut of studying the emer-
gence of ideological forms on the basis of social co~tradiction~ and
class division. Society is thus unified and develops III an orgamc
 From Urban Society to Urban Revolution 87

urban problematic ought to produce decisive results in this sphere,

6 not only in terms of influence, but also by opening up new ap-
proaches, detecting new problems, proposing new hypotheses.
However, in the end, the problematic engulfs the thinker and,
having set out from a Marxist analysis of the urban phenomenon,
he comes closer and closer, through a rather curious intellectual
evolution, to an urbanistic theorization of the Marxist problematic.
From Urban Society to Urban Revolution Thus, for example, after defining the emerging society as urban, he
declares that the revolution too, the new revolution, is logically
urban.
In what sense? Let me try to explain in detail, for we are con-
fronted here by a complex body of thought, full of subtleties and
theoretico-political modulations that are impossible to grasp as a
coherent whole. Nevertheless, if one looks attentively, beyond its
Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the open, asystemic character, there is a nucleus of propositions around
historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois which the central axes of the analysis are ordered. Let me sum up
economists had expressed its economic anatomy. What I briefly and as faithfully as possible what this nucleus is, so that we
did that was new was: 1. to show that the existence of may discuss in concrete terms its principal implications for a study
classes is bound up only with stages of historical develop- of urbanization and, indirectly, for Marxism.
ment determined by production; 2. that the class struggle Despite the diversity and extent of Lefebvre's thinking (which is
leads necessarily to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3. no doubt the profoundest intellectual effort that has been made
that this dictatorship itself constitutes only a transition towards understanding the urban problems of the present day), we
towards the abolition of all classes and a classless society. have, in 1971, three texts to help us to grasp it: a collection of his
(Karl Marx, letter to Weidemeyer, 1852) writings on the problem, which includes the most important texts
a
up to 1969, Du rural l'urbain (which I shall refer to as DRU)
The urban ideology has deep social roots. It is not confined to a
(Lefebvre, 1970.); a short polemical work, Le droit la vilie, (DV)
academic tradition or to the milieux of official urbanism. It is, (1968); and, above all, the first general discussion of the question
above all, in people's heads. It even penetrates to the thoughts of in La revolution urbaine, (R U) (1970); lastly, a short piece, La
those who set out from a critical reflection on the social forms of ville et l'urbain, (VU) (1971), which sums up very clearly the
urbanization. And it is there that it does the most damage, for it principal theses. (I shall continue to specify my textual references
abandons the integrating, communal, conformist tone, and becomes even if this seems over-scrupulous.)
a discourse on contradictions - on urban contradictions. Now, this Lefebvre's urbanistic exposition is 'constructed on a hypothesis,
shift leaves intact the theoretical problems that have just been according to which the crisis of urban reality is the most important,
raised, while adding new, much more serious, political problems. more central than any other' (VU, 3).
Such flexibility of tone shows very well the ideological character of This crisis, which has always existed in a latent stage, has been
the theme of urban society, which may be 'left-wing' or 'right- masked, impeded, one might say, by other urgent problems, espec-
wing' according to preference, without in any way changing the ially during the period of industrialization: on the one hand, by the
positive or negative feeling one invests in it, while recognizing 'housing question' and, on the other, by industrial organization and
urban society as a specific historical type with well-defined charac- overall planning. But, ultimately, this thematic must increasingly
teristics and even as the culmination of human evolution. gain recognition, because 'the development of society is conceivable
The most striking expression of this 'left-wing' version of the only in urban life, through the realization of urban society' (D V,
ideological thesis on urban society is no doubt the urbanistic 158).
thinking of one of the greatest theoreticians of contemporary But what is this 'urban society'? The term designates 'the ten~

Marxism, Henri Lefebvre. Such intellectual power applied to the dency, the orientation, the potentiality, rather than an accomplished
88 The Urban Ideology From Urban Society to Urban Revolution 89

fact'; it stems both from the complete urbanization of society and and his own everyday life in the city becomes work, appropriation,
from the development of industrialization (one might also call it use-value' (D V, 163 - see, for the development of the whole prob-
'post-industrial society') (RU, 8, 9)_ lematic in terms of historical transformation, RU, 13, 25,43,47,
This is a central point of the analysis: urban society (whose 52,58,62,80,99,100, etc.)_
social content defines urbanization as a process rather than the It is clear that this analysis refers to a historical type of society,
reverse) is produced by a historical process that Lefebvre conceives urban society, defined by a precise cultural content ('a mode of life,
as a model of dialectical sequence_ In effect, human history is de- action'), as was the case for the thesis on urban culture or on
fined by the overlapping succession of three eras, fields or conti- urban-modern society, even if the content differs_ In fact, the
nents: the agrarian, the industrial, the urban_ The political city of essential, in each case, is the identification of a form, the urban,
the first phase gives place to the mercantile city, which is itself with a content (for some, competitive capitalist society; for others
swept away by the movement of industrialization, which negates 'modern technocratic' society; for Lefebvre, the reign of freedom
the city; but, at the end of the process, generalized urbanization, and the new humanism)_
created by industry, reconstitutes the city at a higher level: thus At an initial level of criticism, one might challenge Lefebvre's
the urban supersedes the city that contains it in seed form, but libertarian and abstract conceptions of the reign of post-historical
without being able to bring it to flower; on the other hand, the or communist society, in which one perceives no concrete process
reign of the urban enables it to become both cause and instrument of constructing new social relations through the revolutionary
(RU, 25)_ transformation of different economic, political, ideological agencies
In this evolution, there are two critical phases; the first is the by means of the class struggle and, therefore, of the dictatorship of
subordination of agriculture to industry; the second, which we see the proletariat_ But this debate would merely, for the most part,
today, is the subordination of industry to urbanization; it is this reproduce the theoretical argument that has been advanced, for
conjuncture that gives meaning to the expression 'urban revolution', over a century, by Marxists against anarchists, a debate in which the
conceived as 'the ensemble of transformations undergone by con- history of the working-class movement has decided much more than
temporary society, in order to pass from the period in which ques- a rigorous demonstration would have done_ Having no pretension
tions of growth and industrialization predominate, to the period to adding anything new of great importance to a polemic that has
in which the urban problematic will decisively triumph, in which largely been superseded by practical politics (spontaneism always
the search for solutions and modalities proper to urban society destroying itself by its theoretical inability to direct the real pro-
will become of prime importance' (RU, 13)_ cesses), I have nothing to say to the resumption of millenarist
But what is significant is that these fields, or stages, in human utopias in Lefebvre's thinking_ He is perfectly free, if he so wishes,
history (what Marxists called modes of production) are not defined to call 'urban' the utopian society in which there would no longer
by (spatial) forms or techniques (agriculture, industry); they are, be any repression of the free impulses of desire (RU, 235), and also
above all, 'modes of thought, action, life' (R U, 47)_ Thus the evolu- to call urban the still inadequately identified cultural transforma-
tion becomes more clear if one associates each era with its properly tions that are emerging in the imperialist metropolises_
social content: But the whole problem is here: the term 'urban' (as in 'urban
Need - Rural culture') is not an innocent one; it suggests the hypothesis of a
Work - Industrial production of social content (the urban) by a trans-historical form
Pleasure - Urban (RU, 47) (the city) and, beyond this, it expresses a whole general conception
The urban, the new era of mankind (R U, 52), seems to represent, of the production of social relations, that is to say, in fact, a theory
then, deliverance from the determinisms and constraints of earlier of social change, a theory of revolution_ For 'the urban' is not only
stages (RU, 43)_ It is nothing less than the culmination of history, a libertarian utopia; it has a relatively precise content in Lefebvre's
a post-history_ In the Marxist tradition, one would call this 'com- thinking: it is a question of centrality or, rather, of simultaneity,
munism'_ A veritable episteme of a final period (our own period, it of concentration (RU, 159, 164, 174; VU, 5)_ In urban space, what
seems, forms the hinge between the two ages), the urban is realized is characteristic is that 'something is always happening' (RU, 174);
and expressed above all by a new humanism, a concrete humanism, it is the place in which the ephemeral dominates, beyond repression_
defined in the type of urban man 'for whom and by whom the city But this 'urban', which is therefore nothing more than emancipated
90 The Urban Ideology From Urban Society to Urban Revolution 91

creative spontaneity, is produced, not by space or by time, but by a experiences does not warrant overIy affirmative conclusions, we
form which, being neither object nor subject, is defined above all by ~now enough to reject once and for all the notion of the generaliza-
the dialectic of centrality, or of its negation (segregation, dispersal, tIOn of the urban as the only form, characteristic both of capitalism
periphery - RU, 164). and socialism. Since, for Lefebvre, the urban is a 'productive force'
What we have here is something very close to Wirth's thesis one is directed toward a transcending of the theory of the modes of
concerning the way social relations are produced. It is density, the production, which is reduced to the ranks of 'Marxist dogmatism'
warmth of concentration that, by increasing action and communica- (R U, 220), and to its replacement by a dialectic of forms, as explana-
tion, encourage at one and the same time a free flowering, the tion of the historical process.
unexpected, pleasure, sociability and desire. In order to be .able to Thus, for example, the class struggle still appears to be regarded
justify this mechanism of sociability (which is co.n~ected dlfec~ly as the motive force of history. But what class struggle? It would
to organicism), Lefebvre must advance a mecharustlc hypotheSIS seem that, for Lefebvre, the urban struggle (understood both as
that is quite unjustifiable: the hypothesis according to which relating to a space and as expressing a project of freedom) has played
'social relations are revealed in the negation of distance' (RU, 159). a determining role in social contradictions, even in the working-
And that is what the essence of the urban is in the last resort. For class struggle. Thus, for example, the Commune becomes a 'revolu-
the city creates nothing, but, by centralizing creations, it enables tionary urban practice', in which the 'workers, chased from the
them to flower. However, Lefebvre is aware of the excessively crude centre to the periphery, once again took the road back to this centre
character of the thesis according to which mere spatial concentration occupied by the bourgeoisie'. And Lefebvre wonders 'how and why
makes possible the flowering of new relations, as if there were no the Commune has not been conceived as an urban revolution, but
social and institutional organization outside the arrangement of as revolution carried out by the industrial proletariat and directed
space. This is why he adds the condition: providing t~is concentra- at industrialization, which does not correspond to the historical
tion is free of all repression; this is what he calls the right to the truth' (RU, 148, 149). The opposition between forms without
city. But the introduction of this corrective destroys any causal precis~ su:uctural co~tent (industry, the urban) makes it possible
relation between the form (the city) and human creation (the to mamtam, by playmg on words, that a proletarian revolution
urban), for if it is possible to have repressive citi~s and fre~do~s must be aimed at industrialization, whereas an urban revolution is
without place (u-topias), this means that the SOCial determmatlOns centred on the city. The fact that, for Lefebvre, the state must also
of this inactivity, the production of the conditions of emergence be. a form (always repr.e~sive, regardless of its class content) permits
of spontaneity, pass elsewhere than through forms - through a this co','fuslOn for, political power being the central issue in any
political practice, for example. What meaning, then, can the formu- revolutIOnary process, suppressing it condemns one to an inter-
lation of the problem of freedom in terms of the urban have! ~inable. opposition of e:,ery possible form of the class struggle
One might add many remarks on the theoretical and historical (mdustnal, urban, agrarian, cultural), and renders an analysis of
error of the supposed determination of content by form (a struc- the social contradictions on which it is grounded unnecessary.
turalist hypothesis if ever there was one), by ob.serving, to. begin. Suc.h.a perspective, if carried to its logical conclusion, even leads
with, that it is a question, at most, of a correlatIOn th~t still reqUires to POlitICally dangerous consequences that seem to me to be alien
to be theorized, by linking it to an analysis of the SOCial structure as to Lefebvre's thinking, although fairly close to what he actually
a whole. And this correlation may even prove to be empirically false. says. Thus, for example, when the analysis of the process of urbani-
Thus, when Lefebvre speaks of generalized urbanizatio?, .including zation enables him to declare that 'the vision or conception of the
Cuba and China, he is quite simply ignorant of the statistical and class struggle on a world scale seems today to be superseded. The
historical data of the processes he describes, particularly in the case revolutionary capacity of the peasants is not increasing; it seems
of China, where urban growth has been limited to the natural growth ev:n to be on the decline, although unevenly' (RU, 152), and the
of the towns (without peasant immigration) and ,:"here! on the blmdness of the working-class movement is contrasted with the
contrary, one is witnessing a permanent and masSIVe shIft towards cle~-sightedness, on this theme, of science fiction (R U, 152). Or
the countryside, reinforced by the constitution of the people's aga~, wh~n ~e proposes to replace by urban praxis an industrial
communes as forms that integrate town and country. Although the praXIS which IS now over. This is an elegant way of speaking of
absence of'information about the Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese the end of the proletariat (RU, 184) and leads to the attempt
92 The Urban Ideology From Urban Society to Urban Revolution 93

actually to ground a new political strategy not on the basis of the keystone is the distinction between three levels: the global or state
structures of domination, but on the alienation of everyday life. level; the mixed level or level of 'urban organization'; the private
It is even suggested that the working class no longer has political level or the 'habitat level'. Now, what characterizes urbanization in
weight, because it has nothing to offer in terms of urbanism (R '!, the second critical phase of history is that the global level depends
245). However, it remains an ess~ntial agent, but on~ ,:,hose actIOns on the mixed level and that the mixed level tends to depend on the
are given meaning from the outside. A return to u:mmsm? !'lot at 'inhabiting'. This means, in concrete terms, that it is the inhabit-
all! What might illuminate the options of the working class IS well ing, everyday life, that produces space. Now, such independence of
known: it is philosophy and art (DV, 163). At the intersection of the everyday implies that one refuses to conceive it as the pure
these two, then, urbanistic thought plays a strategic role and may expression of general social determinations. It is the expression of
be regarded as a veritable avant·garde, capable of orientating the human initiative, and this initiative (that is to say, the projects of
revolution towards new social conditions (the urban revolution) subjects) is therefore the productive source of space and of urban
(RV, 215). organization. Thus one arrives at the following paradox: whereas
Although such statements rise towards metaphilosophical one makes urban practice the centre of social transformations,
regions, far from the modest scope of the researcher, or even, 'iuite space and urban structure are pure transparent expressions of the
simply, of people at grips with 'urban problems', one might, still, intervention of social actors. Another proof of the use of the term
wonder what they teach us that is new or original about the urban urban to express above all a cultural content (the free work). But
question in the strict use of the term - about space and/or what is one also arrives, at the same time, at this much more serious conclu-
institutionally called the urban. And it is here that one becomes sion, that the whole perspective has no specific answer to give to
fully aware of the profoundly ideological character of Lefebvre's the theoretical problems posed by the social determination of space
theses, that is to say, of their social rather than theoretical and urban organization.
implication. This being the case, 'urban practice', understood as a practice of
Indeed, space, in the last resort, occupies a relatively modest and transformation of everyday life, comes up against a number of
subordinate place in the whole analysis. The city, according to a 'obstacles' in terms of institutionalized class domination. Thus
famous and on the whole correct formula, projects on the terrain Lefebvre is led to pose the problem of urbanism as one of ideological
a whole society, with its superstructures, its economic base and its coherence and as the repressive-regulatory intervention of the state
social relations (DR U, 147). But when it comes to specifying these apparatus. This is the critical side of Lefebvre's thinking, always
relations or showing the articulation between the social and accurate, brilliant, knowing how to detect new sources of contradic-
spatial problematics, the second is perceived rather as a mere occa· tions. A large part of the social resonance of Lefebvre's urbanistic
sion of deploying the first. For space is 'the result of a history that work derives from the political role played by an implacable critique
must be conceived as the work of social agents or actors, collective of the system of official urbanism - a critique that one can only
subjects, operating by successive thrusts .... From their int~r~ctions, approve and pursue in the direction that Lefebvre has had the
their strategies, their successes and defeats, result the quahtles and courage to open up.
"properties" of urban space' (R U, 171). If this thesis means that But even this critique is experienced as the problematic of aliena-
society creates space, everything still remains to be explained in tion, as opposition on the part of urban spontaneity to the order of
terms of a mode of specific determination. But it goes much urbanism, as a struggle of the everyday against the state, indepen-
further: it indicates that space, like the whole of society, is the dent of (or above) the class content and specific conjuncture of social
ever-original work of that freedom of creation that is the attribute relations. That 'everydayness', that is to say, social life, governed
of Man, and the spontaneous expression of his desire. It is only?y above all by the rhythms of the ideological, may be the expression
accepting this absolute of Lefebvrian humanism (a m~tter .of I.'hilo- of new forms of contradiction in social practice, there can be no
sophy or religion) that the analysis mig?t be pursue~ In thiS dlre.c- doubt. But that it should be the source, rather than the expression,
tion: it would always be dependent on ItS metaphYSical foundatIOn. of complex class relations determined, in the last resort, by
This spontaneism of social action and the dependence of sl.'ace economic relations. is a reversal of the materialist problematic and
upon it becomes still more clear if one refers to the synchromc sets out from 'men' rather than from their social and technological
analysis that Lefebvre has made of urban space (RU, 129). His relations of production and domination.
94 The Urban Ideology From Urban Society to Urban Revolution 95

Nevertheless, Lefebvre has seen, on the one hand, the emergence contrary, centring their analysis on capitalist society, they set out
of new contradictions in the cultural and ideological sphere and, on ~rom a study of production and of the realization of surplus value
the other hand, he has linked the urban question to the process of ill order to understand the extension of its logic to the world of
the extended reproduction of labour power. In doing so, he has consumption, an extension itself derived from the development of
opened up what is perhaps a crucial direction in the study of 'the the productive forces and of the class struggle.
urban'. But he has closed it immediately afterwards by falling into Rather than replace the 'industrial' problematic by the 'urban'
the trap that he himself denounced, that is to say, by treating in problematic, they take the reverse direction, making the problems
terms of the urban (and therefore attaching them to a theory of of the city entirely dependent on the forms and rhythms of class
social forms) the social processes that are connoted ideologically by relations and, more particularly, on the political struggle: 'The so-
urbanistic thinking. Now, in order to supersede this ideological called problems of the city are simply the most refined expression
treatment of the problem, it was necessary: of class antagonisms and of class domination, which, historically,
1. To treat space and the urban separately, that is to say, to treat produced the development of civilizations.' 'Urbanization', as a
the process of collective consumption at its different levels. policy of state power, is taken in the sense of 'civility', that is to
2. To proceed to the analysis of the social determination of these say, as having the essential aim of resolving class contradictions.
processes, in particular explaining the new forms of intervention of However, such an analysis seems to me, on the one hand, utterly to
the state apparatuses in this domain. conceal a certain specificity of articulation between space and
3. To study the organization of space as a chapter of social society and, on the other hand, to underestimate the interventions
morphology as Lefebvre proposes, while establishing the specificity bearing on other spheres than political class relations, for example,
of such a form, but without treating it as a new motive force of attempts of a reform-integration kind, or the regulation of the
history. economic, etc. It is true, however, that in the final analysis, all
4. Lastly, and above all, to explain the social bases of the ideo· social intervention remains marked by its class content, although
logical link between the problematic of space and that of the re- one must specify its mediations.
production of labour power ('everydayness', to use Lefebvre's The few analyses made by Utopie have not been followed up in
term). concrete research, given the essentially critical and political-cultural
Now, in elaborating a new theory of social utopia (or, to put it perspective that the group gives itself - in which it deserves all the
another way, of the end of history), Lefebvre has found in the support and encouragement of those who, in one way or another,
urban form a 'material' support (a place) to which to attach the are against the established 'urban order'. However, they reflect the
process of production of new social relations (the urban) through essential problems to be treated, even if they do not embark on the
the interaction of creative capacities. Thus his analyses and perspec- long road of theoretical mediations to be traversed. But if a fruitful
tives, which have opened up new paths in this domain, are lost in perspective is to be opened up, it will be done by placing oneself in
the flood of a metaphilosophy of history, which takes the place of opposition to the culturalist and spontaneist theses; that is to say,
theoretical discourse and tries to convey the political spontaneism by approaching the analysis of new aspects of the capitalist mode
and the cultural revolt that are being manifested in the imperialist of production through the deVelopment of new and adequate
metropolises. This new urban ideology may thus serve noble causes theoretical tools, which specify, without contradicting them, the
(it is not always completely certain that spontaneism is one of fundamental elements of historical materialism.
them) while masking fundamental phenomena that theoretical The urban ideology would thus be superseded and the theme of
practice still finds difficult to grasp. urban culture, in its different versions, would be regarded as a myth
The theoretical path opened up and closed by Lefebvre has been rather than as a specific social process. However, if 'the city' or 'the
taken up in an extremely relevant way by the 'Utopie' group, led urban' cannot be a social source of systems of values considered as
by Hubert Tonka, which defines the urban problematic as 'the a whole, would not certain types of organization of space or certain
problematic of the mode of reproduction of the mode of produc- 'urban units' have a specific effect on social practices? Would there
tion'. (Utopie, 1970.) But, quite unlike Lefebvre, these researchers be 'urban sub-cultures'? And what would be their relation to the
do not make the 'urban', conceived as 'everydayness\ the axis of social structure?
social development, nor the cultural culmination of history. On the
 The Urban Sub-cultures 97

different. Fortunately, there is available in this field an extra-

7 ordinary analysis which, after reviewing most of the important
contributions made by American and British specialists up to 1968,
clears the ground by uncovering a few fundamental theoretical
distinctions. (Keller, 1968; see also Popenoe, 1963.) Keller indicates,
quite rightly, that it is a question of two series of non-equivalent
questions:
1. The existence of a system of specific behaviour patterns in
The Urban Sub-cultures relation to local social life, in particular, in relation to neighbours.
This system of neighbouring involves at least two distinct dimen-
sions: activities relative to neighbouring (mutual aid, mutual loan-
ing, visits, advice, etc.) and social relations in the strict sense
(namely, the ratio between relations of friendship, of family, of
neighbourhood, participation in association and centres of interest,
etc.). All these behaviour patterns express the cultural definition
The relation between a certain type of habitat and specific modes of the role neighbour; this role varies in intensity and intimacy,
of behaviour is a classic theme of urban sociology. It is precisely according to the dimensions and cultural norms interiorized by the
at this level tbat the 'constructors' try to find a use for sociological different social groups.
reflection in their search for formulas that make it possible to 2. The existence of a particular ecological unit (quarter, neigh-
express architectural volume or urbanistic space in terms of socia- bourhood, etc.) with sufficiently well-defined frontiers to produce a
bility. The manipulation of social life through the arrange','lent of socially significant demarcation. In fact, the very problem of the
the environment is a dream sufficiently linked to the utoplStS and existence of such urban units within urban areas, brings us back
technocrats to give rise to an ever growing mass of research, aimed immediately to the criteria for dividing up space (economic, geo-
at verifying a correlation, empirically observed in another context. graphical, functional, in terms of perception or the 'feeling of
But this relation between context and life-style also occurs belonging', etc.).
spontaneously in the representatio~s ~f indivi~uals and groups .. To these two questions must be added the strictly sociological
Everyday reactions are full of assOCiatIOns, denved from a particular problem of the relation between each type of ecological unit, de-
experience, according to which onc .q~arter c0-r::sponds to a . fined according to certain criteria, and each mode of cultural
working-class mode of life, another IS bou~ge01s, X new town IS. behaviour. The relation, from the theoretical point of view, may be
'soulless' while the small town Z has kept ItS charm. Beyond sOCial regarded in both senses, for the determination of behaviour by a
images ":oused by the urban zones -. the analysis of. whi~h form: context may be reversed through the influence that social practices
part, strictly speaking, of the ideolOgical representatlOn~ m relatIOn may have on the constitution of space. The problematic of the
to the living context (see Part Ill) - we are presented With ~he urban social milieux thus poses, at least, these four series of
following practical and theoretical question: is there a relatIOn, and questions, which I shall try to deal with by referring to the major
which relation, between the ecological context and the cultural tendencies, not always mutually consistent, that have emerged in
system? research. After this ordered theoretical reading, a provisional
Now, the analysis of urban sub-cultures has usually come up meaning may be attributed to the mass of empirical results in such
against a confused amalgam of sever"! research obje~tives. ~ult~ral a way as to synthesize (or to reprise) the formulation of the problem.
monographs of a residential commumty, usually trymg to. test the
emergence of a system of 'urban values' have alte~ated With .
attempts to link certain behaviour patterns and attitudes to a given 1. Is there an 'urban' behaviour pattern characterizing social life
ecological context. . . in the residual uni ts?
That is why a discussion of the whole of the problematiC reqUires This is, in fact, a resumption of the theme of urban culture at the
a prior distinction between the vari~us questions ~hat are entangled specific level of the residential unit. Thus, if the city as a whole
here , the answers to which, theoretical and empmcal, are very
98 The Urban Ideology The Urban Sub-cultures 99

may be summed up by a single cultural feature, t~er~ would be a the old town centre; on the other hand, to the way of life of the
type of 'urban' behaviour characterizedby sup~rf~clahty of contacts middle class and that of the working class. But, in any case, they
and the importance of secondary relatIOns: this I~ what Gut~rman, are offered as a sequence, as a progressive passage from one to the
in a recent study, tried to deduce from the negatIve correlatl<:~n he other. Especially as the suburban residential community is not
finds between the size of the urban area and the degree of mtImacy opposed to the preponderance of secondary relations and group
and friendship observed in social relations. (Guterm.an, 1969.) membership at the level of society as a whole; on the contNlIy,
However the matter is more subtle, for the translatIOn from urban they reinforce each other. Thus, for example, the classic research
culture t~ residential unit is not done directly by reproducing, at of M Axelrod on Detroit shows both the persistence of primary
the lowest level, the general urban type. It is a case of new formulas relations of sociability and the concomitant variation of participa-
of social relations adapted to the residential milieux of the great tion in social relations and organized associations. (Axelrod, 1956.)
urban areas. For, from the moment one could observe that the This type of behaviour, in so far as its 'discovery' is bound up
'city' was not the equivalent of 'social integration', it was patently with studies of the new residential milieux of the American suburbs,
necessary to discover the new forms through which the system of has made possible the emergence of new theses concerning the
social relations is developed in the situation of generalized advent of a cultural form that seems to some extent to have super-
urbanization. seded the urban type. The suburban way of life, of which so much
The cultural typology suggested by functionalist sociology is has been said, (Fava, 1956) is characterized by a veritable system
thus placed on two axes: on the one hand, the opposition between of values, in particular, by the overwhelming importance of family
'local' and 'cosmopolitan' expresses the general trend towards a values (in the sense of the nuclear family), a certain intensity of
segmentation of roles, and of domination i,n sec?ndar~ re~a~ions neighbourhood relations (usually polite, but distant), the constant
(Dobriner, 1958.); on the other hand, the local pole IS diVIded search for an affirmation of social status and profoundly conformist
between a type of 'modem' behaviour and 'traditional' behaviour, behaviour_ Thus, after dubbing the distinctive features of behaviour
the second being constituted by the turning in of a residential bound up with the competitive phase of capitalism 'urban culture',
community upon itself, a strong internal concensus and a strong we are now asked to call 'suburban culture' the norms of the
line of cleavage in relation to the outside, whereas the first is 'consumer society', individualized and turned in upon its stratified
characterized by an open sociability, but one limit:d in its ~ommit· comfort, bound up with the monopolistic phase and the standardi-
ment, since it co-exists with a multiplicity of relatIOns outsIde the zation of social life.
residential community. Now, the first point to establish seems to be the supposed genera-
It is probably the research of Willmott and Young (19~0) of the lity of this new mode of social life that extends the urban, by a
Institute of Community Studies in London that has best Isolated process of renewal, outside the context of the city. Whereas, just
the two types of cultural behaviour by analysing successively an old as the cities presented historically a diversity of cultural contents,
working-class quarter in East London and anew, middle-class. the 'suburbs' and the residential units display an astonishing variety
suburb. In the latter, life is centred primarily on the home, WIth the of modes of behaviour depending on their social structure. Thus,
woman who remains in the house and the man who, outside work, for example, to take only a minimum of studies that might serve
spends most of his time in domestic activities: gar?ening, doing ?dd as landmarks, Greer and Orleans, in their inquiry into St Louis,
jobs, helping with household tasks. But the home IS not ev~rythmg; revealed a very high degree of simultaneous local and political
a new form of sociability is developing through local organIzatIOns, participation and established important differences of attitude
brief visits to neighbours, going to the pub and social gatherings, between the residential units, showing that they depended on the
according to a well defined rhythm. On the other han?, i~ th~ old differential structure of the possibilities they offered. (Greer and
working-class district, sociability does not need to be mstItutlOnal- Orleans, 1962.)
ized' the networks of mutual aid are entirely open and the ex- In a particularly brilliant study of a working-class suburb in
tended family, the central pivot of intimate relations, estaJ;>lishes California, Bennet M. Berger (1960) sets out to demolish the myth
communication between the elements of different generatIOns. of 'suburban culture'. His principal empirical discoveries are the
The two modes of behaviour have been shown to correspond, on following: weak residential mobility, given the economic constraints
the one hand, to the new suburban housing and to the districts of to which the inhabitants are subjected; a persistence of interest in
100 The Urban Ideology The Urban Sub-cultures 101
national politics; on the other hand, weak participation in associa- or non-existence of a model of behaviour defined by the residential
tions; great poverty of informal social relations; the dominant role milieu, and is orientated towards the search for differential condi-
of television, a turning in upon the home, little going out, etc. Such tions of relation between these two terms_
a picture, in contradiction with the model of active local participa- Similarly, when Chombart de Lauwe (1965, 67) approaches the
tion, leads him to conclude that the mode of life proposed as subur- cultural problematic of the quartier, also proposed by some re-
ban is, in fact, the model of behaviour of the middle class and that searchers as specific communities of life, he links it to the urban
the suburbs do not have a social specificity, only an ecological one_ ensemble, considering the quartier as an 'elementary unit' of this
Wendell Bell (1969), through a review of the literature, also shows ensemble, with economic and geographical limits and particular
the diversity of cultural relations in terms of the social characteristics urban and social functions_ This means that the 'culture of the
of the residential milieux_ quartier', together with 'suburban culture' sometimes offered as
Things become more obvious if one leaves the American cultural particular cultural models, expresses a certain conception of the
context where the myth was forged_ Ferrarotti's (1970) important space/culture relation and that there is no possible urban problema-
study of the borgate of Rome presents a completely different pano- tic without previous examination of the ecological foundations of
rama of life in the suburbs_ Thus, in Borgata Alessandrina, despite such behaviour_
the rural origin of the inhabitants, there are practically no social
relations on the local plane and, by savagely opposing any threat
2_ Are there specific urban units?
of promiscuity, the family becomes the sole point of support,
completely cut off from the surrounding milieu_ The terms are Although it is obvious that there is a fractional differentiation of
reversed, on the other hand, in the system of relations observed by urban space linked to the social division of labour, it is much less
Gutkind (1966) in the outskirts of Kampala (Uganda): while clear that there are residential units ecologically marked off in
integrated into urban life, a strong local community exists where such a way that they make it possible to break up an urban area
everyday life is concerned, and networks of families, friends and into sub-ensembles possessing real specificity_ Now, the existence
neighbours profoundly interpenetrate one another. of such ecological units seems a prior condition of the question as
In France, observations tend, despite various divergences, to to whether certain spaces determine a certain form of behaviour_
confirm the thesis of the non-existence of a 'suburban' model of Indeed, how could one pose the problem, if there were no real
behaviour beside an 'urban' model centred on the quartier as such_ differentiation ofresidential space?
Thus, although the interesting inquiry by Gabrielle Sautter The tradition of urban ecology tried to define the conditions
(1963) into a new district at Pontoise (in the Paris region) depicts of existence, within the city, of 'natural areas' which, in the classic
a local lower-middle class sociability very close to that of the definition of Paul Hatt (1946, 423-7), were made up of two ele-
American 'suburb', Retel (1965) concludes his inquiry into social ments: L a spatial unit, limited by natural frontiers within which
relations in the Paris suburbs by declaring that 'urban social life, one finds a homogeneous population with a system of specific
after passing through a phase of territorial structuring, will find a values; 2_ a spatial unit inhabited by a population structured by
new lease of life in a strictly sociological structuring of urban internal symbolic relations_ There is, therefore, a link between
groups among themselves', given the poverty of social relations of a ecologi~a_l frontiers and social characteristics at the very level of
local kind_ Ledrut (1968, 37), in his research into the grands the defInitIOn of the urban unit_
ensembles (high-rise housing estates) of Toulouse finds a 'fairly Such a link between the spatial context and social practice is at
good social climate', frequent visits between neighbours and easy, the root of the historical typology drawn up by Ledrut in order to
though superficial, relations_ Furthermore, he shows that such a differentiate the various forms of territorial collectivity_ (Ledrut,
situation does not come about by chance: it stems from the non- 1967; see also Frankenberg, 1966_) Drawing up a sort of continuum
isolation and social heterogeneity of the milieu for, according to in terms of the increasing complexity of society, Ledrut distinguishes
his hypothesis, 'the isolation of a residential collectivity, of high between:
density, and feeble differentiation, is the determining condition of The village, fairly homogenous, with weak internal differentiation
the most intense social pressure and the sharpest tensions'. Now, in which the essential spatial relations involve circulation around '
such a perspective goes beyond a mere observation of the existence centres of activity.
102 The Urban Ideology The Urban Sub-cultures 103
The neighbourhood, defined above all on the basis of residence between local sociability, forming part of a system of generalized
and of the networks of mutual help and personal contacts that are interaction, and the existence of a strong cultural specificity bound
created in it. up with an ecological zone. Similarly, the feeling of attachment to
The small town (bourg), a grouping of residences with which an the quarter seems to reflect a general attitude in relation to li"ng
activity is associated and which constitutes, in the strict sense of the conditions, rather than to the characteristics of the surrounding
term, a community, that is to say, 'the spatial, concrete extensIon context.
that represents the living sphere of the life of e.ach indi,,~ual', in. If one then considers whether the polemic is borne out by the
which one finds, for example, common colleclive amemtles and m properly ecological specificity of the new suburban housing estates,
which space is on a pedestrian scale. one obtains similar results. Thus, for example, Walter T. Martin's
The quarter, which has a double delimi!ation: it .is pro~i?ed ~~h (1958) study of the ecology of the suburbs in the United States
public amenities, accessible to the pedestnan; but, ~n ~~dltlOn, It IS distinguishes between the characteristics proper to these residential
constituted around a sub·culture and represents a slgmflcant break zones and those that are derived from them. Now, all those belonging
in the social structure, being capable of reaching even a certain to the first group are ecological truisms: location outside the city
institutionalization in terms of local autonomy. centre, the importance of commuting, smaller size and less density;
Lastly, the city is posited as a gathering at a higher level of in~i­ but, still more, the derived factors (the predominance of young
vi duals or groups, whereas the megalopolis presupposes a ~preadmg couples with children, the 'middle-class' level, a certain social homo-
of the primary units, foreshadowing, perhaps, a restructunng of geneity) derive rather from selective migration, which is fundamental
local life on other bases. to the constitution of these zones. They are, then, 'displaced seg-
Now, what is disturbing, even in a categorization as elaborated ments' of the social structure, rather than local collectivities struc-
as that of Ledrut, is the constant repetition of this link between a turing themselves in relation to a certain use of space.
certain space and a certain culture that seems to be given through Identical discoveries are to be found in the abundant literature
an empirically mappable type of territorial collecti"ty. Now Ledrut on the American suburbs, especially in the classic studies by
himself, after defining the conditions of emergence of these Dobriner (1958) and Taueber (1964).
quarters, (1968, 148) observes that they are practically non- . In France, Paul Clerc's (1967) inquiry into the grands ensembles
existent in the Toulouse urban area (1968, 275) and concludes, III has resulted in showing (astonishingly in view of the social image one
another work, that social life is polarized around two extremes, generally has of them) a fairly minimal difference between the socio-
the city and one's residence, with scarcely any possibility of survival economic composition of the grands ensembles and the urban areas
for 'intermediary groups' in modern society. (Ledrut, 1967.) adjacent to them (except for the proportion of 'employers', which
Similarly, the pioneering inquiry of Ruth Glass (1948), which is very low in the grands ensembles, and that of middle management,
tries to begin by delimiting the ecological frontiers of the neigh- which is very high). Should we conclude that the grands ensembles
bourhood units, establishes thirty-six economico-sociographical have no social significance? This would be over hasty, for the fact
neighbourhood units for the town studied, but these units prove of concentrating on a limited space the average profile of an urban
(with five exceptions) not to coincide with the social use of space. area - a profile that extends, in reality, through a wide differentia-
We may, in effect, divide an urban space into as many units as we tion - is in itself a significant situation. And, furthermore, as
wish, with the help of a whole battery of criteria. But each divi~ion Chamboredon and Lemaire (1970) have shown, it would be
bears an implicit proposition and, consequently, the social speClfi- necessary to differentiate the upper stratum of the population,
city of such sub-ensembles is not itself given. In the c~s? of the which is in a process of renewal - the grands ensembles being a
Glass inquiry, it is very interesting to observe the speClficlty of the step in its social progress - from that which permanently remains
five sectors in which ecological and social specificities do overlap: there and thus constitutes the social base of the milieu of relation.
they are the poor, isolated and socially very homogeneous zones. But this goes beyond the question of the ecological specificity of
Since then, Suzanne Keller (1968) has tried to demonstrate the the grands ensembles and draws them into a certain social process
interesting hypothesis that since what reinforces the residential that still remains to be defined.
community seems to be precisely its weak capacity for general This is why one remains sceptical when Chombart de Lauwe
social initiative, there would seem to be an inverse correlation (1965) defines the quarters as elementary units of social life 'that
104 The Urban Ideology The Urban Sub-cultures 105

reveal themselves to the attentive observer', and which are expressed social research the theses of urban culture become operational;
in 'the behaviour of the inhabitants, their turn of phrase'. These they try to show the link between certain modes of behaviour and
quarters, which, for Chombart de Lauwe, seem to be structured the ecological context in which, according to the culturalist hypo-
around both socio-economic amenities and meeting-places (above all theses, t~ey are ground~~. This type of research has a long history
cafes), are not ecologically given, urban districts, the basis of the and c.ontmues to be a pnvileged tool of 'explanation by co-variation',
urban area, linked together like the parts of a puzzle, but, as the a ventable safeguard of the good conscience of the 'empirical
same author observes, (1963, 33) 'they really exist only in the sociologist'.
sectors in which the standard of living is fairly low'; they are . It.is all the more interesting to sketch the analysis of this perspec-
produced, in fact, by a certain situation, and the community spirit tive m that, on the one hand, it expresses in all its purity the
of the quarter seems to be the result of a certain combination of relation of causality postulated between space and culture and that,
social life, work life and situation with regard to the relations of ~n the other hand, it serves as a scientific (because observed) founda-
production and consumption, both linked through a certain space, non for the most general theoretical constructions.
rather in the way that Henri Coing (1966) retraces the image of a Thus, for example, the classic research by Farris and Dunham
(1.93~) into the ecology of devi"','ce, in Chicago, tried to verify
Parisian quarter demolished by urban renewal.
Henceforth the empiricist debate concerning the existence or Wlfth s theses as to the unbalancmg character of the urban milieu,
non-existence of quarters in modern society, or the possible emer- by showing the gradual diminution in the rate of mental illness as
gence of new social links in the suburban housing estates, quite one moved further away from the centre of the urban area. Now,
simply has no meaning, put in these terms: one does not discover this famous study, taken up and extended later to other spheres by
'quarters' as one sees a river, one constructs them; one m~ps the dozens of ~esearc.he~s (for exa.mple, by Marshall Clinard (1960) to
processes that culminate in the structuring or de-structunng of the the analYSIS of cnmmal behavIOur) was based on statistics relating
social groups in their 'inhabiting' (habiter), that is to say, one to the public hospitals - which immediately invalidates the observa-
integrates in the processes the role played by the 'spatial context', tion for if, in the city centre, the socio-economic level of the
which amounts therefore to denying space as 'context', and incor- !,opulati~m causes it to become concentrated in the public hospitals,
porating it as an element in a certain social practice. m the ~Iddle-clas~ sub~rbs, .there is a diversification, with a high
This is what Henri Lefebvre did when, after analysing the com- pr~portlOn of patients m pnvate clinics, thus diminishing the rate
munity ideology that is at the base of the 'quarter, the natural unit of Illness for the sector. Furthermore, in relation to 'criminal be-
of social life', he proposed to study, not the ossified socio-ecologic~ haviour', research like that of Boggs (1964) has shown the close
forms (which are, by definition, inapprehensible), but the tendencies relationship between the attitude to dominant nonns and social
of the urban units, their inertia, their explosion, their reorganiza- categories, at the root of ecological co-variations.
tion, in a word, the practice of 'inhabiting', rather than the ecol~gy If one turns to the level of housing, the determination of be-
of the habitat. (Lefebvre, 1967.) The ideology of the quarter consists haviour by the habitat is even more uncertain. Of course, the
precisely in treating the forms of social life as natural phenomena st:mdard of t!,e ho~sing, the overcrowding that one has to put up
linked to a context. With, are SOCially Significant, but, again, it is not a question of a
Thus, just as 'urban' or 'suburban' culture refers constantly to a social ~elation, for, according to Chombart de Lauwe's perceptive
spatial specificity, without naming it, the theme of residential units sum~ng up in the now classic inquiry into the question, (1960,
(quarters, suburbs, etc.) has meaning only through the implicit link 77) 'It appears that the critical attitude with regard to housing refers
that is made between an ecological context and a cultural content. more to the way in which this housing is distributed than to the
The direct link between social and spatial variables seems, therefore, architectural aspect of it'.
to be at the centre of the whole problematic of urban sub-cultures. Furthermore, the way of inhabiting (and therefore the behaviour
that should normally undergo the influence of the habitat most
directly) is highly differentiated according to the social groups, in
3. Is there a production of the social by a specific spatial each of the new residential units studied by Chombart and his team.
environrnen t? Does this mean that the disposition of the housing has no influence
In coming down from the heights of the philosophy of history to
on the way of life? Not at all! The relation between habitat and
106 The Urban Ideology The Urban Sub-cultures 107

inhabiting operates via a complex link between the specific social not to the spatial context, which, if taken as a system of cultural
characteristics of the inhabitant and the symbolic and functional reference, affects the behaviour of the minority group. (Bell and
content of the housing, which takes us far away from any attempt F?rge, 1956.) The influence of the variables of social affiliation,
to explain a sub-culture in terms of a form of habitat, With
. the. related phenomena of condensation , distribution and
This being the case, if ecological determinism, in its most element- mteractlOn seem ultimately determinant. Both Ledrut's inquiry
ary forms, has been generally superseded, urban culturalism has already mentioned, into the Toulouse grands ensembles and Wh~te's
been strengthened by a series of studies proposing a certain spatial (1956) observations on the residential suburb of Park Forest in the
environment as explanatory of a specific social ambiance, whether Chic~go area, show the essential role of social homogeneity if a
in the production of a 'traditional' community in the quarters of the certaIn type of behaviour is to develop, directly linked to the social
old urban nuclei or of a new way of life (the 'suburbanism' of the characteris~cs of the resi~ents. Once this behaviour occurs, spatial
Americans and British) in the suburban housing estates. concentratIOn may come mto play, reinforcing the established
One of the best expressions of this perspective is, for example, system of relations.
the technically impeccable research carried out by Sylvia F. Fava In anot!,er. context: an in~eresting study by Ion Dragan (1970) of
(1958) into the system of neighbour relations in three different the new district of Cnsana, In the Rumanian town of Slatina reveals
contexts (a central quarter of New York, the outskirts of the same the. profound .diffe:e~tiation of a syst~m of behaviour according to
city and a local suburb). After observing seven variables that ought socJaI.categone~ Within the same hOUSing estate and, in particular,
to have explained the differences of behaviour (sex, age, civil status, establishes the link between the importance of neighbour relations
educational level, length of residence, origin, size of the community an~ the imme.diately rural origin of the migrants. This supports yet
of origin), the inquiry reveals the increasing importance of neighbour again th.e theSIS ~f the cultural specificity of the social groups and
relations, according to the classic 'middle-class' model, as the spatial contradicts the hnk between these neighbour relations and the
context moves out towards the suburbs. Hence one deduces the sub~rban way. of !ife (for they are practised to a far less degree by
opposition between two cultural models ('urban' and 'suburban'). the suburbanites of urban extraction).
Obviously, one could cite many other inquiries that lead to This 'predetermination of behaviour by social groups, themselves
quite opposite results: for example, Ross's (1965) study of two a functIOn
. . of the place occupied in the social structure , is found
residential zones, central and peripheral, of the same city of New again In an~lyses of 'district life' as many investigations in Europe
York, in which differences of life-style are linked above all to the and the Umted States show. (See for America, Beskers, 1962; for
internal cleavages in each zone, according to social characteristics England, Pahl, 19??; f~r Franc:, Castells, 1968.) Among other
and age groups. examples, one stnking illustratIOn of the differentiation of social
But the problem is not to come down on one side or other: this life within the same urban context is the recording made by C. L.
diversity of situations certainly corresponds to an ensemble of Mayerson (1965) of the everyday life of two boys, living a few
social processes at work, whose concrete combinations lead to yards from one another in the centre of New York one of whom is
different modes of behaviour. This is what Wilmott and Young Puerto Rican and the other the Son of well-off, middle-class
(1960) tried to grasp in their comparative studies of a London parents.
working-class quarter and a middle-class suburb. They concluded Even when a residential zone is strongly defined from the eco-
by establishing a continuum, moving from a model of community logic,,! point of view, ~s in the case of the 'marginal' communities
relations to a polite but superficial sociability, with, at one extreme e.stabl~shed o~ the penphery of the Latin American cities (some-
the workers of the working-class quarter and, at the other, the times In the city centre, as in Rio), the social differentiation explodes
middle-class of the suburb and, between them, the workers of this the cultural norms into ~o m~ny. segments. There too, to take only
Same suburb. one example, the CIDU mqmry mto the enormous 'marginal sector'
But this interaction between the two types of determinants is of Manuel Rodriguez, in Santiago, Chile, shows that 'each of the
not equivalent to recognizing a specificity of the spatial context as sub-populations - differentiated above all in terms of resources
such, for the fact of living in a residential unit in which a social and occupation - re~eal different standards of living, a different
group is in the majority may be expressed sociologically as the set of values and varIOUS degrees of social participation' (Munizaga
existence of a social sub-culture, linked to the dominant group and and Bourdon, 1970,31). Furthermore, the working-class strata are
108 The Urban Ideology The Urban Sub-cultures 109

those that show greater cohesion and a higher level of mobilization, 4. Is there production of specific residential milieux by the values
social and political, contrary to the supposed law that links local of social groups?
participation to a 'middle-class' model of behaviour.
This does not mean that the concentration of certain social In so far as research has shown the secondary role played by the
characteristics in a given space has no effect and that there cannot ecological context in the determination of cultural systems, a
be any link between a certain ecological site and cultural specificity. reversal of the terms of the problem has taken place, and a strong
The North American slums and ghettos are a concrete manifestation in tellectual tendency seems to be directed towards considering
of the importance of the organization of a certain space in rein- residential milieux as a specification of the norms and values emitt·
'<,i "'I ed by the preponderant social group in each context. Thus, once
forcing a system of behaviour. (Suttles, 1968.) But for such effects
to be manifested, there must, first of all, be the social production again, there seem to be 'urban sub-cultures', but their specificity
of a certain cultural autonomy, and this production depends on the seems to derive from the fact that each racial group chooses and
place occupied in the relations of production, the institutional produces a certain space in accordance with its type of behaviour.
system and the system of social stratification. Besides, the way in In their conclusion on the celebrated problematic of the new
which the ecology accentuates the cultural effects produced is also American 'suburban culture' Gist and Fava (1964) consider that it
radically determined; in the case of the American slums, for does in fact exist and that it expresses a profound reorganization
example, racial discrimination is twofold, it is manifested, on the in the system of values of American society, evolving from an
one hand, by the distribution of 'subjects' in the social structure individualistic, puritan, Protestant ethic towards a profoundly
and, on the other, by the distribution of housing and amenities. in
'.' [
•..•. ..•
hedonistic, 'social' ethic, based on sociability. The suburbs, in-
space. Their high cultural specificity results, therefore, from this ,:·'I";?
, ;~
habited by these new strata of the middle class, the bearers of the
correspondence and from the meaning it assumes in the sphere of ~'.' values of 'consumer society' would seem, therefore, to be the locus
social relations, through the conditions of the particular organization of expression most suited to a particular life-style.
of the class struggle in the United States. Wendell Bell (1958) goes further, for he sees the ecological form
Similarly, the classic inquiries that try to demonstrate the link of the suburbs as directly dependent on the new values of these
between residential proximity and choice of marriage partner middle strata. These independent values seem to be of three kinds:
ended by isolating a certain effect of spatial proximity (in so far as the importance of family life, a professional career governed by
it increases the probability of interaction), but within a cultural regular upwards mobility, an interest in consumption. Suburbs,
definition of couples, itself determined by membership of different both on the symbolic plane and in terms of instrumentality, offer
social milieux. (Katz and Hill, 1958.) Maurice Imbert's inquiry adequate conditions for the realization of these modes of behaviour.
(1965), which shows how spatial distancing in relation to cultural In which case, it is not at all surprising that this new culture should
centres reinforces the social differentiation determined by the be suburban.
socio-professional category, education and family situation, arrives This perspective was developed much more vigorously by Melvin
at similar conclusions. and Carolyn Webber (1967), who analyse the different relations to
Although spatial forms may accentuate or deflect certain systems space implied by the values of the intellectual elite on the one hand
of behaviour, through the interaction of the social elements that and of the working-class on the other. In the first case, the open-
constitute them, they have no independent effect, and, conse- ness to the world that may be enjoyed by the elite favours a 'cos·
quently, there is no systematic link between different urban contexts mopolitan' type of relation to time and space, which determines
and ways of life. Whenever a link of this order is observed, it is the high residential mobility and a habitat that opens on to a multi-
starting-point for research rather than an explanatory argum~nt. plicity of relations. On the other hand, for the working class, the
Specific urban milieux must, therefore, be understood as SOCIal impossibility of predicting the future and the need to define one-
products, and the space/society link must be established as a self always here and now enforce a certain 'localism' and the con-
problematic, as an object of research rather than as an in~erpreta-. centration of the residential community around particularly secure
tive axis of the diversity of social life, contrary to an anCIent tradI- primary links. The different types of residential milieux are, there-
tion in urban sociology. (See the work of the Chicago School, esp. fore, the direct ecological expression of the particular orientations
Burgess and Bogue, 1964.) of each of the groups.
11 0 The Urban Ideology The Urban Sub-cultures III

In a very different context, the excellent inquiry by Mario Gaviria something else. Nor is residential space a page on which the imprint
and his team into the outlying quarter of Gran San Bias, in Madrid, of social values is laid. It is, on the one hand, historically constituted,
(Gaviria et al., 1968) even manages to show how the structuring and and on the other, articulated within the social structure as a whole
functioning of a new town of 52,000 inhabitants are directly deter· - and not only with the ideological instance.
mined by the underlying concept of social relations (in this precise Consequently, when there is a precise correspondence between
case, the urban paternalism of the Falangist unions). As the research the values of a group and the residential community, as a social
report observes, 'the conception of an entirely working.class quarter, and ecological unit, it is a question, once again, of a specific social
socially differentiated in space - it is situated close to the industrial relation, which is not given in the mere internal characteristics of
zones - a quarter in which all the streets bear the names of trades the group, but expresses a social process that must then be
and jobs, which is inhabited mainly by workers, in which all the established.
public buildings are constructed according to the plans of the unions Nor can 'urban sub-cultures' be regarded as the production of an
and in which there was an architectural competition to erect a ecologico-social context by cultural values specific to a group,
monument in honour of 'the producer slain in the war' - such a fraction or social class. When they exist in their specificity, they
conception is full of sociological significance. (It must be remem· represent a certain situation whose significance is always discover-
bered that the unions in question are the fascist unions, the only able by analysis.
ones having legal existence in Spain. The war referred to is, of Furthermore, rather than discovering the existence or demonstra-
course, the Spanish Civil War.) ting the non-existence of localized types of social relations, we
It reflects, in physical terms, a society divided into classes and should lay bare the processes of articulation between the urban
spatially deliberately differentiated: industrial zones, union units and the system of producing social representations and
housing, working·class population, 'monument to the producer'. It practices. This seems to be the theoretical space connoted by the
is a form of urbanistic development that 'runs the risk of proving problematic of the residential sub-cultures.
full of surprises' (p. 104). Many of the observations and arguments advanced in the course
Gran San Bias obviously represents an extreme case, in so far as of this chapter may have seemed elementary and no more than
residential space is seldom shaped in so direct a way by an overall common sense. This is all the more reason to cling to them and to
social conception. Furthermore, one might say that it expresses a recall: 1. that there is no cultural system linked to a given form of
specific social relation: that of the direct domination of inhabiting spatial organization; 2. that the social history of humanity is not
(working-class inhabiting) by a bureaucratic institution possessed of determined by the type of development of the territorial collectivi-
full powers over the habitat. And even in this case, if the residential ties; 3. that the spatial environment is not the root of a specificity
space presents a certain social coherence in its configuration, the of behaviour and representation.
residential milieu that has been constituted in it does not seem to In fact, a pious silence on such digressions would have under-
adjust without difficulty to the social appropriation that was envi· estimated the power and influence of the urban ideology, its power
saged. This residential milieu results rather from the encounter, of evoking everyday life, its ability to name the phenomena in
not always a harmonious one, between the projected environment terms of the experience of each individual and to replace explana-
(linked to a certain policy with regard to the habitat) and the social tion. Urban sociology was founded on these themes, cultural
practice of the inhabitants. analyses of development derive their support from them, the dis-
And, in reality, it is the necessary dislocation between the system courses of moralists and politicians are inspired by them (using a
of the production of space and the system of the production of wide gamut of registers), the theoreticians of the 'cultural revolu-
values and the link between the two in social practice that makes tion' of the western petty bourgeoisie patch up the myth in order
quite impossible the relevance of hypotheses. co,:,cerning the consti- to give a 'material base' to their theses on the mutation of our
tution of the residential milieux as mere projectIOns of the values of societies. Lastly, the treatment of the fundamental problem, of
each group. In effect, society is not the pure expression of cultures the relation between 'the urban' and the ideological system, re-
as such, but a more or less contradictory articulation of interests quired the foregoing theoretical delimitation of so confused a
and therefore of social agents, which never present themselves terrain.
simply as themselves but always, at the same time, in relation to Having identified the theoretical question to which the
112 The Urban Ideology

problematic of the 'urban sub-culture' refers, we have scarcely pro-

gressed in its treatment, for the study of the articulation of the
ideological instance within the specificity of the urban units leaves
III The Urban Structure
the essence of the difficulty vague_ In effect, although the ideological
level, despite all its difficulties, may be relatively recognized and de-
fined in theoretical terms, what exactly is one talking about when
one refers to 'urban units'? The relation between 'ideology' and
'urban' (and, therefore, between 'ideology' and 'space') cannot be
studied without a previous analysis in depth of the social content of
'the urban', that is to say, without an analysis of urban structure.