THE URBAN QUESTION: A MARXIST APPROACH

BY
MANUEL CASTELLS

Dr. KOYAL VERMA

 •INTRODUCTION
• Historical Process is to read history or the laws of structuring and
transformation, through a break down of concepts and existing ideas with
theoretical analysis of what is given. Analyzing historical contours of a
phenomena.

THE HISTORICAL • Take a look to discover the ‘conceptual problems’ to apprehend the concrete.

PROCESS OF • Thus, analyzing the history of the process of urbanization as an approach to

study the urban question.
U R B A N I Z AT I O N
• The process of formation of the cities is the basis of urban networks, and
conditions for social organization of space.
• Linking it to the ideological discourse of the evolution of spatial forms of a
society maybe useful.
• Evolutionist social formation is produced by duplication of the elements of the
preceding social formation.
• It is absolutely necessary to study the production of spatial forms on the basis
of underlying social structure.
 THE URBAN PHENOMENON: CONCEPTUAL
DELIMITATIONS AND HISTORICAL REALITIES

 In the definition of ‘urban’ Castells takes into account the link between spatial organization of the
city and the corresponding system of values.
 In the analysis of space- so as to give an objective basis to the study of space, a number of
historically established relations are taken into account, example Mesopotamia (i.e. in the context of
the state of technology in the product).
 “From that time onwards, a system of division and distribution of the product developed, as the
expression and deployment of a technical capacity and of a level of social organization. The cities
were the residential form adopted by those members of society whose direct presence at the places
of agricultural production was not necessary. That is to say, these cities could exist only on the basis
of the surplus produced by working the land. They were religious, administrative and political
centres, the spatial expression of a social complexity determined by the process of appropriation
and reinvestment of the product of labour. It is thus, then, a new social system, but one that is not
separate from the rural one, nor posterior to it, for they are both closely linked at the heart of the
same process of production of social forms, even if, from the point of view of these forms
themselves, we are presented with two different situations.” (Sjoberg, 1960, 27-31; Braddwood and
WiIIey, 1962.)
  Hence, the city emerged as the geographical locus, in which is
established the politico-administrative superstructure of a
society that had reached that point of technical and social
URBAN PHENOMENA development (natural and cultural) at which there was a
differentiation of the product in the simple and the extended
reproduction of labour power, culminating in a system of
distribution and exchange, which presupposed the existence of:
Although this politico-administrative autonomy 1. a system of social classes; 2. a political system permitting
was common to most of the cities that developed both the functioning of the social ensemble and the domination
in the early Middle Ages, ‘the concrete social and of one class; 3. an institutional system of investment, in
spatial forms’ of these cities were strictly particular with regard to culture and technology; 4. a system of
dependent on the conjuncture of the ‘new social external exchange. (Mumford, 1956.)
relations’ that had appeared as a result of  This emerged as the urban phenomena which got articulated as
transformations in the system of distribution of the structure of society.
the product. In opposition to the feudal power, a  Two classes affected the culture of the cities, especially in the
mercantile class had formed which, breaking up spheres of consumption and investment: the integration of the
the vertical system of distribution of the product, nobility into the bourgeoisie enabled the former to organize the
established horizontal links by acting as an ‘urban system’ of values according to the aristocratic model,
intermediary, superseded the subsistence and, then, the bourgeoisie, as the community of citizens created
economy and accumulated sufficient autonomy to new values in particular those relating to investment.
be capable of investing in manufactures. (See the  This gave impetus to the rise of industrial capitalism.
extraordinary account in Pizzorno, 1962.)
•
 U R B A N I Z AT I O N

The term urbanization refers both to the constitution of specific spatial forms of
human societies characterized by the significant concentration of activities and
populations in a limited space and to the existence and diffusion of a particular
cultural system, the urban culture.
This definition is intended: (a) To establish a correspondence between ecological
forms and a cultural content. (b) To suggest an ideology of the production of
social values on the basis of a ‘natural’ phenomenon of social densification and
heterogeneity.
He analyses two distinct senses of the term urbanization: The spatial concentration of a
population; i.e., density & the diffusion of values, attitudes and behaviour; i.e., Urban
Culture
 T H E M E T R O P O L I TA N C U LT U R E A N D S PA C E

 The production of new spatial forms, or the metropolitan region- is another type of
space organization.
 What distinguishes this new form from the preceding ones is not only its size, (a
consequence of internal social structure), but the diffusion in space of activities,
functions and groups, and their interdependence as a result of a largely independent
social dynamic of geographical interconnection.
 Within such a space, one finds a whole range of activities - production (including
agricultural production), consumption (in the broad sense: the reproduction of labour
power), exchange and administration.
 Certain of these activities are concentrated in one or several zones of the region (for
example, the head offices of certain companies or industrial activities). Others, on the
other hand, are distributed throughout the whole of the region with variable densities
(housing, everyday amenities)
 The internal organization of the metropolis involves a hierarchized interdependence of
the different activities. This spatial form is the direct product of a specific social
structure.
 CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

 Technological progress is the basis for the metropolis. And the role played by
technology in the transformation of urban forms is indisputable. This is due to
the introduction of new activities of production and consumption and by the
almost total elimination of the obstacle of “space”, due to the enormous
development of the means of communication. Electrical energy and the use of
the tramway system made the urban concentration of manpower around the large
units of industrial production possible.
 Public transport ensured the integration of the different zones and activities of
the metropolis, distributing the internal flows according to time/space relation.
The motor-car contributed to urban dispersion, with individual housing
extending throughout the region and linked by roads to different functional
sectors. The daily transportation of staple consumer products also favoured such
mobility: with the daily distribution by truck of the agricultural produce.
 URBAN SYSTEM AND DOMINANT IDEOLOGY

 A fundamental transformation embodies the sphere of production. The concentration of capital

and the technico-social evolution towards the organization of very large units of production are
at the root of the spatial decentralization of functionally linked establishments.
 Wage earners in their position- in the relations of production, is accompanied by a
diversification of levels- and a hierarchization within this social category-which spatially leads
to a segregation in terms of status, separates and marks off the different residential sectors
spreading out over a vast territory. (symbolic deployment)
 The ideological integration of the working class into the dominant ideology goes side by side
with the separation experienced between work activity, residential activity and 'leisure' activity,
a separation that underlies the functional zoning of the metropolis.
 TECHNOCRACY

 Further, the increasing concentration of political power and the formation of a

technocracy ensures the long-term interests of the system, which gradually
eliminate local particularisms and tend, through 'urban planning', to treat the
problems of the functioning of the ensemble on the basis of a division into
significant spatial units, based on the networks of interdependences of the
productive system. (For ef Housing and spatial exclusion through division of space)
 High value is placed on the nuclear family, the importance of the mass media and
the domination of the individualist ideology, which encourage an atomization of
relations and a fragmentation of interests in accordance with particular strategies,
which, at the spatial level, is expressed by the dispersal of individual dwellings.
 The changes in the construction industry have also
made possible the concentration of functions- in
particular functions of administration and exchange,
in a limited space, accessible to all the districts of the
metropolis, thanks to the construction of tall
buildings. (Gottman, 1967.)
Prefabrication has been the basis of construction in
series of individual houses and thus of the
phenomenon of residential diffusion.
TECHNOCRACY
THROUGH URBAN
Furthermore, the technological evolution (in
PL ANNING particular, the development of nuclear energy and
the leading role of electronics and chemistry) favours
the spatial regrouping of activities, reinforcing the
links, internal to the ‘technological environment’ and
increasingly loosening dependence on the physical
environment.
It follows from this that development is taking place
on the basis of the existing urban-industrial nuclei
and that activity is concentrated in the networks of
interdependences thus organized. (Remy, 1966.)
 URBANIZATION IN
UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES

 One interpretation, as frequent as it is erroneous, is that which derives from the empirical
observation, that considers urbanization as a mechanical consequence of economic growth
and, in particular, of industrialization.
 The present rate of urbanization in the 'underdeveloped’ countries is explained by the initial
stage of the process in which they find themselves. Development, therefore, appears to be a
path already traced, that societies follow as they manifest a spirit of enterprise.
 However, the urbanization in the ‘underdeveloped’ regions is not a replica of the process
experienced by the industrialized countries. In fact, in the first place, the correlation
between urbanization and industrialization is not linear.
 These effects are produced by the differential roles of these countries in a structure which
spills over institutional frontiers and is organized around a principal axis of domination and
dependence in relation to development. (Cardoso and Faletto, 1970.)
 DEPENDENT URBANIZATION

 A society is dependent when the articulation of its social structure, at the

economic, political and ideological level, expresses asymmetrical relations
with another social formation that occupies, in relation to the first, a situation
of power.
 To understand 'underdevelopment' is equivalent, to analysing the
development/dependence dialectic, that is, to study the penetration of one
social structure by another. That implies,
 1. An analysis of the pre-existing social structure in the dependent society;
2. An analysis of the social structure of the dominant society;
3. An analysis of their mode of articulation, that is, of the type of domination
  It is important to consider space as a
historically-constituted social relation. And
study the history of the ‘process of
urbanization’ is one of the most important
approaches to the urban question, to understand
the problematic of the development of
CONCLUSION societies.
 It is also important to develop new tools of
research and criticize the traditional-categories
with which the social sciences and technocracy
have usually conceived urban phenomenon.