Mike Savage

Cities and Uneven Economic Development

Though best seen as an extended inquiry into the relationship between capitalism and modernity, urban sociology has characteristically concentrated on cities as sites of modernity, neglecting the way in which capitalist economic systems structure cities. In this chapter we draw on the work of urban geographers to show how cities need to be placed in the broader context of the world capitalist system. Such contextualisation, we argue, is important in specifying the relationship between different cities, and between cities and rural areas, so allowing the urban sociologist to avoid the mistake of seeing cities as self-contained objects with clear boundaries — as exemplars of a universal modernity. The significance of examining the economic bases of urban form is that it allows urban specificity to be comprehended, in terms of the particular role which different cities play within the worldwide economic system.

Class, consumption and voting: an ecological analysis of wards and towns in the 1980 local elections in England

This paper examines a number of claims about the origins of changing spatial patterns of voting behaviour in Britain. Reporting the results of an ecological analysis of voting behaviour at ward level in the 1980 local elections, it addresses arguments about the effects of class divisions, consumption locations and local political cultures on electoral outcomes. Inference from regression equations suggests: that class remains the most important predictor of election results; that this probably relates to the character of the local environment to which consumption practices make an important contribution; and that there is some evidence for the existence of local political cultures, but that they are of minor importance in a statistical explanation.

Conclusion: Urban Sociology, Capitalism and Modernity

The past twenty years have witnessed a growing doubt about the status of scientific knowledge. The problem, the philosophers observe, is one of finding some foundational grounding for affirming knowledge true and certain. Enlightenment philosophers of the eighteenth-century believed in the capacity of Reason to understand the world, whereupon planned interventions might secure human Progress. Western social thought developed largely under the wing of such a modern rationalist view, though there was always philosophical dissent. Today, the dissenters are in the majority. Post-modernists and post-structuralists deny that there can be any grounds for sustaining the narrative of Progress, of a singular, universal and developing core of knowledge to which science once pretended. We live in an age of radical doubt. While this condition might seem to undermine traditional histories of science as steadily approaching perfect understanding, it makes little difference to giving an account of urban sociology, which has always been characterised by discontinuity, uncertainty and rediscovery.

Perspectives on Urban Culture

The early urban sociologists, especially those associated with the Chicago School, were intent on probing the forms of social interaction found in cities. Borrowing the concept of sociation from Simmel they examined the informal social relations which existed in different parts of the city and which underpinned everyday life for various social groups and the processes of social organisation and disorganisation which they saw as typical of modern urban experience.

Inequality and Social Organisation in the City

Social inequality is inherent within capitalist societies. In this chapter we will examine how capitalist inequalities based on social class relate to other inequalities — notably those based on patriarchal gender relations — and how these inequalities affect urban form, and how they are themselves shaped by urban processes. Traditional approaches to urban inequality were primarily interested in segregation, the spatial expression of inequality. This chapter begins, in section 4.1, by briefly considering this research, documenting entrenched patterns of segregation as exemplified by studies of Britain and North America. In section 4.2 we consider the extent to which urban inequality arises from unequal access to housing, focusing upon the work of neo-Weberians such as John Rex and Robert Moore, and, more recently, Peter Saunders. We show that processes of economic production and restructuring, whilst not determining patterns of segregation, nonetheless exercise a more powerful mediating role than these accounts would imply.

The Roots of Urban Sociology

In this chapter we present a brief and selective survey of the history of urban sociology. Section 2.1 deals with the concerns of urban sociology in its ‘golden age’ between 1910 and the 1930s, when it was central to the development of the discipline. We focus on the Chicago School and identify elements in its legacy which are relevant for analysis today. We contrast the development of urban sociology in the UK to indicate some of the specific strengths of the British tradition of urban research. After the Second World War urban sociology became more marginal to sociology, and in section 2.2 we indicate some of the reasons for this. The pressing sense of social turmoil and political unrest which had earlier generated an interest in cities was replaced by more complacent political attitudes in which it was assumed that economic growth and social harmony were destined to be permanent features of capitalist welfare states. The rise of functionalist and structuralist social theory altered the terrain of sociological inquiry. By the middle of the 1970s most commentators were contemptuous of the contribution of the Chicago School and of urban sociology more generally. However, in section 2.3 we argue that this dismissive evaluation was misplaced and that the theoretical approaches favoured in the 1970s left a series of serious conceptual problems.

Modernity, Post-modernity and Urban Culture

The critique of the idea of a generic urban culture is often seen as exhausting all interest in urban culture. But this does not follow. In most forms of cultural analysis it is the diversity of possible meanings in any given cultural form that inspires inquiry. We do not stop interpreting novels if we conclude that they have different meanings! In a like manner, a framework is required to show how and why cities develop particular meanings, and how these are constructed, interpreted and sustained.