The Urban Arena: Capital, State and Community in Contemporary Britain PDF
Preview The Urban Arena: Capital, State and Community in Contemporary Britain
Critical Human Geography 'Critical Human Geography' is an international series which pro vides a critical examination and extension of the concepts and consequences of work in human geography and the allied social sciences and humanities. The volumes are written by scholars currently engaged in substantive research, so that, wherever possible, the discussions are empirically grounded as well as theoretically informed. Existing studies and the traditions from which they derive are carefully described and located in their historically specific context, but the series at the same time introduces and explores new ideas and insights from the human sciences as a whole. The series is thus not intended as a collection of synthetic reviews, but rather as a cluster of considered arguments which are accessible enough to engage geographers at all levels in the development of geography. The series therefore reflects the continuing methodological and philosophical diversity of the subject, and its books are united only by their common commitment to the prosecution of a genuinely human geography. Department of Geography MARK BILLINGE University of Cambridge DEREK GREGORY England RoN MARTIN Critical Human Geography PUBLISHED Recollections of a Revolution: Geography as Spatial Science Mark Billinge, Derek Gregory and Ron Martin (editors) The Arena of Capital Michael Dunford and Diane Perrons Regional Transformation and Industrial Revolution: A Geography of the Yorkshire Woollen Industry Derek Gregory Geography and the State: An Essay in Political Geography R. J. Johnston Spatial Divisions of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production Doreen Massey Conceptions of Space in Social Thought: A Geographic Perspective Robert David Sack The Urban Arena: Capital, State and Community in Contemporary Britain John R. Short FORTHCOMING A Cultural Geography of Industrialisation in Britain Mark Billinge Development Theory: A Critique of Essentialist Approaches Stuart Corbridge and Steve Jones Between Feudalism and Capitalism Robert Dodgshon Regions and the Philosophy of the Human Sciences Nicholas Entrikin Strategies for Geographical Enquiry Derek Gregory and Ron Martin Social Relations and Spatial Structures Derek Gregory and John Urry (editors) De-Industrialisation and the British Space Economy Ron Martin and Bob Rowthorn (editors) The Urban Arena Capital, State and Community in Contemporary Britain John R. Short M MACMILLAN © John R. Short 1984 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1984 by Higher and Further Education Division MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Short, John R. The urban arena: capital, state and community in contemporary Britain. I. Great Britain-Economic policy-1945. I. Title 330.941'0858 HC256.6 ISBN 978-0-333-36140-5 ISBN 978-1-349-17508-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17508-6 For Adrienne Contents Acknowledgements viii 1. Introduction 1 The urban 1 The arena 3 The approach 7 2. The Context 9 The boom: expansion and compromise 9 The slump: decline and tensions 11 3. The Response of Capital 28 Industrial capital 29 Finance capital 50 Conclusions 60 4. The State: Arena within an Arena 64 The politics of economic decline 67 Getting and spending 74 Reproducing the social order 101 The state and crises 122 5. Community Concerns 126 The context 126 Community action in the city 140 Community, capital and the state 153 Guide to Further Reading 180 Bibliography 185 Index 195 Acknowledgements The writing of this book would not have been possible without the supportive atmosphere provided by my departmental colleagues at the University of Reading. I am particularly indebted to the staff of the drawing office for the production of the diagrams and to Chris Holland for transferring my Scottish vowels, excitable lilt and swallowed words on to the printed page. She is a marvellous typist. I owe a special debt to Derek Gregory, who readily accepted a few jottings as proof of a manuscript and gave up the 'joys' of fatherhood for the 'delights' of editing a wild and woolly manuscript: he made many valuable suggestions. JoHN R. SHoRT The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for the use of copyright material: Chetwynd Haddons Ltd for the advertisement 'Deep in the Shropshire Countryside we've set up a completely New State' on behalf of the Telford Development Corporation; Clyde bank Task Force, Scottish Development Agency, for two advertisements 'A Deal as Great as our Reputation' and 'Scotland's Enterprise Zone. Several jumps ahead'; The Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office for a figure from the Wilson Report, and two figures from the Economic Progress Report Nos 135 and 198; The Economist Newspaper Ltd for three charts from The Economist; Industrial Development Board for Northern Ireland for their advertise ment 'New Technology? Our Northern Ireland workers take it in their stride'; The Institute of British Geographers for two figures from Area; Redditch Development Corporation for their advertisement 'There are important losses to be gained by moving to Redditch'; Rex Stewart, Mitchell Frise Ltd for the advertisement 'New Company? New Factory?' on behalf of the Borough of Newport; Warrington Runcorn Development Corporation for their advertisement 'The right move for .. .'. viii 1 Introduction The urban The concern with urban matters has long been a feature of social commentary in Britain. In the nineteenth century the scale and pace of urbanisation was tremendous. Bustling towns seemed to grow over green fields and quite market towns were transformed into major cities. In the course of only a few Victorian decades the predominantly agricultural landscape was studded with coke-towns and a predominantly rural population became city dwellers. For some, the urban trans formation was something to be feared as the city became a symbol of the breakdown in traditional social order. The fear of social unrest, the problems of drunkenness, vice and disease in the poor city areas were all seen as symptoms of a moral and social collapse. For others, the city became a kind of early social science laboratory in which the facts of social existence were noted and recorded. While the Livingstones were in Africa, the Booths and Mayhews were exploring darkest London. For yet others the city became the symbol of a new order. Urban industrial life according to Marx and Engels saved people from rural idiocy and gave workers an indication and experience of collective struggle; the city was the womb of a new, better society. As the twentieth century progressed the novelty of the urban faded. Urban living and working became the norm. The specificity of the urban was only raised to a significant level in popular academic debates in the 1960s and 1970s. The long, post-war economic boom was coming to an end and the general layer of affluence which overlaid private experience and popular culture was stripped off to reveal the old fracture lines of class and the new ones of race and gender. Pockets of poverty were being mapped and victims of multiple depriv ation were being recorded in inner city locations. Again, the 2 The Urban Arena fear and reality of social unrest signalled a new concern with the urban experience. This book is part of that long British tradition of urban concern. But it differs from most of its predecessors by the exact focus of its interest. I am less concerned with pointing to the specificity of the urban: we have come too far down the road to identify any specific urban facet independent from the nature of the wider society. I am rather more concerned with identifying the urban as a context for social processes. All social actions take place in space and our lived experience is not of grand sociological categories but of small-scale places. This is a truism which would scarcely need repeating were it not for the neglect of space in most social theories. In too many cases the ability to analyse social actions is made deficient by the inability to see the interplay between space and society, place and people, social processes and spatial structure. There is a need to reinsert a consideration of the spatial context, a need for an explicit environmental vocabulary in our considerations of society. In this book I will take just one component of our environmental context, the urban. The term 'urban' is used interchangeably with 'local' since most of the British popu lation live in towns and cities. It is possible to consider other environmental contexts, the nation-state, the neighbourhood, the countryside, etc. Each has its own set of processes, constellations of interest and conflicts. Together they make up the reality of our lives. It is legitimate to demarcate an urban component because distinct interests are articulated in this environment. Firms make investment decisions on inter national, national and urban scales, governments operate on the national and urban scale, households as users of public services, workers and residents live in particular urban places. It is the aim of this book to examine these interests and to note their interaction. I will limit my remarks to the con temporary period. Although the urban experience in other advanced capitalist countries will be considered, the focus is on Britain. It is impossible to compare the rich and varied experience in a range of countries in an exposition of this kind without degenerating into a breathless survey insensitive to importance differences. But only the focus is parochial, the wider goal is to add to our knowledge of capitalist societies.
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