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Narratives in Urban Theory

Napong Tao Rugkhapan This article traces three phases urban theory: descriptive urban theory, Marxist urban theory, and postcolonial urban theory. It Doctoral Pre-Candidate in Urban and argues that these three types of urban writings do not only differ thematically from, but also critique directly the phase of theory that precedes them. While the descriptive theory of the School is interested in studying then-new features of urban life, 120 the political-economy paradigm of the Marxist urban theorists argues for a structural analysis of , pointing to the of capital accumulation vis-a-vis the production of urban space. Most recently, postcolonial urban theory argues against the polit- ical-economy paradigm and its structuralist tendency to theorize world in terms of economic-financial relations at the expense of other aspects of urbanism. The article concludes by reviewing the usefulness and limits of writing urban theory around a theme. f the purpose of a theory is to enable us dates back to antiquity, the industrial that to understand the world, and to provide Engels documents was a hitherto unprecedented an informed explanation, urban theory experience. Spending two years treading the Iis tasked with helping us make sense of the congested streets of English towns, Engels urban world in a more helpful way than we documented the debasing conditions of the would without it. The term ‘urban’ in urban working class in the mid-nineteenth century theory not only serves to distinguish itself from that belied the country’s grandeur. His detailed the rural, regional, or national; but is also an narrative gives a dramatic description of academic burden. In calling a theory urban, people’s clothing, food, and deteriorating we expect it to provide insights into framing domestic spaces that were “fit only for the our urban problems. It is in this manner that a accommodation of cattle” (Henderson, 1976, p. theory defines what it explains. However, this 318). relationship is unsettled when the former fails to adequately capture, or worse yet, misrepresents If the pioneering work of Engels provides an the latter. Urban life is diverse, disparate, and of life in industrial urbanism, constantly evolving. The urban world is not a Tonnies’ seminal work, Community and , whole, coherent monolith. So why should urban points to a dramatic shift in social organization. theory be? Written at the end of the nineteenth century amidst intense commercial exchange and This article traces three phases of urban theory the rise of modern bureaucracy, Tonnies as they strive to explain the changing urban distinguishes Gemeinschaft, a folk society, world around them: descriptive urban theory, from Gesellschaft, a modern city, and posits the Marxist urban theory, and postcolonial urban trajectory on which modern society progresses theory. These three types of urban writings not from the former towards the latter (Tonnies, only differ in their focus on a particular aspect 1887). To him, the modern city is a manifestation of the city, but also critique directly the sets of of Gesellschaft, where the money economy urban theories that precede them. While the prevails and personal ties weaken. Unlike Engels descriptive theory of the Chicago School studies who devotes his attention almost exclusively new features of industrial urban life at the turn to the living conditions of the urban working of the twentieth century, the political-economy class, Tonnies speaks about the coming of a paradigm of the Marxist urban theorists new mode of social organization. This societal champions a structuralist analysis of urbanism, transformation affected every urban dweller pointing to the role of capital accumulation alike. The money economy, bureaucracy, vis-a-vis the production of urban space. Most and the increasing differentiation between recently, postcolonial urban theory argues professional life and folk life, are among the against the political-economy paradigm and many new conditions. its structuralist obsession because it sees world cities in terms of economic-financial relations, Whether or not Engels and Tonnies viewed at the expense of theorizing other aspects of themselves as theorists and their accounts as urbanism. The article concludes by reviewing theory, their writings attempt to capture the the usefulness and limits of writing urban zeitgeist, the spirit and essence, of a new age. theory around certain narratives. I argue that A group of sociologists at the University of urban theorists should encourage the constant Chicago produced similar works in the early pluralizing of accounts, to makes urban theory decades of the twentieth century. These writers fuller and more attuned to the ever changing were interested not only in documenting the conditions of our urban experience. new urban life, but also in empirically studying its patterns and effects. If Engels’ concern was to Descriptive Urban Theory document physical deterioration resulting from industrialization, the Chicago School sought to Writings on the urban conditions at the turn answer how the new urban life mentally and of the twentieth century, as exemplified by socially affected the urban population. the works of Engels and Tonnies, documented 121 the effects of the parallel processes of In addition to observing and documenting industrialization and . That is, of the industrial urban society, the Chicago these scholars are interested in the new urban School theorists are distinct from the precedent experience and conditions associated with the writers in their focus on the connections industrializing city. Ferdinand Engels (1845) between spatial patterns and social outcomes. provides a literary account that captures the For example, Burgess (1925) attributes traits of essence of urban life when industrialization promiscuity and vice to the proximity to sources in England was in full swing. Although cities of those traits. He argues that districts closer to AGORA 8 these sites tend to contain more promiscuous Second, the Chicago School assumes the acts. Motivated by the study of organisms in objectivity and neutrality of place and space biological sciences, Burgess then argues that, as and presents a linear approach to describing the city expands, it also allows for the dwellers urban issues. Instead of simply recounting to move about the city and interact with people urban problems, we should provide a deeper from different backgrounds. Residential mobility analysis of structures and processes that from one area to another, Burgess argues, underlie urbanization. In describing new urban leads to social disorganization and eventually conditions and enumerating their features, ‘confuse and demoralize’ a person as the new the Chicago School operates on a paradigm city lacks the primary social ties and control of that creates a simplified dichotomy between preindustrial cities (Burgess, 1925: 79). Similarly, the preindustrial, homogenous, orderly, Wirth’s influential essay ‘Urbanism as a way of Gemeinschaft-like town, on the one hand, and life’ (1930) explores the relationships between the industrial, heterogenous, fragmented city the physical and ecological components of on the other. What results is an account thrilled the city, such as population size, density, and and excited by the unprecedented features of heterogeneity, and their impacts on social bonds industrial urbanism, one that analyzes form and kinships. Like Burgess, he attributes urban at the expense of formation. This tendency is problems, e.g. schizoid personalities and loss exemplified in Burgess’ predictive concentric of primary ties, to the spatial characteristics model of urban form, Wirth’s study of socially of population distributions. That is, as the differentiated neighborhoods, and Robert Park’s urban resident comes to live in a denser, more treatment of urbanism as a form of human heterogenous environment, contacts with other ecology in which units are functionally related. people affect his mental and social life. The Chicago School “substituted description of the novel features of urban existence for a The Chicago School’s focus on taking stock of sustained analysis that could situate the new new features and patterns of urban society drew criticism from later theorists. The criticisms come from two fronts. First, the Chicago While a call for a so-called School researchers assign a deterministic postmodern urban theory connection between spatial patterns and social outcomes, suggesting one’s urban environment may not be new or original, is a definitive predictor of certain behaviors. it should not be treated as Second, they provide a simple description of a tired, hackneyed cry, for the new urban life as differentiated from the old traditional life without identifying a deep it has yet to be canonized structural force that underpins them. Dismissing in the repertoire of what we Wirth’s theory of urbanism, Herbert Gans call ‘urban theory’. (1968) argues that social demographics such as social class, race, and ethnicity, rather than size, density, and heterogeneity, have more industrial city within a larger process of social determinant influence on urban behavior. He change” (Halpern, 1997). In other words, these then points out that Wirth’s exclusive focus on descriptive urban persuasions shy away from the urban leaves the suburban unexplained, the historical process that gives rise to the new and argues that suburbanism, just as urbanism, urban form in the first place. is a way of life. Claude Fischer (1976) suggests that ‘urban factors’ such as density do not Marxist Urban Theory necessarily create ‘negative urban effects’ like the demoralized, blasé personality; in fact, Marxist sociologist critiques close spatial proximity can generate a wide the Chicago School researchers for their variety of subcultural groups and their creative deterministic assumptions about urbanization expressions. Overall, while empirically grounded and urban problems. Castells (2002) argues and commendable for pioneering the field against the view that urbanization is a natural 122 of and planning, the Chicago process and that urbanization leads to a certain School’s research projects are flawed. They . He dismisses their argument fail to establish strict relationships between that the ‘urban problem’ results from urban differentiation of social groups in urban space life. What are framed as urban problems e.g. on the one hand, and social order, differentiated crime, poverty, or civil unrest, he argues, are urban culture, and urban mental life, on the in fact biases that stem from environmental other. determinism theories of the Chicago School, which view urban space as a determinant Rugkhapan of behavior and culture. In a more sustained advancing spatial processes and consequences critique than those put forth by Gans and of capital accumulation, such as geographical Fischer, Castells demystifies each of the expansion, uneven urban development, and the professed links between behavior patterns obsolete built environment. For now, Harvey’s and spatial contexts. He argues that we cannot spatial dimension of capital accumulation readily observe urban behavior at the individual helps move urban theory beyond describing residential unit, because the notion of an urban the urban experience to engaging with the unit is arbitrary and cannot be artificially drawn. structural dynamics that shape the urban built Then, unlike the propositions of the Chicago environment. While the Chicago School asks: School, the city cannot be divided into discrete ‘How is the city urban?’, Harvey asks: ‘How spatial units where each is self-contained and is the city capitalist, rather than just urban?’ has its own culture. A particular spatial form (Parker, 2003). does not independently create, nor do they correspond to, a (Castells, 2002, If we believe, following Harvey, that the city p. 56-67). is not just urban, but also the site of capitalist production, we have to explain how and why the Rather than an explanation of the links between capitalist production of space is a determinant behavior patterns and ecological context, a of urbanism. Harvey looks at Marx’s writings connection whose causality is hard to establish, on capital accumulation and interprets how it Castells calls for an explanation of historical plays out in space. To this end, Harvey presents urbanization processes that takes into account four Marxian spatial theories: the theory of the linkages between economic processes accumulation, the theory of location, the and spatial structures. Castells dismisses the theory of imperialism, and the theory of the Chicago School as pervasice ‘ideology’ and state (Harvey, 2001, pp. 239-278). The theory of argues that it stigmatizes ‘urban problems’ by accumulation argues that crises are endemic ignoring the underlying social relationships to the capitalist accumulation process because and conflicts that cause these them in the first the capitalist system tends to overaccumulate. place. In order to move beyond the ideological Capitalists constantly avoid overaccumulation problematic of ‘urbanization’, he asks: “What is by reinvesting surplus. The theory of location the process of social production of the spatial explains that, since there are costs inherent forms of a society?” and “What are the relations in produced goods not immediately entering between the space constituted and the structural the marketplace and finding a willing buyer, transformation of a society” (Castells, 2002, an imperative arises to shorten distances, p.31). In this sense, Castells conceptualizes or to ‘annihilate space by time’. This can be urbanism and urbanization on a different plane achieved through advances in transportation than Chicago School theorists. He focuses or agglomeration. The theory of imperialism on urbanization as a long historical process argues that capitalist states will expand their involving society’s economic classes, rather capitalist activity abroad in order to avoid crises than urbanization as a predictor of behavioral of accumulation at home. Lastly, the theory of symptoms. the state explains how, in capitalist , the state must perform certain basic tasks to However, develops a systematic facilitate a capitalist mode of production, e.g. Marxist urban theory. He directly engages enforcing property rights, creating a common Marxism with urban theory by bringing value such as currency, and providing public together Marx’s otherwise scattered writings goods and infrastructure. The four Marxian on space and capital. If the central themes of explanations are encapsulated in the concept the Chicago School are the description of new of the ‘spatial fix’, which refers to geographical urban conditions and their effects on social expansion as a way to reinvest surplus in order life. Marxist urban theory deals with spatial- to avoid the crisis of overaccumulation. geographical dimensions and manifestations of what Harvey calls the “twin themes of capital Harvey’s Marxist analysis of urbanism helps accumulation and class struggle” (Harvey, explain the city as a site of production and 2001, p. 88). That is, while the themes of accumulation, rather than the city as a site of 123 capital accumulation and class struggle run coexisting neighborhoods. Urbanization can clearly throughout his writings, Marx is more now be viewed as a form of spatial fix. The built focused on their time dimensions (e.g. his environment, Harvey argues, can be and is used prediction of the eventual social revolution) to absorb the surplus of capital accumulation and is less explicit about how they take place in the forms of buildings, infrastructure, in space and the built environment. Harvey and landscape. Instead of seeing different draws out the ‘space’ from Marx’s theory by neighborhoods as socially discrete fragments AGORA 8 124

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Eric Huntley. M.U.P. 2014. “Shinjuku Shopping by Night”. Tokyo, Japan. AGORA 8 in the larger urban ecology, we can begin to calls ‘the regulating fiction of West’, most cities see them as differently positioned in the larger of the world only not aspire to but are actively capitalist project. This view can shed light on judged against the standards of the global/world why we reinvest in some neighborhoods and cities. It is as if ‘going global’ is the only worthy desert others. Marxist urban theory enables us policy goal and the ultimate urban trajectory. to see ‘the city not in terms of a concentration of This reflects a deeper problem in academia: in a new fragmented culture, but of concentration urban studies, between the production of ‘urban of capital and political power’ (Katznelson, 1992, theory’ rests on the West and ‘development p. 25 cited in Halpern, 1997). If Chicago School studies’ on the rest. The current state of theory of urban theory operates under the paradigm of does not have a large enough vocabulary to urban description and differentiation, Marxist understand all kinds of cities. Instead, Robinson urban theory provides a political-economy argues for urban theory without categories, a paradigm that views the city as a site of capital theory that is more inclusive of the diversity of accumulation in its many spatial shapes and experience. forms, all of which are uneven. The essence of Robinson’s argument is her Postcolonial Urban Theory critique of a structural analysis of a small range of economic processes, e.g. global finance. What does the political-economy paradigm The reduction of cities into narrow economic of urban theory leave out? Later insights relationships, she argues, has dominated recent from postcolonial theory, , theoretical imagination. Examples include and in recent decades help us literature on world and global cities by Taylor see the urban conditions in a different way (1995), Sassen (2005), and Friedman (2005), and by incorporating various actors, voices, and the geographical study of capitalism that dates processes. By privileging the role of capital back to Wallerstein’s (1974) world-system theory in structuring space, the political-economy and Frank’s (1966) view of the global economy as paradigm risks downplaying or omitting an exploitative relationship between métropoles altogether the ‘local’ from the urban scene. In and satellites. The narrow view of ‘world cities’, his critique of Harvey’s dynamic of capitalism, Robinson argues, privileges and constitutes Michael Peter Smith (2005) argues that Harvey’s only a small minority of ‘the world’s cities’, as narrative privileges ‘capital’ as the superior agent not every city participates in the global circuits of change and finds the role of the local and of finance. This resonates with Roy (2009, 2011) the people missing: “we never know who lives, who explicitly argues for new of works, acts, and dies in Harvey’s urban spaces theory. Building on Amin’s relational/topological since people are seldom represented as anything readings of regions, and on Robinson’s earlier other than nostalgic romantics or cultural dupes” call for an end to ‘asymmetrical ignorance (Smith, 2005, p. 243). of urban theory’, Roy argues there is a good possibility for urban theorists to discuss a Smith’s plea for the inclusion of everyday actors variety of dynamic processes and in the narrative of grand structural processes beyond finance and capital accumulation. such as capitalism or globalization sits well Migration, commodity exchange, and foreign with recent trends in urban scholarship that migrant workers, she suggests, are equally recognize the multiplicity of actors, processes, global phenomena and are, in fact, more global and origins in theory. Recent works (e.g., than the financial centers that reside only in a Shatkin, 2008; Markusen, 2004; Olds, 2001; few ‘global cities.’ Understanding a wide range Yeoh, 1999) move away from globalization of urbanisms not only expands the current literature that privileges the Western City, often repertoire of urban theory, but also refines it. suggesting it as the model for other globalizing The Global South urbanism, she argues, is in cities. Instead, they restore analytical clarity by every city including those in Global North; the emphasizing an actor-centered approach, rather Global South is in poor neighborhoods, informal than grand structural processes. These scholars settlements, ghettos, and foreclosed . encourage us to look at a wider range of urban Therefore, Western cities are struggling with 126 phenomena and experiences, and at each city’s the issues that Global South cities have long complex, non-linear engagement with economic experienced and negotiated. The North can processes. Jennifer Robinson’s (2002) work very well learn from the South, thus reversing perhaps singlehandedly marks the ‘postcolonial the current direction of the production and turn’ in urban theory is. She argues that urban circulation of knowledge. studies of recent decades pay attention to the phenomenon of world and global cities at the expense of other cities ‘off the map.’ In what she Rugkhapan The Role of Narrative At the heart of postmodern theory is the recognition of multiple narratives, possible Urban theory has indeed always been about explanations, or the plural others whose voices explaining the city from a certain theoretical have hitherto not been heard. The discipline standpoint: urbanism as a new social life in which postmodern theory is comfortably at associated with industrialization, urbanism home and has long been used (although not as a historical-materialist process, and necessarily named as such) is . To be urbanism(s) as a variety of actors, processes, sure, the discipline of history as recently as the and geographies. This variety should not only early 20th century also privileged, a totalized be welcome, but actively encouraged, since history. In those years of history research, the different worldviews are helpful in capturing dominant belief was that a single history of the the city in different lights and thus expanding world was possible (Groat and Wang, 2013, p. our current understanding. While a call for a 185). The major proponent was Hempel (1942), so-called postmodern urban theory may not who advocated for a ‘covering ’ as a general be new or original, it should not be treated concept that explains a historical event in the as a tired, hackneyed cry, for it has yet to be same way there is a law that explains every canonized in the repertoire of what we call phenomenon in natural sciences. Similarly, the ‘urban theory’. The social sciences have long philosopher Hegel held that a historical account undergone the ‘postmodern turn’, marked by can capture the zeitgeist, the absolute spirit of an at least two characteristics: 1) a rejection of age as one collective consciousness. However, positivist approach and 2) a presentation of in the later decades of the 20th century, a other narratives and explanations. Urban theory growing section of history research began to has been more comfortable with the former emerge, expressing what the literary theorist than the latter. To be sure, urban theory was Jean-Francois Lyotard called an ‘incredulity alerted to the turn. Urban theory shares the towards meta-narratives.’ These works cast rejection of a Wirthian descriptive analysis in doubt on dominant narratives in favor of favor of a more structuralist analysis of the city, various historical perspectives from gender to as exemplified by the works of Harvey, Castells, historically subordinated groups. It is in this Lefebvre, and their students. By contrast, the mode of writing that recent scholarships in presentation of other urban existences is more history work to expand the narratives of the past limited and, more often than not, takes the by always assuming the infinite possibility of form of those additional at-a-glance chapters explanations. What results is an ever-expanding on world cities, third world urbanization, or corpus of stories that were once unwritten, unexplored terrains across space and time. now exist in plural. We favor poetic descriptions Urban theory, too, can profit from historical of the city. We call it research methods in at least two ways. First, in a complex, diverse, layered, somewhat pedantic way, the urban theorist can and multidimensional. become an urban historian and approach a well- treaded, commonly acknowledged historical However, we cannot call past from a different angle. For example, Castells the city complex, diverse, demystifies Wirth’s account of Chicago, arguing layered, or multidimensional, that there is no systematic association between urban factors and urban effects, and the and expect to understand it stigmatized ‘urban problem’ is not necessarily a from one paradigmatic angle. problem unique to the urban. To supersede this ideology, Castells develops an explanation for planning in developing countries (Roy, 2009; the historical process of urbanization, one that 2011). Such inclusion, while commendable, reveals a multifaceted nature of conflict within is simply an addition. It does not create a cities (Castells, 2002, p. 18). Second, and perhaps meaningful dialogue, an internal reflection, or a more relevant to urban theory today, the urban 127 productive theorizing activity. This leaves urban theorist must accept his or her school of thought theory in the state of being simply aware of the as incomplete and inadequate, the way the postmodern turn and still late to the party, for its historian views his or her historical account of ‘awareness’ is perfunctory at best, noncommittal the past as but one facet of that past. In recent at worst. years, there have been accounts that study various forms of urbanism and thus provide numerous narratives, themes, and explanations. This growing body of empirical evidence takes AGORA 8 account of various types of ‘paradigmatic cities’ scholarship. The ‘regulating such as postindustrial urbanism, postcolonial fiction of the West’ or what Roy later calls urbanism, fragmented urbanism, subaltern the ‘sanctioned ignorance’ is an academic urbanism, and other emerging forms of urban symptom that ignores lives and livelihoods life that reflect ‘a growing unease in urban in other places. The importance of pluralizing studies scholarship with the current state of urban explanations is not only the business of urban theory’ (Murray, 2013). As Shatkin (2005) the self-referential scholarly community, but writes of Manila, the city has three kinds of also has important implications for practice. capitals: the colonial city, modernist city, and Planning schools do not train just planners but the , which policymakers often tout. also practitioners in related fields who will work These works, while multifarious in themes and in development agencies that seek to promote diverse in locations, are exactly identical in developmental (or ‘developmentalist’) goals. An their uncomfortable rebuttal of the dominant awareness of wider urban explanations can urban theory and their rejection of one exclusive make for wider policy imagination for urban account, for it fails to adequately account for a futures. variety of urban experience and processes. We favor poetic descriptions of the city. The most important feature of pluralizing urban We call it complex, diverse, layered, and theories, or writing urban and planning history multidimensional. We call the city’s problems based on a certain narrative, is recognizing these ‘wicked’ because they elude simple solutions disparate narratives on equal terms. Historians (Rittel and Webber, 1973). However, we cannot treat historical accounts as discrete, dissimilar, call the city complex, diverse, layered, or and different: American history, working-class multidimensional, and expect to understand history in 1960s Paris, East Asian history, and so it from one paradigmatic angle. Similarly, we on. History book titles like history of American cannot call urban planning a multidisciplinary female working class, or Colonial India, although field and feign surprise when someone relatively recent, are part of today’s historical researches a planning question from a inquiry. By contrast, works such as female urban disciplinary perspective with which we are not space and Indian subaltern urbanism do not immediately familiar. Urban theory will retain its readily fit with our perception a ‘urban theory’ appeal by continuing to write about unexplored and are relegated instead to the historians urban themes. Urban theory will gain strength or anthropologists. It is not surprising, then, by making sure, as Roy suggests, the narratives that recent contributions to urban theoretical that are parochial do not circulate as universal. understandings come from works outside of

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