Urban Geography in a Changing World

Abstract

Traditional urban geography has its roots in early-twentieth-century Chicago. Undergraduates can still be found drawing rings and sectors, correlating social indices across spatial units and, on occasion, assessing the ambience of ‘townscape’. Yet the subdiscipline has grown rapidly and ranged widely during the last half century. Cities have been celebrated for their role in the transition from feudalism to industrialism, assigned a place on the economic trajectory from organised capitalism to flexible accumulation, participated in the industrial transition from Fordism to post-Fordism and infused the cultural dynamic of postmodernism. There are vast literatures on the urban consequences of capitalism and socialism, on the urban impact of liberalism and conservatism, and on the effects of class conflict and cultural change on the conduct of urban life. A single chapter cannot do justice to the diverse and changeable material packaged as Urban Geography. I begin, therefore, at a moment when the integrity of urban studies was called into question. However most of my comments dwell on the even greater excitement generated by geography’s spirited response.