Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place
Key questions addressed in this chapter
>• What has been the effect of urbanization upon community life?
> How do people construct images of urban environments and how do these affect the way they live their lives?
> What are the social meanings incorporated within tbe built environment?
A key theme running throughout this book is the fact that cities involve the interchange among many different cultures in relatively confined spaces, often leading to new cultural forms but also to social segregation (see Chapters 3 and 8). These cultural exchanges involve peoples with many differing and complex social networks - some overlapping, some separate, for urban social geographers, key questions include: whether some of these networks constitute a 'community'; whether
this concept is synonymous with 'neighbourhood' or 'locality'; and, if so, in what circumstances.
According to classic sociological theory, communities should not exist at all in cities; or, at best, only in a weakened form. This idea first entered sociological theory in the nineteenth century by way of the writings of Ferdinand Tönnies, who argued that two basic forms of human association could be recognized in all cultural systems. The first of these, Gemeinschaft, he related to an earlier period in which the basic unit of organization was the family or kin group, with social relationships characterized by depth, continuity, cohesion and fulfilment. The second, Gesellschaft, was seen as the product of urbanization and industrialization that resulted in social and economic relationships based on rationality, efficiency and contractual obligations among individuals whose roles had become specialized. This perspective was subsequently reinforced by the writings of sociologists such as Dürkheim, Simmel, Sumner and, as we have seen, Wirth, and has become part of the conventional wisdom about city life: it is not conducive to
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'community', however it might be defined. This view has been characterized as I be 'community lost' argument.
9.1 Neighbourhood and community
There is, however, a good deal of evidence to support I he idea of socially cohesive communities in cities. Writers have long portrayed the city as an inherently human place, where sociability and friendliness are a natural consequence of social organization at the neighbourhood level (see, for example, Jacobs, 1961). Moreover, this view has been sustained by empirical research in sociology and anthropology, which has demonstrated the existence of distinctive social worlds that are territorially bounded and that have a vitality that is focused on local 'institutions' such as taverns, pool halls and laundromats.
Urban villages: community saved?
Herbert Gans, following his classic study of the West End of Boston, suggested that we need not mourn the passing of I he cohesive social networks and sense of self-identity associated with village life because, he argued, these properties existed within the inner city in a series of'urban villages' (Gans, 1962). This perspective has become known as 'community saved'. The focus of Gam's study was an ethnic village (the Italian quarter), but studies in other cities have described urban villages based on class rather than ethnicity. The stereotypical example of an urban village is Bethnal Green, London, the residents of which became something of a classic sociological stereotype. They exhibited 'a sense of community ... a feeling of solidarity between people who occupy the common territory' based on a strong local network of kinship, reinforeed by the localized patterns of employment, shopping and leisure activities (Young and Wilmott, 1957, p. 89, emphasis added, see also Box 9,1).
Similar situations have been described in a series of subsequent studies of inner-city life on both sides of the Atlantic. Although I he utility of such studies is limited
by their rather different objectives and by the diversity of the neighbourhoods themselves, ihe localized social networks they describe do tend lo have common origins, In short, urban villages are most likely to develop in long-established working-class areas with a relatively stable population and a narrow range of occupations.
The importance of permanence and immobility in fostering the development of local social systems has been stressed by many writers. The relative immobility of the working classes (in every sense: personal mobility, occupational mobility and residential mobility) is a particularly important factor. Immobility results in a strengthening of vertical bonds of kinship and horizontal bonds of friendship. The high degree of residential propinquity between family members in working-class areas not only makes for a greater intensity of interaction between kinfolk but also facilitates the important role of the matriarch in reinforcing kinship bonds. The matriarch has traditionally played a key role by providing practical support (e.g. looking after grandchildren, thus enabling a daughter or daughter-in-law to take a job) and by passing on attitudes, information, beliefs and norms ofbehaviour. Primary social interaction between friends is also reinforced by the residential propinquity that results from immobility. Relationships formed among a cohort of children at school are carried over into street life, courtship and, later on, the pursuit of social activities in pubs, clubs and bingo halls.
Another important factor in fostering I he development of close-knit and overlapping social networks in working-class areas is the economic division of society that leaves many people vulnerable to the cycle of poverty. The shared and repealed experience of hard times, together with the cohesion and functional interdependence resulting from the tight criss-crossing of kinship and friendship networks, generates a mutuality of feeling and purpose in working-class areas: a mutuality that is the mainspring of the social institutions, ways of life and 'community spirit' associated with the urban village.
The fragility of communality
The cohesiveness and communality arising from immobility and economic deprivation is a fragile phenomenon, however. The mutuality of the urban village is underlain
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9. 1 Neighbourhood and community
wM
Key debates in urban social geography
What were working-class
communities really like? The case of the East End of London
A major source of controversy over many years in urban studies concerns the true nature of the older working-class communities of industrial cities. A key work here is Young and Wilmott's now classic book Family and Kinship in East London, which examined working-class life in the 1950s and became one of the most popular and influential works of social science ever to be published in Britain. Many have argued that Young and Wilmott's portrayal of Bethnal Green as full of close-knit family ties, mutual self-help and local social solidarity presented a somewhat romantic and sentimental view. Indeed, many years later Michael Young admitted that he missed a great deal during his researches (he initially had problems in understanding the Cockney accents) and that he may have exaggerated the presence in this community of certain qualities, such as warm family ties (characteristics that he found missing in his own, more austere, middle-class upbringing).
Critics argue that in addition to exaggeration. Young and Wilmott missed the double-edged character of close-knit communities; intense scrutiny of the behaviour of friends and relatives could be oppressive as well as supportive. Furthermore, women bore a large burden of responsibility in these communities. It is also argued that the problems associated with the relocation of Bethnal Green families to new council estates in outer suburbs of Greenwich were exaggerated. Over time, community ties were recreated in the new estates.
Another charge is that Young and Wilmott ignored the long and complex history of London's East End and therefore downplayed the social diversity stemming from previous waves of immigrants. This meant that they also ignored the conflicts between these groups. For example, in previous centuries there were riotous clashes between Irish immigrants and Huguenot silk weavers and later conflicts between various Jewish sects (especially tensions between Jewish immigrants who had previously been urban based compared with those from agricultural communities). In the 1930s white working-class East Enders had rioted against Jewish immigrants and more recently there have been tensions between Bangladeshi settlers and the white working class. Whereas older migrants had to forge bonds of community self-help to cope with the depredations of inner-city life, these more recent migrants have arrived in a well-established welfare state in which citizenship rights are already conferred on them, and this seems to be at the root of many conflicts (Dench era/., 2006). Ironically, many of the Bangladeshi immigrants appear to have the attributes that Young and Wilmott perceived in the traditional working-class communities of Bethnal Green - extended families and mutual support systems.
Young and Wilmott therefore missed the parochialism, xenophobia and racism that were often to be found in London's East End. But perhaps the most enduring feature of this area is
its capacity, despite many tensions, to absorb in a relatively successful way over many years diverse immigrants from many areas (the most recent group has been asylum seekers from Somalia). This capacity is revealed by the building that today serves as the Brick Lane Mosque. This structure dates back to 1743 when it was built as a Protestant church to house the French Huguenot community. In 1819 it became a Methodist chapel, while between 1897 and 1976 it served as Spitalfields Great Synagogue (Lichtenstein, 2008).
Key concepts related to London's East End (see Glossary)
Community, ethnic village, neighbourhood, othering, 'primary' relationships.
Further reading
Dench. G., Gavron, K. and Young, M. (2006) The New East End; Kinship, race and conflict Profile, London
Lichtenstein, R. (2008) On Brick Lane Penguin, London
Young, M. and Wilmott, P. (1957) Family and Kinship in East London Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Links with other chapters
Chapter 4: Box 4.2 Are Western Cities Becoming Socially Polarized?
Chapter 13: Box 13.1 The emergence of clusters of asylum seekers and refugees
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Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place
by stresses and tensions that follow from social intimacy and economic insecurity, and several studies or working-class neighbourhoods have described as much conflict and disorder as cohesion and communality. The one (actor that has received most attention in this respect is the stress resulting from the simple shortage of space in working-class areas. High densities lead to noise problems, inadequate play space and inadequate clothes-drying facilities and are associated with personal stress and fatigue. Children, in particular, are likely to suffer from the psychological effects of the lack of privacy.
The fragility of working-class communality stems from several sources, including the conflict of values that can arise from the juxtaposition of people from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, notwithstanding their common economic experiences. Another threat to com -munality is the disruption of social relationships that occurs as one cohort of inhabitants ages, dies and is replaced by younger families, who, even though they may be essentially of the same class and lifestyle, represent an unwilling intrusion on the quieter lives of older folk. A third factor is the disruption associated with the presence of undesirable elements - 'problem families', IransierUs and prostitutes - in the midst of an area of otherwise 'respectable' families. The relative strength of these stressors may be the crucial factor in lipping the balance between an inner-city neighbourhood of the 'urban village' type and one characterized by the anomieand social disorganization postulated by Wirthian theory.
Suburban neighbourhoods: community transformed?
In contrast to the close-knit social networks of the urban village, suburban life is seen by many observers as the antithesis of'community'. Lewis Mumford, for example, wrote that the suburbs represent 'a collective attempt to lead a private life' (Mumford, 1940, p. 215). This view was generally endorsed by a number of early studies of suburban life, including the Lynda' (1956} study of Muncie, Indiana, and Warner and Lunt's (1941) study of'Yankee City' (New' I Iaven). Further sociological work such as Whyte's (1956) The Organization Man and Stein's (1960! The Eclipse ofCommunity reinforced the image of the suburbs as an area of loose-knit, secondary
ties where lifestyles were focused squarely on the nuclear family's pursuit of money, status and consumer durables and the privacy in which to enjoy them.
Subsequent investigation, however, has shown the need to revise the myth of suburban 'non-community'. Although there is little evidence for the existence of suburban villages comparable to the urban villages of inner-city areas, it is evident that many suburban neighbourhoods do contain localized social networks with a considerable degree of cohesion: as Cans (1967) showed, for example, in his classic study of l.evittown. Suburban neighbourhoods can be thought of as 'communities of limited liability' - one of a series of social constituencies in which urbanites may choose to participate. This view has been translated as 'community transformed' or 'community liberated'. Instead of urban communities breaking up, they can be thought of as breaking down into an ever-increasing number of independent subgroups, only some of which are locality based.
It has been suggested by some thai the social networks of suburban residents are in fact more localized and cohesive than those of inner-city residents, even if they lack something in feelings of mutuality. This perspective emphasizes the high levels of'neighbouring' in suburbs and suggests that this may be due to one or more of a number of factors:
>* that I he detached house is conducive to local social life:
>• thai suburbs tend lo be more homogeneous, socially and demographically, than other areas;
>- that there is a 'pioneer eagerness' to make friends in new suburban developments;
>- that suburban residents are a self-selected group having the same preferences for social and leisure activities;
>■ that physical distance from other social contacts forces people to settle for local contacts.
The cohesiveness of suburban communities is further reinforced by social networks related to voluntary associations of various kinds: parent-teacher associations (PTAs), gardening clubs, country clubs, rotary clubs and so on. .Furthermore, it appears from the evidence at hand that suburban relationships are neither more nor less superficial than those found in central city areas.
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9.1 Neighbourhood and community
Nevertheless, there are some groups for whom suburban living docs result in an attenuation of social contact. Members of minority groups of all kinds and people with slightly atypical values or lifestyles will not easily be able to find friends or to pursue I heir own interests in the suburbs. This often results in such people having to travel long distances to maintain social relationships. Those who cannot or will not travel must suffer a degree of social isolation as part of the price of suburban residence.
Splintering urbanism and the diversity of suburbia
li should also be acknowledged that the nature and intensity of social interaction in suburban neighbourhoods tend lo vary according to the type of suburb concerned. One outcome of the 'splintering urbanism' described in Chapter 1 is that suburbia has become increasingly differentiated. This has involved a reorganization of cultural space around different lifestyles related variously to careerist orientations, family orientations, 'ecological' orientations, etc., and constrained by income and life cycle characteristics. It has also involved an increasing tendency for people to want lo withdraw into a'territorially defended enclave' inhabited by like-minded people, in an attempt 10 find refuge from potentially antagonistic rival groups.
In the United States, suburbs now not only contain the largest fraction of America's households and population but also a significant fraction of America's industry, commercial office space, retailing, recreational facilities and tourist attractions. Traditional patterns ui suburbanization are being overwritten by massive changes in real estate investment, in tandem with equally significant changes in the structure and functional organization of metropolitan regions. This has prompted the emergence of a 'New Metropolis' (Knox, 2008), an encompassing term for the stereotypical urbanized region that has been extended and reshaped lo accommodate increasingly complex and extensive patterns of inter-dependency in polycentric networks ofedge cities, urban realms and corridors, exurbs, boomburbs, and micro-politan centres bound together through urban freeways, arterial highways, beltways and interstate^ and characterized by hopscotch sprawl and the proliferation of off-ramp subdivisions.
Today, then, the traditional form of the suburbs has slipped into history. America's metropolitan areas are coalescing into vast, sprawling regions of'metroburbia': fragmented and multi nodal mixtures of employment and residential settings, with a fusion of suburban, exurban and central-city characteristics (Knox, 2008). Michael Dear (2005, p. 248} notes that
It is no longer the center that organizes the urban hinterlands but the hinterlands that determine what remains of the center. The imperatives of fragmentation have become the principal dynamic in contemporary cities ... In contemporary urban landscapes, 'city centers' become, in effect, an externality of fragmented urbanism; they are frequently grafted onto the landscape as an afterthought by developers and politicians concerned with identity and tradition. Conventions of 'suburbanization' become redundant in an urban process that bears no relationship lo a core-related decentralization.
Edward Soja (2000) has offered the term 'exopolis' in an attempt to capture some of the key dimensions of contemporary urbanization, including the growth of edge cities and the increasing importance of exogenous forces in an age of globalization. Traditional models of metropolitan structure and traditional concepts and labels - city, suburb, metropolis - are fast becoming examples of what sociologist Ulrich Beck calls 'zombie categories,' concepts that embody nineteenth- to late-twentieth-century horizons of experience distilled into a priori and analytic categories that still mould our perceptions and sometimes blind us to the significance of contemporary change (Beck et al, 2003).
Status panic and crisis communality
One thing that suburban neighbourhoods everywhere seem to have in common is a lack of the mutuality, the permanent buL intangible 'community spirit' that is characteristic of the urban village. An obvious explanation for this is the newness of many suburban communities: they have not had time to fully develop a locality-based social system. An equally likely explanation, however, is that the residents of suburban neighbourhoods are
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Key trends in urban social geography - The growth of the New Urbanism movement
The movement initially found expression in what proponents called traditional neighbourhood development (TND), an attempt to codify tract development in such a way as to create the look and feel of small-town, pre-Second World War settings in which pedestrian movement and social interaction are privileged over automobile use. These ideas evolved in the 1990s to a 'Mew Urbanism', founded on the assertion that liveability can be propagated through the codification of design principles based on precedents and typologies derived from observations of patterns exhibited in traditional communities. The canon was established by architects Andres Duany and Plater-Zyberk, whose firm, DPZ, drew up a 'Lexicon of New Urbanism' and shared it with the Congress for the New Urbanism, the movement's coordinating network. The tenets and rhetoric of New Urbanism are a derivative mixture of ideas that borrow from intellectuals' uiopias of the nineteenth century.
The physical configuration of streets is key to New Urbanism, as is the role of building mass as a definer of urban space, the need for clear patterns among elements of built form and public spaces, and the importance of having identifiable, functionally integrated neighbourhoods. The belief is that civic architecture, pedestrian-oriented streets, and a traditional vocabulary of urban design (with a morphology that includes boulevards, perimeter blocks, plazas- and monuments,) can act as catalysts of sociability and community. This is to be achieved, according to the Congress for the New Urbanism, through a sort of patnting-by-numbers for urban
designers; detailed prescriptive codes and conventions, embedded in .a series of regulatory documents - a Regulating Plan, Urban Regulations, Architectural Regulations, Street Types and Landscape Regulations provide the template for new urbanist developments.
But in spite of its strong commercial appeal to developers of new subdivisions, New Urbanism has come in for a great deal of criticism, especially by social scientists. Most new urbanist developments have tended to be somewhat exclusive suburban or exurban projects, catering for white middle-class households and resulting in the kind of 'privatopias' described in Chapter 5. New Urbanism's fondness for neotraditionai design has been characterized as a form Of cultural re-ductiveness that results in inauthentic settings, superficial and vulgar, a New Age urbanism that is part conventional wisdom and part fuzzy poetic, resonant but meaningless. Critics have also seen neotraditionai urban design as being inherently socially regressive. Richard Sennett (1997. p. 67), for example, describes them as 'exercises in withdrawal from a complex worid, deploying self-consciously ''traditional" architecture that bespeaks a mythic communal coherence and shared identity in the past.' He describes their designers as 'artists of claustrophobia' and concludes that 'Place making based on exclusion, sameness, and nostalgia is socially poisonous and psychologically useless.' But the principal underlying weakness of New Urbanism is the conceit of environmental determinism and the privileging of spatial form over social process. In the prescriptive reasoning of New Urbanism,
design codes become behaviour codes. 'Good' (i.e.. new urbanist) design equals community, civility and sense of place; bad design equals placeless-ness, ennui and deviant behaviour. This, of course, is a chimera: place is socially constructed, and the relationships between people and their environments are complex, reflexive, and recursive.
Key concepts associated with the new urbanism (see aiso Glossary)
Community, Disneyfication, hyper-reality, imagineering, neighbourhood, simulacra, susfainability.
Further reading
Knox, P.L. (2008) Metroburbia, USA, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ
MacCannell, D, (1999) 'New Urbanism' and its discontents, in J. Copjec and M. Sorkin (eds) Giving Ground: The politics of propinquity Verso, London
Sennett, R. (1997) The search for a place in the world, in N. Ellen !ed.) Architecture of Fear Princeton Architectural Press, New York 61 72
Talen, E. (1999) Sense of community and neighbourhood form; an assessment of the social doctrine of new urbanism, Urban Studies 36, 1361-80
Links with other chapters
Chapter 7: Box 7.3 Jane Jacobs
Chapter 9: Neighbourhood and Community
Chapter 13: Urban Social Sustainability
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B.2 The social construction of urban places
simply not likely to develop a sense of mutuality in the same way as urban villagers because they arc not exposed ro the same levels of deprivation or stress.
This reasoning is borne out to a certain exteni by the 'crisis communality' exhibited in suburban neighbourhoods at limes when there is an unusually strong threat to territorial exclusivity, amenities or property values. Examples of the communality generated in the wake of status panic are well documented, and the classic case is that of the Cutteslowe Walls. In 1932 Oxford City Council set up a housing estate on a suburban site to the north of the city and directly adjacent lo a private middle-class estate. The home owners, united by their fear of a drop both in the status of their neighbourhood and in the value ollheir property, and drawn together by their mutual desire lo maintain the social distance between themselves and their new proletarian neighbours, went to the length of building ail unscalable wall as a barrier between the two estates (Collinson, 1963). Other documented examples have mostly been related to NIMBY threats posed by-urban mo lor ways, airports or the zoning of land for business use.
Communities and neighbourhoods: definitions and classifications
As we have seen, the nature and cohesiveness of social networks vary a lot from one set of sociospatial circumstances to another, and it is not easy to say which situations, if any, reflect the existence of'community', let alone which of these are also congruent with a dis-crclc geographical territory. Nevertheless, it is possible lo think in terms of a loose hierarchical relationship between neighbourhood, community and commonality. Thus neighbourhoods are territories containing people of broadly similar demographic, economic and social characteristics, but are not necessarily significant as a basis for social interaction. Communities exist where a degree of social coherence develops on the basis of interdependence, which in turn produces a uniformity of custom, taste and modes of I ho ugh I and speech. Communities are 'taken-for-granted' worlds defined by reference groups that may be locality based, school
based, work based or media based. Communality, or 'communion', exists as a form of human association based on affective bonds. It is community experience at the level of consciousness, but it requires an intense mutual involvement that is difficult to sustain and so only appears under conditions of stress.
In the final analysis, each neighbourhood is what its inhabitants think it is. This means that definitions and classifications of neighbourhoods and communities must depend on the geographical scales of reference used by people. In ihis context, it may be helpful to think of immediateneighbourhoods (which are small, which may overlap one another and which are characterized by personal association rather than interaction through formal groups, institutions or organizations); traditional neighbourhoods (which are characterized by social interaction that is consolidated by the sharing of local facilities and the use of local organizations) and emergent neighbourhoods (which are large, diverse and characterized by relatively low levels of social interaction).
A rather different way of approaching neighbourhoods and communities is to focus on their functions. It is possible, (or example, to think in terms of neighbourhoods' existential functions (related to people's affective bonds and sense of belonging), economic functions (geared lo consumption), administrative functiom (geared to the organization and use of public services), locationtil functions (relating to the social and material benefits of relative location), structural functions (related to the social outcomes of urban design), political functions (geared to the articulation of local issues) and social reproduction functions (related to the broader political economy of urbanization).
9.2 The social
construction of urban places
'Place', observes David Harvey, 'has to be one of the most multi-layered and multi-purpose words in our language' (Harvey, 1993, p. 4). This layering of meanings reflects the way that places are socially constructed - given different meanings by different groups for different purposes.
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It also reflects the difficulty of developing theoretical concepts of place:
There are all sorts of words such as milieu, locality, location, locale, neighbourhood, region, territory and the like, which refer k> the generic qualities of place. There are other terms such as city, village, town, megalopolis and stale, which designate particular kinds oi places. There are still others, such as home, hearth, Turf,' community, nation and landscape, which have such slrong connotations of place that it would be hard lo talk about one without the other.
(Harvey, 1993, p. 4)
In this context it is helpful to recognize the 'belwecnness' of place: that is, the dependence of place on perspective. Places exist, and are constructed, from a subjective point of view; while simultaneously they are constructed and seen as an external 'other' by outsiders. As Nicholas Entrikin put it, 'Our neighborhood is both an area centered on ourselves and our home, as well as an area containing houses, streets and people that we may view from a decentered or an outsider's perspective. Thus place is both a center of meaning and the external context of our actions' (Entrikin, 1991, p. 7). Tn addition, views from 'outside' can vary in abstraction from being in a specific place to being virtually 'nowhere' (i.e. an abstract, perspectiveless view) (Sack, 1992; see also Box 9.4).
These distinctions are useful in pointing to the importance of understanding urban spaces and places in terms of the insider, the person who normally lives in and uses a particular place or setting. Yet insideness and outsideness must be seen as ends of a continuum along which various modes of place-experience can be identified. The key argument here is that places have meaning in direct proportion to the degree that people feel 'inside' that place. One important element in the construction of place is to define the other in an exclusionary and stereotypical way. This is pari of the human strategy of territoriality: the idea that humans have an innate desire to occupy a specific territory lo satisfy needs of safety, security and privacy and lo enable I he expression of personal identity.
Another key element in the construction of place is the existential imperative for people lo define themselves in relation to the material world. The rools of this idea are to be found in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who contended that men and women originate in an alienated condition and define themselves, among other ways, spatially. Their 'creation' of space provides them with roots, their homes and localities becoming biographies of that creation (Heidegger, 1971). Central lo Heidegger's philosophy is the notion of 'dwelling': the basic capacity to achieve a form of spiritual unity between humans and the material world. Through repeated experience and complex associations, our capacity for dwelling allows us to construct places, to give them meanings that are deepened and qualified over time with multiple nuances.
Here, though, Heidegger introduced an additional argument: that this deepening and multiple layering of meaning is subverted in the modern world by the spread of telecommunications technology, rationalism, mass production and mass values. 'The result, he suggested, is that the 'authenticity' of place is subvened. City spaces become inauthentk and 'piaceless', a process that is, ironically, reinforced as people seek authenticity through professionally designed and commercially constructed spaces and places whose invented traditions, sanitized and simplified symbolism, and commercialized heritage all make for convergence rather than spatial identity.
Yet the construction of place b\ 'insiders' cannot take place independently of societal norms and representations of the world: the 'cultural grammar' thai codifies the social construction of spaces and places. Both our territoriality and our sense of dwelling are informed by broadly shared notions of social distance, rules of comportment, forms of social organization, conceptions of worth and value, and so on. We see here, ihen, another important dialectical relationship: between social structures and the everyday practices of the 'insiders' of subjectively constructed spaces and places. We live, as noted before in this book, both in and through places. Place, then, is much more than a container or a mental construct. It is both text and eonlexl, a selling for social interaction that, among Other things;
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9.2 The sociai construction of urban places
mm
Key trends in urban social geography - The development of new 'sacred spaces'
Geographers have until recently paid relatively little attention to religious issues. One possible reason for this neglect may be the (mistaken?) assumption that Western societies are becoming increasingly secular. Chris Park argues that religious issues are relatively marginal in a great deal of academic analysis because of 'the assumed rationality of post-Enlightenment science, which dismisses as irrational (and thus undeserving of academic study) such fundamental issues as mystery, spirituality and awe' (Park, 1994, p. 1). We should also note here that the key social thinkers of the nineteenth century who laid the foundations for much contemporary social theory -Marx, Weber and Dürkheim all stressed the ways in which religion has been used to bolster the existing social order in society, justifying inequalities and placating the poor with the hope of a better after-life.
Recently, however, there has been an increase in geographical work on religion. The reasons for this should have become clear by now from previous chapters on culture, identity, space and ethnicity. For many people in Western societies religious values continue to play a key role in the formation of their sense of identity, Indeed, the very idea that 'religion' can be defined as a distinct separate sphere of life is a particular Western notion; for many religions, including Sikhism and Islam (which are now extensively practised in Western cities), the very idea of separating religious and non-religious spheres is anathema. Although there has been
a decline in the numbers attending established forms of Christian worship, there has been a substantial increase in alternative forms of worship such as evangelicalism.
Furthermore, places of religious worship such as churches, chapels, cathedrals, temples and mosques can have a powerful symbolic value. These are places where members of a religious community come together to reinforce their beliefs through various rituals. Some religions such as Sikhism regard the whole of the world as a sacred space full of the presence of God and yet, like most religions, Sikhism also has buildings and spaces that are of special spiritual significance.
Most religions proclaim moral values that are universally relevant and which have been communicated to humankind by an omniscient being(s) through various prophets and gurus. This stance stands in sharp contrast to secular humanist approaches which stress that values are specific to particular times and places. In practice, many religious belief systems have been modified over the years to accommodate changing societal attitudes towards issues such as the role of women and science. However, in response to postmodern moral relativism, and state secularism, we have recently seen the growth of various fundamentalist and evangelical religious movements asserting moral absolutes over issues ranging from homosexuality to abortion, dress and diet.
On a more progressive note, in London religious faith is bringing
people together, not only to boost their self-confidence and self-esteem in difficult and sometimes degrading occupational settings, but also to form a new politics in the workplace. Migrant workers in the capital from diverse religious backgrounds have formed an ecumenical movement called London Citizens to petition for better wages for those in subcontracted forms of employment such as cleaning, catering and construction (Jamoul and Wills, 2008).
Key concepts associated with sacred spaces (see Glossary)
Essentialism, identities, signification.
Further reading
Dunn, K.M. (2005} Repetitive and troubling discourses of nationalism in the local politics of mosque construction in Sydney, Australia, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23, 29-50
Jackson, R.H. and Henrie, R. (1993) Perception of sacred space. Journal of Cultural Geography 3. 94-107
Jamoul, L. and Wills, J. (2008) Faith in politics, Urban Studles45, 2035-56
Park, C. (1994) Sacred Worlds Routledge, London
Links with other chapters
Chapter 5: Box 5.1 The relationships between diversity, difference and inequality
Chapter 12: Box 12.4 The growth of transnational urbamsm
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community and the social construction of place
> structures the daily routines of economic and social life;
> structures people's life paths, providing them with both opportunities and constraints;
> provides an arena in which everyday, 'common-sense' knowledge and experience is gathered;
>■ provides a site for processes of socialization and social reproduction; and
> provides an arena for contesting social norms.
Urban life worlds, time-space routinization and intersubjectivity
This dialectical relationship lends both dynamism and structure to the social geography of the city.
The crucial idea here is that of the lifeworld, the taken-for-granted pattern and context for everyday living through which people conduct their day-to-day lives without having to make it an object of conscious attention. Sometimes, this pattern and context extend to conscious attitudes and feelings: a self-conscious sense of place with an interlocking set of cognitive elements attached to the built environment and to people's dress
codes, speech patterns, public comportment and material possessions. This is what Raymond Williams (1973) termed a structure of feeling. The basis of both individual lifeworlds and the collective structure of feeling is intersubjectivity: shared meanings that are derived from the lived experience of everyday practice. Part of the basis for inter subjectivity is the routinization of individual and social practice in time and space. As suggested by Figure 9.1, the temporality of social life can be broken out into three levels, each of which is interrelated to the others. The kmgue duree of social life is bound up with the historical development of institutions (the law, the family, etc.). Within the dasein, or lifespan, social life is influenced by the life cycle of individuals and families and (interacting with the longue duree) by the social conditions characteristic of their particular generation. And within ihc duree of daily life, individual routines interact with both the structure of institutional frameworks and with the rhythm of their life cycle.
The spatiaiity of social life can also be broken down into three dimensions. At the broadest scale there is institutional spatial practice, which refers to the collective level of the social construction of space. 'Place' can then be thought of as related to the human consciousness and social meanings attached to urban spaces'.
	Longue duree	Dasein (lifespan)	Durge of daily life
Longue duree	institutional time History	Coupling of history and life history Generation	Dialectics between life institutions and daily life
Dasein (lifespan)		Life history, the T	Relation between life strategies and daily life
Duree of daily life			Day-to-day routines (time use)
Figure 9.1 Interrelations among the dimensions of temporality.
Scwce-. Simonser !!93U, Fig. 1. p. 427. 196
I
9.2 The social construction of urban places
Time Space	tongue duree	Dssein	Duree of daily life
Institutional spatial practice	Sociospatial development (historical geography)	Life strategies in spatial context	Geographical conditioning of daily routines
Place	Local history, culture and tradition	Biography in time and space Identity	Spatially based 'natural attitudes'
Individual spatial practice	Historical conditioning of spatial practices	Relation between life strategies and spatial practices	Daily time-space routines (time-geography)
Figure 9.2 Temporality, spatiality and social life.
Source-. SiTionser (1991). Fig. 3.
Finally, individual Spatial practice refers to the physical presence and spatial interaction of individuals and groups. These three levels of spatiality, in turn, can be related to the three levels of temporality of social life, as depicted in Figure 9.2. Wc are, thus, presented with a in u 11 i d i m e n s io n al fra m ewo rk w i I h i n w h i c h t i m e-s p a cc routini'/ation is able to foster the intersubjectivity upon which people's lifeworlds depend.
The besl-knovvn element of this framework to geographers is lhe time-geography of daily life that has been elaborated by Torsten Flagerstrand (Carlslein el al, 1978). His basic model (Figure 9.3) captures the constraints of space and time on daily, individual spatial practices. It illustrates the way that people trace oul 'paths1 in time and space, moving from one place (or 'station') to another in order lo fulfil particular purposes (or 'projects'). This movement is conceptualized as being circumscribed by three lands of constraint: (1) capability constraints - principally, the time available for travelling and the speed of the available mode of transportation; (2) authority constraints - laws and customs affecting travel and accessibility; and (3) coupling constraints -resulting from the limited periods during which specific projects are available for access. The particular significance of time-geographies in the present context is that
197
Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place-
groups of people with similar constraints are thrown together in 'bundles' of time-space activity: routine patterns that are an important precondition for the development of intersubjectivity.
Structuration and the 'becoming' of place
These issues arc central lo structuration theory, which addresses the way in which everyday social practices are structured across space and time. Developed by Anthony Giddens (1979, 1981, 1984, 1985: see also Bryant and Jaiy, 1991), structurationist theory accepts and elaborates Karl Marx's famous dictum that human beings 'make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing'. Reduced to its essentials, and seen from a geographical perspective, structurationist theory holds that human landscapes:
are created by knowledgeable actors (or agents) operating within a specific social context (or structure). The structure—agency relationship is mediated by a series of institutional arrangements that both enable and constrain action. Hence three 'levels of analysis' can be identified: structures, institutions, and agents. Structures include the long-term, deep-seated social practices that govern daily life, such as law and the family. Institutions represent the phenomenal forms of structures, including, for example, the state apparatus. And agents are those influential human actors who determine the precise, observable outcomes of any social interaction.
(Dear and Wokb 1989, p. 6)
We are all actors, then (whether ordinary citizens or powerful business leaders, members of interest groups, bureaucrats or elected officials), and all part of a dualism in which structures (the communicative structures of language and signification as well as formal and informal economic, political and legal structures) enable our behaviour while our behaviour itself reconstitutes, and sometimes changes, these structures. Structures may act as constraints on individual action but they are also, at the same time, the medium and outcome of the behaviour they recursively organize. Furthermore, structurationist theory recognizes that we
are all members of systems of social actors: networks, organizations, social classes and so on.
Human action is seen as being based on 'practical consciousness', meaning that the way in which we make sense of our own actions and the actions of others, and the way w;e generate meaning in the world is rooted in routinized day-to-day practices thai occupy a place in our minds somewhere between [he conscious and the unconscious, Recursivity, the continual reproduction of individual and social practices through routine actions (time-space rotttinization), contributes to social integration, the development of social systems and structures among agents in particular locales.
Tn addition, structures and social systems can be seen to develop across broader spans of space and time through system integration, winch takes place through time-space distanciation: the 'stretching1 of social relations over lime and space as ideas, attitudes and norms are spread ihrough print and electronic media, for example. All this recursivity and integration does not make for stasis, however, since the structurationist approach sees all human action as involving unanticipated or unacknowledged conditions and as having unintended consequences that modify or change the nature of recurrent practices (figure 9.4),
This kind of perspective leads us to see urban spaces and places as constantly changing, or 'becoming'. Place, in other words, is an historically contingent process in which practice and structure become one another through the intertwining of recursive individual and social practices and structured relations of powrer. At the same time, place involves processes (socialization, language acquisition, personality development, social and spatial division ofiabour, etc.) through which individual biographies and collective ways of life also become one another. The structurationist approach has become an important influence in contemporary human geography, particularly in urban social geography because of its central concern with the sociospatial dialectic. It has, nevertheless, proven difficult to incorporate into substantive accounts of city and/or neighbourhood formation. It has also been criticized for its emphasis on recursivity (to the relative neglect of the unforeseen and the unintended), for its inattention to the role of the unconscious, and for its neglect of issues of culture, gender and ethnicity.
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9.2 The social construction of urban places
Time: duree of interaction
Acknowledged	I  > ,
conditions	1^—1
/
Enabling and üDristrammg
Unacknowledged	
conditions	
SPACE_
Politicians
Bureaucrats
Interest groups
Influential individuate
Ordinary citizens
Communicative
Politics!
Economic
Sanction
Intended outcome
■
—
I1
Unintended outcome
Time: langue öurse of institutions
Figure 9.4 A model of the structuration of urban space.
Source: Dear and Moos (1386). pp. 351-73.
Constructing place through spatial practices
David Harvey's 'grid' of spatial practices (Table 9.1) provides one way of accommodating a broader, richer array of issues in addressing the ways in which places are constructed and experienced, how l.hey are represented, and how they become used as symbolic spaces. The matrix is useful in focusing our attention on the dialectical interplay between experience, perception and imagination; and in clarifying the relationships between distanciation and the appropriation, domination and production of places, it does not, though, summarize a theory: it is merely a framework across which we can interpret social relations of class, gender, community and race.
The three dimensions on the vertical axis of the grid are drawn from Lefehvre's (1991) distinction between the experienced, the perceived and the imagined:
>* Material spatial practices refer to the interactions and physical flows that occur in and across space as part of fundamental processes of economic production and social reproduction.
>* Representations of space include all of the signs, symbols, codifications and knowledge that allow material spatial practices to be talked about and understood.
> Spaces of representation are mental constructs such as Utopian plans, imaginary landscapes, paintings and symbolic structures thai imagine new meanings or possibilities for spatial practices.
The four dimensions across the horizontal axis of the grid have l.o be seen as mutually interdependent. Accessibility and distanciation are two sides of the same coin: the role of the friction of distance in human affairs. Distance, as we saw in Chapter S, is both a harrier to and a defence against social interaction. Distanciation 'is simply a measure of the degree to which the friction of space has been overcome to accommodate social interaction" (Harvey, 1989b5 p. 222). The appropriation of space refers to the way in which space is occupied by individuals, social groups, activities (e.g. land uses) and objects (houses, factories, streets). The domination of space refers to the way in which the organization
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Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place
Material spatial
practices
(experience)
Representations of space (perception)
Spaces of
representation
(imagination)
Flows of goods, money, people, labour, power, information, etc.; transport and communications systems; market and urban hierarchies; agglomeration
Social, psychological and physical measures of distance; map making; theories of the 'friction of distance' (principle of least effort, social physics, range of good, central place and other forms of location theory)
Attraction/repulsion;
distance/desire;
access/denial;
transcendence
'medium is-the
message'
Land uses and built environments; social spaces and other 'turf designations; social networks of communication and mutual aid
Personal space; mental maps of occupied space; spatial hierarchies; symbolic representation of spaces; spatial 'discourses'
Familiarity; hearth and home; open places; places of popular spectacle (streets, squares, markets); iconography and graffiti, advertising
Private property in land; state and administrative divisions of space; exclusive communities and neighbourhoods; exclusionary zoning and other forms of social control (policing and surveillance)
Forbidden spaces; 'territorial imperatives'; community; regional cultures; nationalism; geopolitics; hierarchies
Unfamilisrity; spaces of fear: property and possession; monumentality and constructed spaces of ritual; symbolic barriers and symbolic capital; construction of 'tradition'; spaces of repression
Production of physical infrastructures (transport and communications; built environments; land clearance, etc.); territorial organization of social infrastructures (formal and informal)
New systems of mapping, visual representation, communication, etc.; new artistic and architectural 'discourses'; semiotics
Utopian plans; imaginary landscapes; science fiction ontologies and space; artists' sketches; mythologies of space and place; poetics of space; spaces of desire
Source; Harvey (ISB'Jbj pp. 22Ö-221,
and production of spaces and places can be controlled by powerful individuals or groups: through private property laws, zoning ordinances, restrictive covenants, gates (and implied gates), etc. The production, of space refers to the way in which new systems of territorial organi/alion, land use, transport and communications, etc. (aciual or imagined) arise, along wilh new1 ways of representing (hem (see also Box 9.3).
We shall draw on [his grid throughout the remainder of this chapter as we examine the ways in which material and social worlds are given meaning through cultural politics, in which political and economic power is projected through urban form, and in which space
200
and place are appropriated through symbolism and coded meanings.
Place, consumption and cultural politics
An important lesson is implicit in the grid of spatial practices outlined by Harvey: it is that we should nol treat 'society' as separate from 'economy', 'polities', 'culture' or 'place'. We are thus pointed to the domain of'cultural polities', defined by Peter Jackson (1991a, p. 219) as:
9.2 The social construction of urban places
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Key thinkers in urban social geography - Henri Lefebvre
The publication in 1991 of an English translation of Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space (first published in French in 1974) was treated in some geographical circles like the discovery of the Holy Grail! In the two previous decades only a few geographers 'in the know' had spoken in awe of a French scholar who had developed a radical reformulation of Marxian theory that put space rather than time at the heart of his analysis. In the event Lefebvre:s book proved to be a densely written and, at times, impenetrable text that inevitably led to differing interpretations over the real meaning of his work, Nevertheless, Lefebvre's influence upon urban social geography should not he underestimated. In particular, he had a big influence upon the work of David Harvey, arguably the most influential human geographer in the late twentieth century (see also Box 1.1). A key insight has been Lefebvre's distinction between differing conceptions of space.
On the one hand Lefebvre referred to representations ofspace-the dominant ways in which cities are portrayed, such as in planning documents (somer times termed 'conceived space'). These are bound up with existing capitalist norms involving issues such as property rights and legalization surrounding labour laws. On the other hand he noted that there are spaces of
representation, the personal feelings that people have towards the spaces they inhabit through everyday interactions-(sometimes termed 'perceived space'). The crucial point is that these two notions of space are interlinked and may be in conflict. For example, the way in which a city centre is portrayed in official governmental literature, extolling its virtues for shoppers and inward investment, may differ from the ways in which local inhabitants think of such a space. Relatively low-paid service workers may have a different idea of a regentrifred city centre than well-paid high-tech workers or visiting tourists.
Lefebvre was especially interested in the processes that led to the creation of these dominant representations of space and the exclusion of other visions of space. As a social visionary, Lefebvre hoped that people could envisage new notions of space. Since he put space at the heart of his analysis, radical social change must involve more than changing the means of production, but also new concepts of space in which people live their everyday lives.
Lefebvre has been criticized for ignoring the new cultural politics (Blum and Nast, 1996) but he has inspired a number of Marxian geographers who have examined recent changes in cities {e.g. N. Smith, 1984; Merrifield, 1993).
Key concepts associated with Henri Lefebvre (see Glossary)
Material practices, representations of space, spaces of representation.
Further reading
Blum, V. and Nast, H. (1996) Where's the difference? The heterosexualization of alterity in Henri Lefebvre and Jacques Lacan, Environment end Planning 0. Society and Space 14, 559-80
Merrifield, A. (1993) Space and place: a Lefebvrian reconciliation, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 18, 516-31
Merrifield, A. (ed.) (2006) Henri Lefebvre: A critical introduction Rcutledge, London
Shields, R. (1999) Henri Lefebvre: Love and struggle - spatial dialectics Routledge, London
Shields, R. (2004) Henri Lefebvre, in P. Hubbard, R. Kitchin and G. Valentine (eds) Key Thinkers on Space and Place Sage, London
.Smith, N. (1984) Uneven Development: Nature, capital and the production of space Blackwell, Oxford
Links with other chapters
Chapter 1: Box 1.1 David Harvey
ihe domain in which meanings are constructed and negotiated, where relations of dominance and subordination are defined and contested ... In opposili.on 10 ihe unitary view of culture as the artistic and intellectual product of an elite, 'cultural polities' insists on a plurality of cultures, each, defined as a whole 'way of life', where ideologies
are interpreted in relation to the material interests (hey serve. From ibis perspective, the cultural is always, simultaneously, political.
Our experiences of malerial and social worlds are always mediated by power relationships and culture. 'Social' issues of distinction and 'cultural' issues of
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Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place
aesthetics, taste and style cannot he separated from 'political' issues of power and inequality or from 'gender' issues of dominance and oppression. As noted in Chapter 3, the construction of place is therefore hound up with the construction of class,- gender, sexuality, power and culture.
Habitus
An important contribution to this perspective has been made by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. His concept of habitus, like Raymond Williams's concept of a 'structure of feeling', noted above, deals with the construction of meaning in everyday lifeworlds. Habitus evolves in response to specific objective circumstances of class, race, gender relations and place. Yet it is more than the sum of these parts. It consists of a distinctive set of values, cognitive structures and orienting practices: a collective perceptual and evaluative schema that derives from its members' everyday experience and operates at á subconscious level, Lhrough commonplace daily practices, dress codes, use of language, comportment and patterns of material consumption. The result is a distinctive cultural politics of 'regulated improvisations' in which 'each dimension of lifestyle symbolizes with the others' (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 173).
According to Bourdieu, each group will seek to sustain and extend its habitus: (and new* sociospatial groups will seek to establish a habitus) through the appropriation of symbolic capital: consumer goods and services that reflect the taste and distinction of the owner. In this process, not every group necessarily accepts the definitions of taste and distinction set out by the elite groups and tastemakers with the 'cultural capital' to exercise power over the canons of'good' taste and 'high' culture. In any case, such definitions are constantly subject to devaluation by the popularization of goods and practices that were formerly exclusive.
The fact that symbolic capital is vulnerable to devaluation and to shifts in avant-garde taste makes it even more potent, of course, as a measure of distinction. As a result, though, dominant groups must continually pursue refinement and originality in their lifestyles and ensembles of material possessions. Less dominant groups, meanwhile, must find and legitimize alternative lifestyles, symbols and practices in order to achieve distinction.
202
Subordinate groups are not necessarily left to construct a habitus that is a poor copy of others', however: they can - and often do - develop a habitus that embodies different values and 'rituals of resistance' in which the meaning of things is appropriated and transformed.
All this points once again to the importance of consumption and of the aestheticization of everyday life introduced in Chapter 3. Consumption:
purports to dispel the dread of being in a world of strangers. Advertisements tell us what to expect, what is acceptable and unacceptable, and what we need to do in order to belong. They are primaiy vehicles for producing and transmitting cultural symbols. |Consumption| not only produces and circulates meaning, it. . . interweaves and alters forces and perspectives, and it empowers us in our daily lives to change our culture, to transform nature, and to create place.
(Sack, 1992, p. 132)
Consumption is inherently spatial. The propinquity of object and place allows the former to take on the cultural authority of the latter; objects displayed beside each other exchange symbolic attributes; places become transformed into commodities. The consumer's world consists not only of settings where things are purchased or consumed (shops, malls, amusement parks, resorts, etc.) but also of settings and contexts that are created with and through purchased products (homes, neighbourhoods). Ml of these settings are infused with signs and symbols thai collectively constitute 'moral landscapes' and 'maps of meaning'.
9.3 The social meanings of the buiit environment
Al the most general level, the landscape of cities can be seen as a reflection of the prevailing ideology (in the sense of a political climate, Zeitgeist, or 'spirit') ofa particular society. The idea of urban fabric being seen - in part, at least - as the outcome of broad political, socio-economic and cultural forces has been explicit in much "writing on urbanization. We can illustrate this with reference to the simple example of the
9.3 The social meanings of the built environment
symboli/ation of wealth and achievement by groups of prosperous merchants and industrialists. Early instances of this include the industrial capitalists of Victorian times, who felt the compulsion to express their achievements in buildings. The Cross Street area ol central Manchester, for example, is still dominated by the imposing gothic architecture commissioned by the city's Victorian elite who, preoccupied with the accumulation and display of wealth but with a rather philistine attitude towards aesthetics, left a clear impression of their values on the central area of the city.
As the petit bourgeoisie ol small-scale merchant and industrial capital lost ground to corporate and international capital, so the symboli/.ation of achievement and prosperity became dominated hy corporate structures. Huge office blocks such as the Swiss Re Building in London and the Pirelli Building in Milan were clearly intended as statements of corporate power and achievement, notwithstanding any administrative or speculative functions. At a more general level, of course, the whole complex of offices and stores in entire downtown areas can be interpreted as symbolic of the power of the 'central district elite' in relation to the rest of the city.
Meanwhile, other institutions have added their particular statements to the palimpsest of the urban fabric. The sponsors of universities, trade union headquarters, cultural centres and so on, unable (or unwilling) to make use of the rude message ol' high-rise buiiding, have generally fallen back on the combination of neoclassicism and modernism that has become the reigning international style for any building aspiring to carry authority through an image of high-mindedness rather than raw power.
The appropriation of space and place: symbolism and coded meanings
While the built environment is heavily endowed with social meaning, this meaning is rarely simple, straightforward or unidimensional. To begin with there is an important distinction between the intended meaning of architecture and the perceived meaning of the built environment as seen by others. This distinction is essential to a proper understanding of the social meaning of the built environment. David Harvey's study of the
Sacre-Coeur in Paris, for example, demonstrates how the intended symbolism of the building - a reaffirmation of Monarchism in the wake of the Paris Commune - 'was for many years seen as a provocation to civil war', and is still interpreted by the predominantly republican population of Paris as a provocative rather than a unifying symbol (Harvey, 2003).
Another critical point is that the social meaning of the built environment is not static. The meanings associated with particular symbols and symbolic environments tend to be modified as social values change in response to changing lifestyles and changing patterns of socio-economic organization. At the same time, powerful symbols and motifs from earlier periods are often borrowed in order to legitimize a new social order, as in Mussolini's co-opting of the symbols of Augustan Rome in an allempt to legitimize Fascist urban reorganization; and (ironically) in the adoption of a selection of motifs from l he classical revival in Europe by Jefferson and the founding fathers responsible for commissioning public and ceremonial architecture in Washington, DC.
How can all such observations be accommodated within a coherent framework oi"analysis thai addresses the fundamental questions of communication by whom, to what audience, to what purpose and to what effect? These are the questions that have prompted a number of writers to build on structuralist social theory in such a way as to accommodate the social meaning of the built environment. According to this perspective, the built environment, as part of the socio-economic superstructure stemming from the dominant mode of production (feudalism, merchant capitalism, industrial capitalism, etc.), reflects the Zeitgeist of the prevailing system; it also serves, like other components of the superstructure, as one of the means through which the necessary conditions for the continuation of the system are reproduced. One of the (irst people to sketch out these relationships between social process and urban form was David Harvey, who emphasized the danger of thinking in terms of simple causal relationships, stressing the need for a flexible approach thai allow-s urbanism to exhibit a variety of forms within any dominant mode of production, while similar forms may exist as products of different modes of production (Harvey, 1978).
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Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place
Architecture, aesthetics and the sociospatial dialectic
The architect's role as an arbiter, create: and manipulator of style can be interpreted a.s part of the process whereby changing relationships within society at large become expressed in the 'superstructure' of ideas, institutions and objects. This- allows us to see major shifts in architectural style as a dialectical response to the evolving Zeitgeist of urban-industrial society - as part of a series of broad intellectual and artistic reactions rather than the product of isolated innovations wrought by inspired architects.
Thus, for example, the Art Mouveau and lugendstil architecture of the late nineteenth century can be seen as the architectural expression of the romantic reaction
to what Lewis M urn ford called the 'palaeotechnic' era of the Industrial Revolution: a reaction that was first expressed in the Arts and Crafts movement and in Impressionist painting. By 1900 the Art Nouveau style was firmly established as the snobbish style, consciously elitist, for all 'high' architecture.
The dialectic response was a series of artistic and intellectual movements, beginning w;th Cubism, that went out of their way to dramatize modern technology, seeking an anonymous and collective method of design in an attempt to divorce themselves from 'capitalist' canons of reputability and power. Thus emerged the Construclivist and futurist movements, the Bauhaus school and, later, Les Congres Internationaux dJA rchii.ee-ture Moderne (C1AM) and the Modern Architecture Research Group (MARS), who believed that their new
Postmodern architecture: the Harold Washington public library in Chicago. Opened in 1991, this building reflects earlier architectural styles (e.g. the 'Beaux-Arts' movement). Photo Credit: Michael Edema Leary.
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9.3 The soc:al meanings of the built environment
architecture ami their new concepts of urban planning were expressing not just a new aesthetic image but the very substance of new social conditions which they were helping to create.
The subsequent fusion and transformation of these movements into the glib 'F.speranto' of the International Style and the simultaneous adoption of the style as the preferred image of corporate and bureaucratic conservatism, solidity and respectability provide an important example of the way in which the dominant social order is able to protect itself from opposing ideological forces. In this particular example, the energy of opposing ideological forces - idealist radicalism - has been neatly diverted into the defence of the status quo. The question is: how?
Com modification
One answer is that the professional ideology and career structure within which most practising architects (as opposed to the avant-garde) operate is itself heavily oriented towards Establishment values and sensitively tuned 10 the existing institutional selling and economic order. Consequently, the meaning and symbolism of new architectural styles emanating from radical quarters lend to be modified as they are institutionalized and converted into commercialism; while the core movement itself, having forfeited its raw powrer in the process of commodification, passes quietly into the mythology of architectural education and the coffee-table books of the cognoscenti. There is a direct parallel here in the way that the liberal ideology of the town planning movement was transformed into a defensive arm of urbanized capital, systematically working to the advantage of the middle-class community in general and the business community in particular. According to this perspective, architects, like planners, can be seen as unwitting functionaries, part of a series of 'internal survival mechanisms' that have evolved to meet the imperatives of urbanized capital.
Architecture and the circulation of capital
Another way in which architects serve these imperatives is in helping lo stimulate consumption and extract surplus value. The architect, by virtue of the prestige and
mystique socially accorded to creativity, adds exchange value to a building through his or her decisions about design, so that the label 'architect designed' confers a presumption of quality even though this quality may not be apparent to every observer. Moreover, as one of the key arbiters of style in modern society, the architect is in a powerful position to stimulate consumption merely by generating and/or endorsing changes in the nuances of building design.
The professional ideology and career structure that reward innovation and the ability to feel the pulse of fashion also serve to promote the circulation of capital. Without a stead)' supply of new fashions in domestic architecture (reinforced by innovations in kitchen technology, healing systems, etc.), the filtering mechanisms on which I he whole owner-occupier housing market is based would slow down to a level unacceptable not only to builders and developers but also to the exchange professionals (surveyor's, real estate agents, etc.) and the whole range of financial institutions involved in the housing market. The rich and the upper-middle classes, in short, must be encouraged to move from their comfortable homes to new dwellings with even more 'design' and 'convenience' features in order to help maintain a sufficient turnover in the housing market.
One way in which they are enticed to move is through the cachet of fashionable design and state-of-the-art technology. Hence the rapid diffusion of innovations such as energy-conserving homes; and the desperate search for successful design themes to be revived and 're-released', just like the contrived revivals of haute couture and pop music. In parts of the United States, the process has advanced to the stage where many upper-middle class suburban developments resemble small chunks of Disneyland, with mock-Tudor, Spanish Colonial, neo-Georgian, Victorian got hie and log cabin de iuxe standing together: style for style's sake, the zeit for sore eyes. And, in some cities, new housing for upper-income groups is now promoted through annual exhibitions of 'this year's' designs, much like the hordist automobile industry's carefully planned obsolescence in design.
But it is by no means only 'high' architecture and expensive housing that help to sustain urbanized capital. One of the more straightforward functions of architecture in relation to the structuration of class
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Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place
relations through residential settings is the symbolic distancing of social groups. The aesthetic sterility of most British public housing, for example, serves to distance its inhabitants from other, neighbouring, social groups. At a further level, it can be argued that the scarcity of symbolic stimuli typical of many planned, post-war working-class environments may act as a kind of intellectual and emotional straitjacket, minimizing people's self-esteem and sense of potential while fostering attitudes of deference and defeatism. Although the process is at present very poorly understood, the role of the architect is clearly central to the eventual outcome not only in terms of the social order of the city but also in terms of the existential meaning of urban settings.
This brings us back to a final but crucial consideration; the role of the self in the interaction between society and environment. One framework that accommodates this is shown in Figure 9.5. Accepting architectural design as part of the superstructure of culture and ideas stemming from the basic socio-economic organization of society (whether as part of the prevailing ideology or as part of the counter-ideology), this framework focuses attention on: (1) the intended messages emanating from particular owners,'producers and mediated by professional 'managers' (architects, planners, etc.); and (.2) the received messages of environmental 'consumers' as seen through the prisms of cognitive processes and existential imperatives and the filter of the dominant ideology.
wmMmmmmmammm
Key thinkers in urban social geography - Nigel Thrift
mm
It is impossible to venture very far into human geography before coming across the work of Nigel Thrift. Indeed, in many ways Thrift is the geographical equivalent of the highly influential social scientist Anthony Giddens. Like Giddens, Thrift has drawn upon a wide range of ideas from many sources. One of the most prolific writers in the field, with scores of books and articles to his name, the scope of Thrift's work is enormous, ranging from the nature of capitalism (2005), to globalization and regional development (Amin and Thrift, 1992), the character of money (Leyshon and Thrift, 1997) and the role of time in social life (Thrift, 1977) (to mention but a few!). It is impossible to summarize this vast corpus of work in any detail but, nevertheless, underpinning this extraordinary variety are a number of key themes.
Above all, Thrift has resisted the 'top-down' structuralist theorizing of Marxian approaches. While acknowledging the existence of complex networks of power, knowledge and authority, these are seen as the out-
come of actions by people who make choices based on various types of knowledge that they employ in the course of their everyday lives. Issues such as performance, subjectivity, discourse, representation and identity therefore figure highly in Thrift's work.
Taken as a whole, Thrift's work represents a remarkable reconstitution. in a geographical setting, of diverse but interrelated ideas from a wide range of highly influential thinkers in the social sciences including: Torsten Hagerstrand's work on time-space budgets; Anthony Giddens' work on structuration theory; Michel Foucault's work on knowledge and power; Manuel Castells' work on 'spaces of flows'; Bruno Latour's work on actor network theory; and Gilles Deleuze's work on performance.
Key concepts associated with Nigel Thrift (see Glossary)
Embeddedness, performativity, subjectivity.
Further reading
Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (1992) Neo-Marshallian nodes in global networks, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 116, 571-87
Leyshon, A, and Thrift, N, (eds) (1997) Money/Space: Geographies of monetary transformation Routledge, London
Thrift, N. (1977) Time and theory in human geography, part one, Progress in Human Geography 1, 65-101
Thrift, N. (2005) Knowing Capitalism Sage, London
Links with other chapters
Chapter 2: Box 2.4 Manuel Castells Chapter 3; Box 3.3 Michel Foucault Chapter 14: Box 14.1 Edward Soja
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9.3 The sociai meanings of the built environment
Mode of production
Social ideas, beliefs
-
Producers
Owners Developers Builders etc.
Managers
Bureaucrats Planners Architects etc.
Professional ideology
Institutional organization etc.
-----„-
Intended messages
Symbols, Styles, Settings etc.
......
Change in built environment
Feedback
Consumers
Users Occupiers etc.
---,-
Received messages
-
;--
s
-
Cognitive processes
Existential imperatives
Topophilia Sense of place etc.
...
Figure 9.5 Signs, symbolism and settings: a framework for analysis.
Source Kno«(1984).
Key novels related to urban social geography - Chapter 9
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929} Alfred Doblin. A novel set in the underworld of working-class Berlin in the inter-war era, this is an innovative book that attempts to evoke the numerous moods of city life through newspaper reports, advertising and street signs.
The Catcher in the Rye (1951) J.D. Salinger. A classic novel of teenage rebellion in the post-war United States.
Cocaine Nights (1996) J.G, Ballard. A thriller that is also an examination of a new urban form - the retirement community.
Mrs Dalloway (1925) Virginia Woolf. An innovative novel, based in 1920s London, showing the isolation of the characters as geography, class and gender separate them.
Saturday (2005) Ian McEwan. Contemporary urban angst as experienced by an upper-middle-class inhabitant of London set in the context of international terrorism.
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Neighbourhood, community and the social construction of place
Chapter summary
Wsr--
9.1 Despite many views to the contrary, cities have not resulted in the destruction of community networks, but these have been radically transformed through decentralization, suburbanization and social polarization.
9.2 Places develop complex multilayered meanings depending upon the views of those who live within them, as well as those who live outside. These meanings have an important influence upon the ways people go about their everyday lives.
9.3 The landscape of cities tends to reflect the prevailing ideology of the times   a complex mixture of political, economic and cultural forces.
aestheticization authority constraint 'betweenness' of place capability constraint communities
'community lost' argument 'community saved1 argument 'community transformed'
argument coupling constraint
cultural politics daesin
ethnic village Gemeitischaft Gesellschaft habitus
intersubjectivity life-world longue duree
material spatial practices
neighbourhoods place
representations of space-spaces of representation slructuration theory symbolic capital territoriality Zeitgeist
Suggested reading
Community and neighbourhood
Blunt, A. (2006) Borne Routlcdge, London
Brooks, D. (2002) Patio man and the sprawl people,
Weekly Standard, 19-29 Davies, W. and Herbert, D. (1993) Communities
Within Cities Pinter, London Day, G, (2006) Community and Everyday Life Routledge,
London
Delanty, G. (2003) Community Routledge, London Grant, ). (2006) Planning the Good Community: Neiv
nrbanism in theory and practice Taylor & brands,
London and Mew York Martin, D.D. (2003) Enacting neighborhood, Urban
Geography 25 (5), 361-85
Nicolaides, B.M. and Weise, A. (ed.) (2006) The Suburb Reader Routledge, London and New York
Wellman, B. (1987) The Community Question Reevaluated Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Toronto, Ontario
Concepts of space
Benko, G. and Strohmayer, U. (1997) Space and Social
Theory Blackwell, Oxford F, n t r i k i n, N. (19 91) B et ween 11 ess o f Pia ce J oh n s 11 o pk i n s
University Press, Baltimore, MD Harvey, D. (1998) Prom space to place and back again,
in J. Bird (ed.) Mapping the Futures: Local cultures,
global change, Routledge, London, pp. 3-29 Pinder, D, (2006) Visions of the City Routledge,
London
208
Sack, B, (1992) Place, Modernity, and the Consumer's World Johns 1 lopkins University Press, Baltimore, MO
Social meanings of the built environment
Duncan, J. and Duncan, N. (2003) Landscapes of Privilege Routledge, London
fackson, P. (19981 Towards a cultural politics oi consumption, in J. Bird (ed.) Mapping the Futures; Local cultures, global change, Routledge, London, pp. 207-28
Suggested reading
■Sorkin, M. (1992) Variations on a Theme Park Noonday, New York
Zukin, S. (1991) Landscapes of Power University of California Press, Berkeley, CA
Urban design
Larice, M.L. and MacDonald, E. (2006) The Urban
Design Reader Routledge, London Knox, P.L. (2005) Creating ordinary places; slow cities
in a fast world, Journal of Urban Design 10, 3-13
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