Glossary
There can be little doubt that contemporary social theory contains a great deal of jargon! One might, easily conclude that this terminology is pretentious, unnecessarily duplicating existing terms that are perfectly adequate, or else elevating simple ideas with grandiose labels. However, this conclusion would be a mistake, for underpinning the vast majority of new terms Lire serious attempts lo come to grips with the complexity of contemporary social change. The very best social science makes us rethink our existing 'common-sense' and taken-for-gran ted notions about the world, but in order to do this new words and forms .of language are often needed. The main problem is, of course, keeping pace with the sheer number an.d diversity of these concepts.
To assist you in this task the following glossary contains definitions of all the main concepts used in this book (together with a few others that are commonly used in geography and urban studies). Wherever possible we have attempted to convey the essence of the concepts in an accessible manner. One word of warning, however: this has often involved considerable simplification -concepts such as ideology and the underclass really deserve books i.o themselves. Furthermore, these concepts should not be regarded as definitive, or set in stone. Concepts are never static but are continually evolving as people dispute their meaning. There is a danger in this- context that precise, seemingly watertight definitions can be constraining or misleading. Nevertheless, one has to start somewhere and we hope this glossary, together with the rest of the book, will encourage you to follow up some of these ideas in greater detail. We have incorporated extensive cross-referencing to related concepts to help you in this task (all words in italics are defined below).
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Ableist geography Geographical studies LhaL assume people are able-bodied, thereby ignoring the problems faced by those with disabilities. Such studies contribute to the continuing oppression of disabled people.
Accumulation A term associated within Marxian theory to refer to the processes by which capital is acquired. Tht term alludes Lo a system in which the ownership of wealth and property is highly concentrated and not just to a system based on profit making.
Action (or activity) space A term used in behavioural studies of residential mobility to indicate the sum of all the areas in a city with which people have direct contact. See awareness space, aspiration region.
Aestheticization (of everyday life) Originally used lo denote situations where issues of class conflict were obscured by appeals to high art. Now used in a broader sense to indie-ate die increasing importance of signs or appearances in everyday life. Especially applied to processes of consumption and material objects (including buildings) which are seen as indicating of the social position of the user. Sec also exchange value, positional good, symbolic capital, use value.
Agency The capacity of people to make choices and take actions to affect their destinies. Often played down in structuralism and deterministic theories. Also termed human agency. Contrast with economic determinism. See rejlexiviiy.
Ageographia Sorkin's term to indicate that the postmodern city- maybe likened to a theme park centred around Disney-like simulations. Sec Disneyfi.eat.ion, hyperreality, postmodernism, simulacra.
Alienation A term used generally to indicate the ways in which people's capacities are dominated by others. Used in Marxist theory to indicate the loss of control that workers have over their labour and the things they make iii a capitalist mode of production.
Glossary
Alterity A term used in postcolonial theory to indicate a culture that is radically different from and totally outside lhat to which it is opposed. Disputed by those who argue thai all cultures evolve in relation to one another. See hybridity.
Ambivalence A term used in postcolonial theory to describe the mixture of attraction and repulsion that characterises the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, It is argued that all colonial relationships are ambivalent because the colonizers do not want to be copied exactly. Imitation can lead lo mimicry. Ambivalence tends to decentre power since it can lead to hybridity on the part ot those in power.
Andocentrism An approach that privileges men and downplays women. See feminism, sexism.
Anomie A situation in which people arc less affected by conventions and established social norms. Often associated with the isolation of urban life. See Gesellschnft.
Anli-essentialism Rejection of the idea lhat there is some underlying essence to phenomena such as truth or natural identity. The opposite of essentialisin.
Anti-scalar approach An approach which argues that social and economic processes cannot be restricted to particular bounded geographical spaces or 'levels' of analysis such as the neighbourhood, city, region or nation. See network society, non-scalar approach, spaces of flows.
Appropriation The taking over of elements of imperial culture by posrcolonial societies. See ambivalence, hybridity, mimicry. Also used in a broader sense to denote the borrowing and mixing together of different cultural elements. Especially applied to popular music and its numerous sub-genres. Also known as syncretism. See bricolage.
Area-based urban policy   Policies targeted at particular urban
areas (e.g. enterprise zones),
Areal differentiation Another term for residential (or sociospatial) differentiation. May also be used in a general sense to refer to areas with commercial or industrial activity rather than Just the social fabric of cities.
Aspiration region (or space) A term used in behavioural studies of residential mobility to indicate the areas of a city to which a potential mover aspires - the product of both activity space and awareness space.
Asset sales The sale of publicly owned organizations (such as utilities! and assets (such as public housing) to the private sector. See privatization.
Assimilation The process whereby a minority group is incorporated into the wider society (or charter group). Can be behavioural assimilation or structural assimilation. May explain decrees of jygregaHon.
'Asylum-without-walls' Another term for the service-dependent ghetto.
Authenticity The idea that there is a pure, basic culture. Disputed by the notion of ambivalence. Used in postmodern theory to distinguish 'reality' from copies of the real known as simulacra. See also hybridity.
Authority constraint A term used within Hagerslrand's time-geography to indicate the inlluence of laws and customs upon daily lives. See capability constraint, coupling constraint.
Auto mobility A concept that looks at the way in which the automobile and all the systems that support it have a dominating influence upon the lives of people in Western societies.
Awareness space All the areas of a city of which a person or household has knowledge resulting from both direct contact {activity space) and indirect sources of information (e.g. newspapers, estate agents). See aspiration region.
balkanization A metaphor for the administrative subdivision of US cities into numerous local governments. Also known as metropolitan fragmentation.
Banlieue Poor-quality suburban areas of Trench cities occupied by immigrants. Also termed bidonvillcs.
Behavioural approach An approach that examines people's activities and decision-making processes within their perceived worlds. See behaviouraltsm.
Behavioural assimilation The process whereby a minority group adopts the culture of the wider society (or charter group). Contrast with structural assimilation.
Behaviouralism An approach in psychology which recognizes that human responses to stimuli are mediated by social factors. Contrast with behaviourism.
Behaviourism An early approach in psychology that examined the responses of people to particular stimuli. Tended to ignore mediation by social factors. See behaviouralism.
'Belweenness' of place The argument that the character of regions is dependent upon the subjective interpretations of people living within these areas, as well as the perceptions of those living outside. See place, social constructionism.
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Glossary
Bidonvilies Poor-quality suburban areas of French cities occupied by immigranls. More recently termed banlieue.
Binaries Twofold categorizations that succeed in dividing people and concepts (e.g. male/female, healthy/sick, sane/ mad, heterosexual/homosexual, true/false, reality/fiction, authentic/fake). Can lead to exclusion or obiectifteation.
Biological analogy The application of ideas from Ihe plant and animal world to the study of urban residential patterns. See Chicago School, human ecology, uncial Darwinism.
Biolic forces A term used by the Chicago School to indicate the competitive economic forces within cities that lead to residential differentiation and segregation. See biological analogy, social Darwinism.
'Blockbusting1 Ihe practice undertaken by some estate agents (realtors) of introducing black purchasers into predominantly white areas in the hope that the latter will sell up and move out at deflated prices, thereby enabling the agents to resell the properties to new black families at higher prices.
BOBOs (BOhemian-BOurgeois) Brooks' term for what he regards as a new class of people inhabiting inner cities who combine Bohemian lifestyles of hedonism with bourgeois traits of hard work. See Bohemia, creative class.
Bohemia (Bohemian enclaves) Districts of cities inhabited by large proportions of people with 'alternative', libertarian lifestyles that contrast with conventional 'bourgeoisie' lifestyles (i.e. enjoyment rather than work and household arrangements other than the nuclear family). See also creative class.
Boomburb A rapidly growing suburban area outside traditional urban centres. See edge cities, technoburbs.
Borderlands Geographical and metaphorical spaces on the margins of dominant cultures where new hybrid forms of ideality can emerge. Sec hyhridity, limhial space, heterotopia, third space.
Bricolage A French word meaning an assembly of miscellaneous objects (hence the English term bric-a-brac) used by the structuralist Levi-Strauss to indicate the apparently bewildering mixture of elements to be found in primitive cultures. Also used in cultural studies to describe the complex mixtures of elements found in new cultural forms such as popular music and its various genres. See appropriation, (realization, enculturation, hyhridity, nomadization, trausadturation.
Bunker architecture Buildings designed to exclude certain sections of society {usually those thought to be undesirable or threatening by the more affluent). See gated communities, 'scauscape'.
'California School' The group of scholars who have interpreted the contemporary urban forms of Los Angeles as emblematic of city structures in a postmodern or post-Fordist society. Also termed the Los Angeles School. May also refer to the explanations for industrial agglomeration derived from transactions cost analysis and regulation theory. See new industrial spaces.
Capability constraint A term used in Hagerstrand's t'une-geograpliy to indicate physical and biological constraints on daily activity. See authority constraint, coupling constraint.
Carceral city A term coined by Michel Foucault to describe a city in which power is decentred and in which people are 'imprisoned' or controlled by various types of discourse (medical, sociological, psychological, etc.) as manifest in various institutions (the family, schools, prisons, hospitals, etc), i hrom the Latin word Career meaning 'prison' - hence the English term incarcerate.) See interpellation, mtcropowers.
Cartesian approach "iheargument developed by Enlightenment philosopher Rene Descartes that the observer can be separated from the observed.
Capitalization The increasing use of various non-core workers such as part-time, temporary and agency workers. Also termed numerical flexibility.
Centralization The spatial regrouping of activities into larger units, May refer to reductions in numbers of service units of the welfare state or movements back into central cities. Contrast with decentralization.
Charter group The majority group with the dominant call tire of a society.
Chicago School The group of sociologists working in Chicago in the early part of the twentieth century. Noted for their studies of urban subcultures and the application of ideas from the plant and animal world to the study of residential patterns (known as human ecology). May also refer to a group of economists based in Chicago in the late twentieth century advocating monetarist economic policies.
Circuit of production The process of capitalist exploitation (also known as accwuulalion) in which capital or money (M) is invested in commodities (C) and labour power (LP)
316
Glossary
and (he means of production (MP) to produce more com modilies (C) which arc then sold to acquire more money (M) in the form of profits. Sec time-space compression.
Citizenship The relationship between individuals and the community and/or the stale.
Civic boosterism Attempts by local governments to develop their local economics by attracting inward investment and through partnerships with private sector sources of capital. Also termed civic entrepreneurialUm. See coalition building, growth coalitions, governance, urban entreprenairialism.
Civic entrepreneurialism   See civic boosterisni.
Civil society All the elements of society outside government including private sector businesses, the family and the voluntary sector.
Class Material differences between groups of people. See economic status.
Classical Marxism The ideas formulated by Karl Marx in the nineteenth century. Contrast with tico-Marxism.
Clustering The tendency for people with similar attributes such as class or ethnicity to live close to each other in cities. May also be termed segregation and residential differentiation. In extreme cases may comprise a ghetto. Also applied to geographical agglomerations of firms. See new industrial spaces.
Coalition building Formal and informal interest groups in cities combining to achieve political objectives, Linked to regime theory. Sec growth coalitions.
Cognitive distance A measure of the perceived (rather than just physical) distance that people feel from features in an urban area taking account of mental maps and the symbolic features of the environment.
Collective consumption Usually refers to goods and services provided by the public sector. Less often refers to services that, literally, have been consumed by a group of people in a collective maimer (such as a lecture). The term originated in a nco-Marxist (or Marxian) theory formulated by Manuel Castells, which argues that there are certain services that are crucial for the maintenance of capitalism but which are too expensive for provision by individual capitalist enterprises and therefore require provision through non-market means via the public sector. The theory also attempts to define cities as essentially places for the consumption of public services - a notion that has been much criticized. Sec neo-Marxism, public goods.
Colonial discourse The social practices and attitudes associated with colonialism. See discourse, imperialism, post-colonial theory.
Colonialism The rule of one territory by another country through the creation of new settlements. The product of imperialism. See poslcolonial theory.
Colony A territory ruled by another. Also used in an urban context to indicate a minority residential cluster that is a temporary phenomenon before the group is integrated into the wider society. Contrast with enclave, ghetto.
Commercialization The tendency for publicly owned organizations to behave like private sector companies (such as through the imposition of user charges). Also termed proprietarizalion. See also c.orporatization.
Commodification The use of private markets rather than public sector allocation mechanisms to allocate goods and services. Also termed recommodificatiou and marketization.
Com modification (of culture) The ways in which local cultural forms are being supplanted by mass-produced cultural forms. See McDonahlization.
Commodity fetishism The obsession of people with the acquisition of consumer goods, 'the term recognizes that these material objects not only have use ra/i/ebut also have a symbolic value that reinforce social status or lifestyle. A key element of neo-Fordism. See uestheticizatiori.
Co m m u ni I y A m uch - u sc d te rm wi th I i tr I e sp ecilic mean in g but usually refers to a social group characterized by dense networks of social interaction reflecting a common set of cultural values. Often, but not necessarily, geographically concentrated. See etlmic village, Gemeinschatl neighbourhood.
Community action Political movements based i h a loca I area usually defending a residential district against the intrusion ofunwanted activities (sometimes termed community-defined politics, or 'turf politics). See externality.
Community care Care for the needy in local communities either in small decentralized facilities or in private households - both supported by teams of community-based professionals, Associated with deinstitutionalization. A policy much criticized for inadequate funding and resources - hence the term care 'in' the community but not 'by' the community.
'Community lost' The argument that urbanization has destroyed community life. Contrast with 'community savett', 'community transformed'.
317
Glossary
Community politics   See community action.
'Community saved' The argument that communities still exist in urban areas. See 'ethnic village'. Contrast with 'community lost', Gesellschaft.
'Community transformed' The argument that new forms of community lite have been treated in suburban areas.
Competitive tendering A process through which contracts are awarded on the basis of competitive (usually secret) bidding by a variety of agencies according to specified criteria such as cost, quality and flexibility. See contmcting-in.
Compositional theory A theory thai examines the impacts of ethnicity, kinship, neighbourhood and occupation on behaviour in residential areas of cities. Similar to subcultural theory. Contrast with behaviourism.
Concentric zone model Burgess's idealized model of cityT structure based on Chicago in the 1920s in which social status increases in a series of concentric zones leading out from the city centre. See Chicago School, human ecology. Contrast with sectoral model.
Congregation The residential clustering of an ethnic-minority through choice (rather llian involuntary Segregation brought about by structural constraints and discrimination).
Constitutive otherness The process whereby identities and cultural meanings evolve in relation and opposition to other identities and cultures. See alteriiy, ambivalence, appropriation, binaries, culture, hybridity, mimicry, abjectification, scripting, otbering.
Consumption The purchase and utilization of goods and services. See commodity fetishism.
Contextual theory A broad trend in social analysis characterized by a desire to understand the settings or contexts within which human behaviour takes place. These approaches seek to understand how people are influenced by, but at the same time create, these contexts. See situatedness, structura-tion theory.
Contingent workers Workers who display numerical flexibility. Contrast with functional flexibility.
Contracting-in A situation in which a contract is won by a subdivision of the parent organization putting the work up for tender. This is often said to be kept in-house. See also market testing.
Contracting-onl A situation in which one organization contracts with another, external organization for the provision of a good or service. Often associated with competitive tendering but this need not be the case. May also be termed subcontracting, itistaiicing or outsourcing. See also market testing.
Contractualization The use of contracts to govern the relationships between organizations and subdivisions within organizations. Increasingly used to allocate public services to private sector companies, voluntary organizations or internal departments within the public sector. See contracting-in, contracting-out, internal markets.
Corporatization An extreme form of commercialization in which publicly owned organizations behave in an identical manner to private sector companies.
Corporatism Forms of social organization in which certain interest groups, usually certain sectors of business and organized labour, have privileged access to government. Characterized by collaboration to achieve economic objectives. See ueo-corporatism. welfare corporatism.
Corporeality A term that recognizes that body images are not just the result of biological differences but are socially constructed through various signs and systems of meaning. Contrast with esscntialism.
Cosmopolis F.d Soja's term for Los Angeles as an expression of postmodern urban form. See exopolis, galactic metropolis, he tempo lis, Los Angeles School, postmodern global metropolis Also Sandercock's term for a process of city planning that attempts to create a Utopian city which both accommodates and encourages diversity and difference.
Counter-culture A subculture thai is opposed to the dominant values in a society. See counter-site, heterotopia.
Counter-site A space that is outside the mainstream of society and reflects a counter-culture. See heterotopia.
Coupling constraint A term used in 1 tagerstrand's time-geography to indicate the constraint on human activity resulting from the need to interact on a face-to-facc basis with other people. See authority constraint, capability constraint.
Creative cities Cities characterized by innovation in both manufacturing and services resulting from collective learning through the interactions of diverse peoples in overlapping social networks. See new industrial spaces.
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Glossary
Creative class Richard Florida's term for diverse artistic and professional groups who are seen as playing a key role in promoting economic growth in urban areas. See BOBOs, Bohemia, creative cities, new industrial spaces.
Creative industries Another term for the cultural industries although often used to refer to more functional business-oriented cultural industries such as advertising, design and architecture rather than films, music or the performing arts.
Crcolization Originally used to denote the racial intermixing and cultural exchange of indigenous peoples with colonizers but also used to denote cultural mixing. See hybrid ity.
Cross-tabulations Data showing the interrelationships between two or more variables (e.g. the relationship between housing tenure and average household income). See microsimulation.
Crowding theory The idea that high-density living in urban areas leads to strains and tensions that can lead to aggression, withdrawal and high rates of mental and physical illness. An approach that tends to ignore the mediating effects of culture upon human behaviour. See behaviourism, deter minist theory.
Cultural capital Ways of lite and patterns of consumption that make people distinct and appear superior or dominant. See positional good. Also used to indicate skills and knowledge (as distinct from economic capital). Also termed human capital. See also social capital.
Cultural imperialism A Lerm used by Iris Young to indicate the way in which society asserts that certain types of behaviour are 'natural' by marking out certain types of nonconforming behaviour as 'other', 'deviant' and 'non-natural'. See othering.
Cultural industries Industries in 'creative' spheres such as performing arts, design, advertising, entertainment, media and publishing. The term is also used in a theory which argues that cultural elements such as popular films, music and books have become mass produced in rhe same way as consumer goods such as cars. Sometimes termed creative industries.
Cultural intermediaries Bourdieu's term for key staff working in cultural industries such as popular music who i nterpret and promote in a selective manner certain styles of cultural 'product' and associated lifestyles. A form of social gatekeeper.
Cutturalization of the economy The idea that economic life has been transformed or has been penetrated by cultural forces. Manifest in the increased importance of non-material goods (films, popular music, magazines, etc.) and the increasing importance of image or sign values in material objects (e.g. designer clothing, spectacles). Contrast with econom-ization of culture. See also aestheimzation (of everyday life), comrnodification (of culture), cultural industries, cultural mode of production, semiotic redundancy.
Cultural materialism A theoretical perspective which recognizes that the spheres of culture and the economy are closely interrelated with no one sphere dominating the other. Attempts to avoid economic determinism. See post-Ma rxism.
Cultural mode of production The thesis that issues of culture have become dominant in contemporary economies through factors such as: the rise of cultural industries; the aestheticization of material objects; and the use of notions of culture in modern management practices.
Cultural myopia The tendency to assume that the arrangements within a nation or culture are the only set of possible arrangements or that these are a superior approach to social organization.
Cultural politics A term which indicates that issues of culture are not just concerned with aesthetics, taste and style, hut also involve issues of power and material rewards bound up with competing 'ways ol lite'. See identity politics.
Cultural practices A term which draws attention to the fact that culture is not simply about ideas but is also a product of material practices (i.e. it involves both thought and action). See discursive practices, material practices.
Cultural production The notion that culture is an integral part ot everyday social practices, involves the idea that culture is not simply a reflection of an underlying material base but is a major clement shaping society. See cultural mode ol production, economic determinism.
Cultural quarters Districts close to city centres typically made up of former industrial premises now occupied by various types of cultural or creative industry. Sec creative class.
Cultural studies A complex set of developments in social analysis that pay attention to the complexity ol cultural values and meanings. Sec culture and 'cultural turn'.
Glossary
Cultural transmission The idea that values and norms arc transmitted from one generation to the next in local Subcultures. See culture of poverty, neighbourhood effect, subculture, transmitted deprivation.
'Cultural turn' The tendency for many social sciences to pay greater attention to issues of culture. Also termed the linguistic turn because of the attention given to language and the ways in which ideas are represented. See post-structuralism, deconstruction.
Culture This may be broadly interpreted as 'ways of life'. It consists of the values that people hold, the rules and norms they obey and the material objects they use. Also commonly regarded as systems of shared meanings
(see discourse).
Culture of poverty The argument that poverty results from a distinctive culture. Closely related to the notion of transmitted deprivation.
Culture of property The way in which the housing market i n a nation or region is socially constructed by social institutions and social behaviour related to factors such as class and ethnicity.
Cyberspace A term devised by William Gibson in his novel rJeuwmancer and now used in a very broad sense to indicate developments in the sphere of advanced telecommunications. Similar to telematics.
Dasein A term used within structuration theory to indicate the time span of people's lives. Contrast with duree and iortgue duree.
Decentralization The movement of first people and later employment and services out of inner-city areas into suburban districts and then into more distant commuter hinterlands beyond city limits. May also refer to the fragmentation and geographical dispersal of organizational structures within manufacturing, services and the public sector. May be associated with devolution but the two policies are distinct. See deconcentration, delegation, edge cities, tapering.
Decision rules The criteria used by bureaucrats (usually but not necessarily in the public sector) to allocate resources in cities. Used to simplify decisions that have to be made frequently, they may not be made explicit. Also termed eligibility rides. Sec manageriaiism, social gatekeepers, 'street-level'bureau cm ts.
Deconcentration Another name for decentralization. Sec delega tion, devolut ion.
Deconstruction A form of analysis that examines the various discourses represented by various forms of representation (known as texts). These meanings are regarded as continually changing through the interactions of the reader/ viewer and the text in question.
De facto territories Areas that may be defined by reference to factors such as common interests or lifestyles (rather than just in legal terms). Contrast with de jure territories.
Defederalization The devolution of responsibilities for welfare policies from federal government to states in the United States. Associated with capped budgets and a series of policies known as workfa.re. See decentralization, 'hollowing out', postwelfare state.
Defensible space The argument that recent housing developments lack spaces that people can identify with, survey or exert control over.
Dehospitalization A term preferred by some to deinstitutionalization in recognition of the fact that community-based care can involve small institutional settings. See community care.
Deindustrialization The decline in manufacturing activity both in terms of jobs and contribution to national output. See postindustrial city.
Deinstitutionalization The closure of institutions providing long-term care for needy groups and their replacement by various alternative forms of care, including purpose-built ot converted smaller facilities and care within private households by families supported by teams of community-based professionals such as nurses, doctors and social workers. See community care, rationalization, ^institutionalization, self-provisioning, doinestication.
De jure territories Geographical areas defined according to the law (i.e. with legal powers as in political and administrative regions). Contrast with functional urban areas. See jurisdictional partitioning.
Delegation A form of decentralization in which certain functions and managerial responsibilities are delegated to neighbourhood offices but where local autonomy tends to be severely restricted by central responsibility for expenditure and targets. Contrast with deconcentration, devolution.
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Glossary
Derealization The destruction of kx.nl economic and social relationships by forces of globalization. May result in new and distinct hybrid forms rather than all places becoming similar. See glocalization, global-local nexus, McDonaldization.
Demutiicipalization Attempts by central governments to reduce the powers and responsibilities of local governments. Applied especially to the sale of local authority housing in the United Kingdom in combination with restrictions on new public sector housing construction. See governance, ghettoization, residualization.
Deregulation Policies designed to increase competition by breaking up slate monopolies and introducing a number of private agencies to provide goods and services. May also be applied to the deregulation of labour markets through policies to erode workers' rights and to increase labour flexibility. See comtnodification, rnarketization.
Design determinism Studies of the impact of the physical environment and architectural design upon human behaviour, See behaviourism, crowding theory, defensible space.
Deskillmg Strategies to reduce the skill levels and knowledge required in particular occupations.
De te r m i n i st t h eo ry A n appro a ch ih a 1 d ra ws u p o n beh avi -ourist notions to argue that city living affects behaviour. See Geselhchaft, pS)xhological overload'.
Detcrritorialization The destabilized nature of identity and meaning within postmodern society; in particular decline of forms of identity associated with particular spaces such as neighbourhoods, regions and nations. Also used as a genera] term for urban restructuring. Contrast with reterritorialization. See decomtntction, McDonaldization.
Deviant subculture   See deviant subgroup.
Deviant subgroup A group within society that has values and norms substantially different from the majority population. May be expressed in residential differentiation. Also termed deviant subculture. See culture.
Devolution The subdivision of welfare organizations into separate units, each with its own budget. Usually associated with devolution of responsibilities and with enhanced performance monitoring of the units, See also decentralization.
Dialectic A form of reasoning or analysis involving the use and possible reconciliation of opposites. See sociospatial dialectic.
Diaspora (diasporic group) The movement, either voluntarily or forced, of people from their homeland to a new territory.
Difference A term that recogniz.es the ways in which differences between categories arc socially constructed in relation to one another. See binaries. Contrast with esseittitdistn.
Disciplinary regimes Processes through which social control is exercised: socialization, the construction of dominant discourses and surveillance. See disciplinary society.
Disciplinary society A society in which control is exercised through socialization processes as manifest in schools, hospitals and factories. See interpellation, rnicropowers.
Discourse Sets of meanings that are indicated by various texts which form a way of understanding the world. See deconslruction.
Discursive practices The words, signs, symbols and ideas that arc used to represent material practices.
Disfigured city The city' that is unplanned and inhabited by deprived groups. Contrast with figured city.
Disneyfication The conscious creation of the 'theme park' city characterized by a superficial veneer of culture and often a sanitized view of history that ignores social conflict. See iinagiueering, simulacra.
Distance-decay effect The tendency for those who live furthest away from the sources of goods and services to consume them less often. This is usually attributed to the increased travel costs or the increased time involved in visiting the source of supply. Also known as tapering.
Distanciation The tendency for interactions and communications between people to be stretched across time and space through the use of books, newspapers, telephones, faxes and the Internet. Also termed space-time distanciation.
Distancing Another term for contracting-out- a situation when one organization contracts with another, external organization for the provision of a good or service.
Domestication The use of family and household labour. Has been forced upon some households (and usually women within them) through the run-down of state provision. See community care.
Domestic economy Work done within households (either informally by the family of other members of the
321
Glossary
household or formally through <lirei.il> purchased services}, See domestication, self-■provisioning.
Dominance A term used by the Chicago School to indicate the process whereby certain land uses and types of people come to dominate particular parts of cities. Also used in a general sense to indicate power relations. Sec hitman ecology.
Double hermeneutic The need for researchers Lo be aware of Lheir own values as well as Lhose of die people they are sLudying. See hermeneutics, situateduess.
Dual cities Large metropolitan centres characterized by disparities in wealth and status and/or a trend towards increasing social inequality. See global cities, social polarization.
Duree A term used within structuratlon theory to indicate the lime span of daily routines. See daesein, tifeworld, longue duree.
Ecoeentrie approach Various types of ecological movement united by a belief that environmental problems can be addressed only by a fundamental change in the capitalist system involving greater decentralized participatory democracy. Contrast with technocentric approach.
Ecological approach A term used to denote spatial or geographical analysis of cities. May also retcr to human ecology, the application of ideas concerning the distribution of plants and animals to the study ot urban social geography. See Chicago School.
Ecological fallacy The potential mistakes that can arise when making inferences about individuals from data based on aggregate information (such as for residential areas within cities). See individualistic fallacy.
Ecological modernization   See technocentric approach.
Economic determinism Theories that attempt to relate social changes directly to underlying economic changes in society and that play down the ability of people to make decisions to affect their destinies. Contrast with voluntarism.
Economic status The name frequently given lo one oi the main dimensions of urban residential structure as shown by factorial ecology — variations in the extent of wealth. See ethnic status, family status, social rank.
Economies of scale Factors that cause the average cost of a commodity to fall as the scale of output increases. There are two main types, see external economies of scale, internal economies of scale. A crucial part of Fordism.
Economies of scope Factors that make it cheaper to produce a range of commodities rather than to produce each of the individual items on their Owii. See external economies oj scope and internal economies of scope. A crucial part of neo-Fordism.
Economization of culture The idea that cultural life is increasingly dominated by commercialism (the cash nexus) and the logic of capital accumulation. Contrast with cultural-ization of the economy.
Edge cities A term coined by the journalist Joel Carreau to describe recent urban developments outside large metropolitan areas characterized by decentralized and functionally independent nodes of offices and shopping malls. See decentralization, exopolis.
Eligibility rules The criteria used by social gatekeepers to determine who has access to scarce resources in cities. These may be explicit or tacit. Usually applied to public officials such as housing managers but may also be applied to the private sector (e.g. estate agents and bankers). Also called decision rides.
Elsewhcreness The tendency tor shops and other spaces within cities to copy images from other places in other times. See placetessuess, si muter a.
Emancipation thesis The argument that ethnic residential Segregation can help the advancement of the minority group. Contrast with isolationist thesis.
Embeddedness The notion that economic behaviour is not determined by universal values that are invariant (as in neoclassical economics) but is intimately related to cultural values that may be highly specific in time and space. Also termed social embeddedness. See culture, situatedness.
Embodied knowledge Ideas and concepts that attempt tu avoid the mind/body division of the Cartesian approach and recognize that knowledge emerges from people in particular contexts. Also termed local knowledge. See embeddedness, situatedness.
Embodiment The process through which the body is socially constructed through wider systems of meaning. See corporeality, embodied knowledge.
Embourgeisement thesis The argument that working-class people moving into suburban areas adopt middle-class lifestyles based around consumption and the nuclear family. See commodity fetishism.
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Glossary
Empowerment zones An urban regeneration policy in the United States characterized by collaboration between public bodies, private enterprises and community groups. See enterprise zones.
Enabling state A key element of the new mode of governance and urban entrepreneurialism in which the direct role of the state is reduced and replaced by greater partnership between government and business interests. See coalition building, contracting-out, 'hollowing out', regime theory.
Enclave The name for a residential cluster of an ethnic minority that is a long-term phenomenon, although generally not as segregated as a ghetto. Contrast with colony.
Enculturation A broad term for the assimilation and integration of new cultural forms. Derived from anthropology but also used in cultural studies. See appropriation.
Enlightenment project (movement) The broad trend in Western intellectual thought, beginning in the Renaissance, which attempted to analyse and control society through principles of scientific analysis and rational thought. See ('artesian approach, modernism, social engineering.
Enterprise zones Zones in which special incentives such as tax exemptions or reduced planning regulations are used to encourage economic development.
Entrepreneurial cities Cities characterized by active policies to ensure economic development. Part of a new era of urban entrepreneurialism. See governance, growth coalitions.
Environmental conditioning The argument that people's behaviour is strongly influenced by their social environment. Often applied to explain the lack of social and intellectual skills of those brought up in environments lacking in sensor)' stimulation. See behaviouralisin, cultural transmission. Contrast with behaviourism.
Essentialism The notion that there are basic, unvarying elements that determine, or strongly affect, the behaviour of people and social systems (e.g. the idea that there arc inherent differences in the behaviour of men and women, or basic immutable laws of economics that govern capitalist societies). Contrast with anti-essentialisin. See also social consirtictionisni.
Ethnic group A minority group whose members share a distinctive culture. This is conceptually distinct from the notion of a racial group but in practice the two are intimately linked. See ethnicity.
Ethnicity The culture and lifestyle of an ethnic group, often manifest in distinctive residential areas of a city. Contrast with racial group. See ghetto.
Ethnic status The name frequently given to one of the main dimensions ot urban residential structure as shown by factorial ecolog)'- variations in the extent ot ethnicity. See family status, social rank.
Ethnic village A minority group that exhibits residential differentiation within a city and a distinctive culture characterized by dense social networks,
Ethnoburb A suburban area characterized by the clustering of a particular ethnic group. See boomburb, edge cities, techuoburb.
Ethnocentrism The assumption that one culture is superior to others. Usually applied to Western assumptions of technological and moral superiority. Called Eurocentrism when European culture is seen as superior.
Ethnography The study of culture, especially the values and norms of minority ethnic groups. Often linked to qualitative research methods such as participant observation and semi- or unstructured questionnaires.
Ethnoscapc Appadarai's term for the diverse landscape of mobile groups to be found in many contemporary cities: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guest workers and so on.
Exchange value The amount that a commodity such as housing can command on the market. Related to, but conceptually distinct from, use value.
Exclusion Social processes whereby certain kinds of people are prevented from gaining access to various types of resources (including public services). These may be non-material resources such as prestige. See eligibility rules, social closure.
Exclusionary closure Another name for processes whereby powerful groups exclude other groups from wealth, status and power. May be called social closure.
Exclusionary zoning Planning policies thai restrict certain types of activity and people from moving into a local government area. See purified communities.
'Exit' option A strategy of out-migration from an area in the wake of a problem. Contrast with 'loyally and 'voice' options.
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Glossary
Fxopolis Fd So/a's term to describe the idea {or discourse) of the city as an 'inside-out' metropolis characterized by edge cities. See postmodern global metropolis.
'Expressive' interaction Secondary' relationships involving some intrinsic satisfaction (such as joining a sports club). Contrast with instrumental interaction.
Extensive regime ot accumulation A phase of capitalist development during which profits were enhanced primarily through increasing the amount of output and expanding the scale of the market, rather than through increasing the productivity of workers. A key concept in certain forms of regulation theory. Contrast with the intensive regime of accumulation and the flexible regime of accumulation.
External economies of scale Factors thai reduce the costs of production when the industry to which the firm belongs is large (e.g. the development of specialist suppliers, services and skilled workers). These factors apply irrespective of the size of the individual firm. Contrast with internal economies of scale.
External economies of scope Economics of scope thar arise when the industry to which the firm belongs is large (i.e. there are a large number of producers). Contrast with internal economies of scope.
Externality An unpriced effect resulting from activities in cities. May be a benefit received by those who have not directly paid for it, or a cost (or disbenefit) incurred by those who have not been compensated. Also termed a spillover and third-party effect. May lead to free-riders.
Externalizatioii (of production) The tendency for firms to subcontract out work to other organizations (also termed vertical disintegration). Usually interpreted as a response to increasing market variability and technological change as well as a desire to reduce costs. Also related to declining internal economies of scale.
'Fabric effect' A situation in which the physical structure of the housing market has an impact on the distribution of a social group in a city. Usually7 applied to the impact of cheaper accommodation on the location of ethnic minorities.
Factor analysis A multivariate quantitative technique used to summarize the main patterns in a complex set of data. Technically very similar to principal components analysis. See factorial ecology.
Factorial ecology The application of factor analysis and principal components analysis to the study ot residential patterns in cities. See ecological approach, human ecology.
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Family status The name frequently given to one of the main dimensions of urban residential structure as shown by factorial ecology- variations in the extent of nuclear family-lifestyles. Sec ethnic status and social rank.
Feminism A broad social movement advocating equal rights for men and women. Also various forms of academic analysis that attempt lo expose the diverse processes that lead women to be oppressed. See gender, patriarchy, sexism.
Feminist geography Geographical analysis that is committed to achieving equal rights for men and women by exposing existing and past inequalities between the sexes.
Feminization The increasing numbers and influence of women in certain spheres of life. Usually applied to the workplace.
Feminization of poverty Social processes thai lead lo women becoming a relatively deprived underclass (e.g. the growth of female-headed single-parent families dependent on welfare benefits or trapped in low-paid service sector employment).
Festival retailing Shopping complexes characterized by 'spectacular' elements. See commodity fetishism, spectacle.
Fetishizing Fxaggerating the importance of a particular theory, principle, concept or factor in social analysis (such as overemphasizing the role of 'space'' in isolation of social processes). Used originally to indicate ways of obscuring class conflict. See commodity fetishism.
Figured city The city that is planned and organized for Ihe affluent. Contrast with disfigured city. See also revanchisl city.
Film noir Films predominantly from the Cold War era' of the late 1940s and 1950s thai portray cities as disturbing, corrupt, nightmarish environments.
Filtering 'Ihe thesis argued by Homer Hovt that the primary motor behind residential mobility is the construction of new dwellings tor the wealthy, thereby leading to out-migration of the more affluent from older properlies and their occupation by persons of lower social class. See sectora.1 model. Contrast with invasion model of residential mobility.
Fiscal imbalance Disparities between the needs of urban areas and the available resources to meet these needs. Commonly associated with central or inner city local governments, in US cities. See suburban exploitation thesis.
Glossary
Fiscal mercantilism Attempts by local governments Lo increase local revenues by attracting lucrative tax-able land uses. Similar to civic boosterism and civic entrepreneurialism.
Fiscal stress   See fiscal imbalance.
Fldnerie   The act of being a flaneur.
Flaneur A leisurely stroller (typically male) observing the bustle of city life. Also applied to those who browse through the Internet. See gaze.
Flaneuse A female traveller/observer (usually associated with the Imperial era).
Flexibilization A set of policies designed to increase the capacity of firms to adjust their outputs to variations in market demand. Maybe applied to forms of industrial organization and to labour practices as well as to both private and public sector bodies. See also functional flexibility and numerical flexibility.
Flexible accumulation The idea that the intensive regime of accumulation has been replaced by a new regime in which the prime emphasis is upon flexibility of production. See also regulation theory, neo-bordism, flexibilization and flexible specialization.
Flexible specialization The idea that mass production using unskilled workers is being replaced by batch production of specialized products in small companies using skilled workers. Has similarities with concept of neo-Fordism in regulation theory but is highly voluntarist in approach and is less concerned with matching industrial change to wider economic forces. See voluntarism.
Forces of production The technological basis ot a particular mode of production. See also social relations of production.
Fordism A system of industrial organization established by Henry Ford in Detroit at the beginning of the twentieth century for the mass production of automobiles. In regulation theory the concept refers to a regime of accumulation that was dominant after the Second World War based on Keynesianism, mass production and the welfare state.
'Fortress cities' Cities characterized by social inequality, crime, violence and protective strategies in local neighbourhoods designed to exclude groups regarded as dangerous. See gated communities, social polarization, 'scanscape', surveillance.
Free-riders Those who obtain benefits in cities that they have not directly paid for. See externality, suburban exploitation thesis.
Functional flexibility The capacity of firms (and public sector organizations) lo deploy the skills of their employees to match the changing tasks required by variations in workload.
Functionalism A type of reasoning incorporated, either explicitly or implicitly, into a great deal of social theory that is characterized by a number of limitations including: attributing 'needs' to social systems; assuming that social systems are functionally ordered and cohesive; assuming teleology in social systems (i.e. that events can only be explained by movement towards some pre-ordained end); assuming effects as causes; and assuming empirically unverified or utiverifiable statements as tautological statements (i.e. true by definition). May also be used to refer to a form of managerial philosophy that advocates the subdivision of organizations around particular tasks and responsibilities.
Functionalist sociology An approach to social theory, of which the sociologist 'Talcott Parsons was the principal exponent, that attempts to explain social phenomena in terms of their function in maintaining society. See functionalism, system.
Functional urban areas Cities or urban areas defined as geographical agglomerations of people predominantly engaged in non-agricultural occupations who are integrated by overlapping journey-to-work patterns. May not correspond with de jure territories.
Galactic metropolis Another term for the postmodern city in which urban areas are spread around like stars, rather than forming a single, easily identifiable, centre. See post-modernism, postmodern global metropolis.
Gastarbeiter 'Guest workers' in continental European cities but usually in Germany, and predominantly from Turkey. Assumed to be temporary workers and therefore often without full citizenship rights, many have lived in the country for many years.
Gated communities Residential areas of cities with protective measures such as barriers, fences, gates and private security guards designed to exclude social groups deemed undesirable and dangerous. See fortress cities, purified communities, Panopticon, Lscanscape', spaces of exclusion.
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Glossary
Gay ghetto A residential area of a city characterized by a high con cent rat ion of gay people. See ghetto, ghettoization.
Gaze The surveillance, scrutiny and analysis of peoples and places by observers (traditionally men). Often linked to the idea that these observers can provide a privileged, objective, value-free description of the world. Known as the imperial gaze when linked with colonialism. See also Cartesian approach, mimetic approach. Disputed by social constructionism.
Gemeinschaft Tight-knit social relationships based around family and kin that Tonnies argued were manifest in traditional agrarian environments. Contrast with Gesellschaft.
Gender Social, psychological and cultural differences between men and women (rather than biological differences of sex), its feminism, heUropairiarchy, patriarchy, sexism.
Gender roles 'Masculine' and 'feminine' ways of performing that arc derived from gender. See performativity.
Genius loci The idea that there is a unique 'spirit' of a place, sometimes captured in novels, poetry and painting.
Gentrification The renovation and renewal of run-down inner-city environments through an influx of more affluent persons such as middle-class professionals. Has led to the displacement of poorer citizens. Associated with the development ot gay areas in some cities.
Geographical imagination The need for geographers to understand the diversity of cultural values of those they study in different places (and to recognize the influence of their own values upon the frameworks they use to represent these people). See contextual theory, situatedncss.
Geographical information systems   See microsinudation.
Gerrymandering The manipulation of the boundaries of electoral subdivisions to gain political advantage.
Gesellschaft Loose-knit social relationships between people that Tonnies argued were manifest in urbanized environments. Contrast with Gemeinschaft.
Ghetto The geographical concentration of social groups. Tends to imply a high degree ot involuntary segregation. Usually applied to ethnic minorities but may also refer to older people, gays and lesbians, single parents or those who are mentally ill. See colony, enclave, service-dependent ghetto.
Ghettoization Social trends and public policies that lead to geographical concentrations of social groupings, including
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deprived groups, elderly people, single parents,- mentally ill people or ethnic minorities, often in public sector or social housing estates. The term usually implies involuntary clustering. See residualizatiun, demunic.ipulizai.ion.
Global cities Saskia Sassen's preferred term for world cities that exercise a leading role in the control and organization of the world's economy, trade and finance, denoting their place at a particular point in history (the term world cities she regards as lacking historical specificity'). They are characterized by conspicuous consumption and social polarization.
Globalization The tendency for economics and national political systems to become integrated at a global scale. Also the tendency for the emergence of a global culture (i.e. universal trends that it is argued are sweeping through all nations). See global cities.
Global-local nexus The relationships (and tensions) between forces of globalization and the distinctive features of local areas (e.g. the desire of transnalionals to manufacture at a global level yet be sensitive to the needs of particular local markets).
Glocalization A term coined by Eric Swyugedouw to indicate the ways in which developments in particular places are the outcome of both local and global forces. See globalization, global—local nexus.
'God trick' A term used by the social critic Donna Haraway to draw attention to the assumption of value-free neutrality incorporated into many scientific studies of society (i.e. the assumed capacity to see 'everything irom nowhere'). Disputed in social constructionism. See skuatedness, poststructuralism.
Governance All the methods by which societies are governed. The term is used to indicate the shift away from direct government control of the economy and society via hierarchical bureaucracies towards indirect control via diverse non-governmental organizations. Associated with the demise of local forms of government. May also be termed urban governance. See 'hollowing out', quango, quasi-state.
Grand metaphors Theories based around metaphors that purport to provide comprehensive explanations tor the world around us {e.g. Fordist/post-Eordist cities). Sec totalizing narrative.
Grands ensembles Large-scale, high-density and typically high-rise developments of social housing in suburban areas of French cities.
Glossary
Grounded theory An approach that lets the data 'speak for itself without making prior assumptions about the relationships to be found.
Growth coalitions Partnerships of private and public sector interests that implement strategies to enhance the economic development of cities and regions, largely through attracting inwards investment, mostly from the private sector but also from public funds. Also termed civic boosterism and civic entrepreneurialism. See regime theory. Coalitions may also be anti-growth. See exclusionary zoning.
Habitus The termed coined by the social theorist Pierre Bourdieu to indicate the culture associated with people's lifeworldthat involves both material and discursive elements.
Hegemonic discourse The prevailing ideology, or dominant set of ideas in society. See discourse, hegemony.
Hegemony Domination through consent, largely induced by hegemonic discourse that shape people's attitudes. See interpellation. May be reflected in the iconography of landscapes and buildings.
Heritage landscapes Older elements of city structure that have been preserved through renovation or conversion to new uses.
Hermeneulies Theories that examine the complexity of people's views, ideas and subjective interpretations of the world around them.
Heteropatriarchal environment An area in which the values of patriarchy and heterosexuality are dominant (i.e. most parts of cities).
Hetcropatriarchy A term that recognizes that the system of patriarchy is dominated by heterosexual values.
Heteropolis   See postmetropohs.
Heterotopia A term used by Michel Foucault to denote spaces comprising many diverse cultures outside, and in opposition to, the mainstream of society. Sometimes called a counter-site. Is analogous to a ship, part of, yet detached from, a wider culture. May also be used in a general sense to refer to the culture of postmodernism. See also alterity, borderlands, liminal space, spaces 0} resistance, third space.
Historical materialism The philosophy that underpins classical Marxism which argues that there is a material base - the means of production - which is the foundation of all social action.
'Hollowing out' The transfer of powers from the nation state to political units at other levels such as the supranational or subnational level. May also refer to the transfer of powers at the local government level to private sector organizations rather than other political jurisdictions. Also used to refer to the contracting-out of activities by private corporations. See governance.
Homeland The geographical space to which a national or ethnic groups feels that it naturally belongs. Often associated with diasporic groups who long to return to their place of origin. May also be used to denote the family home as a place of safety and retreat.
Homosexuality Mutual emotional and physical attraction between people of the same sex, The term is resisted by many gays and lesbians because it stems from the period when same sex attraction was seen as a social disease. See queer.
Housing associations The not-for-profit voluntary sector of housing provision in the United Kingdom.
Housing submarkets Distinctive types of housing in localized areas of cities that, through various institutional mechanisms, tend to be inhabited by people of a particular type (e.g. in terms of class, age or ethnicity). See culture of housing, 'fabric effect', managerialism.
Human agency   Another term for agency. See voluntarism.
Human ecology The application of ideas from the plant and the animal world to the study of residential patterns in cities. An approach of the Chicago Scltool.
Humanism The idea that people share a common humanity (i.e. similar characteristics which can explain human behaviour). Disputed by discourse theory.
Hybridity A term used in postcolonial theory to indicate the new forms that are created by the merging of cultures. Linked in the past with imperialist notions of racial superiority (which were considered to be undermined by racial Í nterbreeding) but now alludes to the fact that identities are not stable but full of ambivalence. Criticized for assuming that cultures can mbc in an unproblematic manner through a process of assimilation. See liminal space, third, space. Also termed synergy, transculturation.
Hyperreality Sets of signs within forms of representation such as advertising that have internal meanings with each other, rather than with some underlying reality. May also be
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Glossary
ihoughL of as copies that become more important than, or take, on separate meanings from, the originals they represent. See simulacra.
Hyperspace An environment dominated by hyperrealily (such as Disneyland).
Icon An image, landscape, building or other material artefact that symbolizes cultural meanings. See iconography.
Iconography The study ot signs known as icons. Similar to: semiology but is especially concerned with landscapes. May reflect dominant power relations and the hegemony in society.
[deal type A notion derived from ideal type analysis that attempts to simplify and exaggerate key elements of reality for the sake of conceptual and analytic clarity.
Tdentity(ies) The elements that make up die view that people take of themselves (e.g. class, race, age, place). In cultural studies identity is seen as the unstable product of discourse - hence the use of the plural term identities. Contrast with essentialism. See also interpellation, subjectivity.
Identity politics Political action based around particular identities. Often used to refer to political action other than class conflict (e.g. gay rights or disability action groups). Maybe related to place. See community action.
Ideological superstructure Sets of institutions such as schools and the family that reinforce ideas that serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful. These are distinguished from the underlying economic base. Also termed slaw apparatuses. See relative autonomy.
Ideology Ideas that support the interests of the wealthy and powerful. May also be used in a general sense to refer to any belief system.
Imaginative geographies The way in which we project our own attitudes and beliefs in representations oi people and places. See geographical imagination.
Imagined communities A term coined by Benedict Andersen to describe the discourses used to construct senses of national identity,
Imagineering The conscious creation of places with characteristics similar to other places (as in Disneyland). Ollen seen as the creation of a superficial veneer or facade oi culture. See Disneyfcation, elsewhereness, McDonaldiztition, placelessness, simulacra.
Imperialism The actions and attitudes of a country that dominates distant territories. Often associated with dominant metropolitan centres. Leads to colonialism. See also colonial discourse, postcolonial theory.
Imperialist discourse The ideas that underpin and legitimize colonial rule. Sec colonialism, imperialism, postcolonial society/state.
Impersonal competition An idea emerging from the Chicago School of human ecology referring to the economic processes that distribute people into residential areas of differing wealth and status.
Index of dissimilarity A quantitative measure of the extent to wrhich a minority group is residential!)' segregated within a city. See segregation.
Individualistic fallacy The potential mistakes that can arise when attempting to make inferences about groups of people (such as in residential neighbourhoods) based on information for individuals. Contrast with ecological fallacy.
Industrial cities Cities of the type .that emerged in the nineteenth century dominated by manufacturing activity (sometimes termed 'smokestack industries'). Contrast with postindustrial cities.
Informal economy Economic activity that is unrecorded (also known as the 'hidden' economy).
Informational city Manuel Castells' term for the city structures associated with the information economy. See cyberspace, spaces of flows.
Information economy The growing importance of knowledge (both scientific, technical and fashion related) in contemporary economies. See aesthelicizalion.
Instanciation The idea that the social structures do not exist 'out there' independently of people but are continually creared by people through their everyday interactions. See structu ration theory.
'Instrumental' interaction Secondary relationships designed to achieve a particular objective, such as joining a business organization. Contrast with expressive interaction,
Instrumentalism The theory that both the central and local state serve the interests of capitalist ruling classes, who are represented by the upper-class social background of key politicians, law-makers, bureaucrats and officials, Contrast with pluralism.
Intensification Increases in labour productivity through managerial and organizational changes.
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Glossary
Intensive regime of accumulation A period of history during which profits were enhanced through increasing the efficiency with which inputs to the production system were used. Also termed fordism. See regulation theory, regime of accumulation.
Intentionality The idea that physical objects (including buildings) have no intrinsic meanings in themselves but take on meaning in relation to their intended use.
Internal economies of scale Factors that lower the cost of production for a. firm, irrespective of the size ofthe industry to which the firm belongs. These factors usually involve high levels of output which lead to the possibility' of specialist machines that can increase rates of productivity and which thereby help to recoup the costs of installing such machinery. Contrast with externa! economies of scale. See also Fordism.
Internal economies of scope Factors that lower the costs ol production when the number of products made within the firm increases. When internal economies of scope begin to decline they can lead to vertical disintegration as firms lake advantage of external economies of scope. See new industrial spaces.
Internal markets Attempts to introduce market mechanisms within public sector organizations by dividing them up into separate units for the purchase' and supply of services and by establishing various contracts and trading agreements between these agencies.
Interpellation The discourses that shape the view that people lake of themselves (e.g. as in regard to concepts of citizenship). Used in connection with Marxian notions of hegemonic discourse. See state apparatuses, subjectivity.
Tntersubject.ivity The shared sets of meanings that people have about themselves (and where they live) resulting from their everyday experience. See lifeworld.
Intertextuality The continually changing meanings thai result irom the interactions between the reader/observer and the text. Part of a form of analysis known as deconstruction. Contrast with mimetic approach.
Invasion A concept derived from the study of plants and animals used by the Chicago School of human ecologists to refer to the process whereby a new social group may begin to 'invade' a residential district. Contrast with filtering. See also succession.
In verse-care law The idea thai welfare services such as health care are poorest in the most needy areas. Evidence is
contradictory so this is a tendency rather than a law. See race preference hypothesis, territorial justice, underclass.
Investment and technical change Capital investment in new forms of machinery and equipment. Often associated with employment loss.
Isolationist thesis The argument that ethnic residential segregation is undesirable since it leads to reduced contact (fewer 'ethnic bridges') between the minority and the majority population. This in turn leads to reduced assimilation both in structural terms (i.e. education, employment and access to resources) and also in cultural terms (i.e. adoption of mainstream values and norms). See emancipation thesis.
Joint supply The idea that some goods and services have characteristics such that if they can be supplied to one person, they can be supplied to all other persons ai no extra cost. See dieory of public goods.
Jurisdictional partitioning The subdivision of nation states into political and administrative units with responsibility for the allocation of goods and services. See Balkanization, tie jure te.iritori.es.
Keno capitalism A model of city structure derived from los Angeles that consists of a random set of elements (hence the analogy with random cards drawn in the game of keno). The antithesis of the centralized industrial city. See postmodern global metropolis, exopolis.
Keynesianism A set ol policies that underpinned the welfare state, in the 1950s and 1960s. The objective was to manage economies by countering the lack of demand in recessions through government spending — hence the term 'demand management'. This approach was undermined by inflation and high unemployment in the 1970s. A key element of Fordism. See post-Keynesianism.
Keynesian welfare state (KWS) A welfare, state underpinned by Keynesian demand-management policies. Also characterized by universal benefits, citizens' rights and increasing standards of provision through the social wage. See also Keynesianism and welfare statism.
Labour theory of value Karl Marx's explanation for creation of value in capitalist societies. The idea that the value of products should not reflecl then exchange value in markets but their use value - the amount of socially necessary labour that goes into their production. See surplus value.
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Glossary
Laissez-faire The ideology that underpinned many capitalist societies in the nineteenth century which argued lhal the state should not intervene in the operation of private markets. See New Right
Landscapes of power Sharon /.ukiu's term tor the spaces of cities newly restructured in the interests ofpowerful economic interests. See gentriftcalian, reterritortalization, revanchistcity.
Late capitalism The idea that capitalism has reached a phase that is fundamentally different from previous eras characterized by globalization, mass consumption ol diverse products and a culture of postmodernism involving moral relativism. Sometimes equated with flexible accumulation, or neo-Fordism.
Late modernism Anthony Giddens' interpretation of the cultural and political practices associated with postmodernism. Rather than constituting a rupture with the modernism of the past, Giddens sees the contemporary period as a late stage of modernism characterized by a high degree of reflexivity among both intellectuals and citizens. Also characterized by militarism and surveillance.
Legitimating agent An institution that makes the capitalist system acceptable through promulgating certain ideas and/ or by acting in a particular fashion (e.g. through the provision of social housing or ideas of citizenship in education). See hegemony, hegemonic discourse, ideology, local state.
Legitimation Social processes that make capitalism seem acceptable. See legitimating agent.
Liberalism A set of ideas that underpin the Western democracies. Characterized by a belief in the value of the individual whose rights should not be subordinated to those ol society as a whole; tolerance for opposing views; and a belie! in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes. See also ue.olibe.ral policies, libertarianism and New Rigltt.
Libertarian ism A form of New Right theory which argues that, apart from preserving property rights, the state should leave individuals to do whatever they wish.
Lifeworld The routine patterns of everyday life. The concept is closely linked with phenomenology and focuses upon the cultural meanings that people ascribe to the spaces that they inhabit. See habitus, time—geography.
l.iminal space An in-between space or territory in which cultures mix and interact to create new hybrid forms. See ambivalence, borderland, heterotopia, hybridity, paradoxical space, third space.
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Linguistic turn Another term for the 'cultural turn' in the social sciences denoting increased attention paid to language and issues of representation.
Local economic trading systems (LETS) Groups of people in a local area involved in economic activity using a system of credit based around the exchange of goods and services instead of the national currency.
Locales Distinctive settings or contexts in which interactions between people take place. Sec structuration theory, contextual theory and recursiveness.
Locality studies A type of study undertaken predominantly by geographers in Britain in the 1980s that attempted to examine how7 global forces interacted with the characteristics of local areas.
Local knowledge Another name for embodied knowledge. See situatedness.
Local state Another term for local government. Also associated with a Marxian theory that interprets local governments as serving to maintain the capitalist system and the class interests behind it. See functionalist}!.
Logocentrism The belief in a world composed of a central inner meaning and logic.
'Long boom' (ol Fordism) The period after the Second World War between 1945 and the mid-1970s when, according to regulation theory, there was in the Western economies a relatively harmonious matching of production and ioilr sumption. See Fordism, regime of accumulation.
I.ongue duree A term used in structuration theor)1 to indicate the time span over which social institutions such as the family and legal system evolve. See daesein, duree.
'Los Angeles School' Another term for the California School. Sec also postmodern global metropolis.
'Loyalty' option A strategy of resignation and inactivity in the face of a problem. Contrast with 'exit'And 'voice' options.
Malapportionment Electoral subdivisions of unequal size. Sec gerrymandering.
Managerialism A type of analysis that focuses upon the influence of managers upon access to scarce resources and local services. Also known as urban managerialism. These managers are also known as social gatekeepers and 'street' level' bureaucrats. See eligibility rules.
Glossary
Manipulated city hypothesis The argument that coalitions of private interests can operate through legal and institutional frameworks in cities to achieve favourable resource allocations. See coalition building, growth coalitions, parapolitical structure, regime theory.
Margins Areas on the fringes of a dominant region, May also be used metaphorically Lo indicate cultures on the fringes of dominant cultures where new hybrid identities are being formed. See borderlands, hybridily.
Marketization Transferring the allocation ot goods and services from non-market to market principles, See internal markets, commodificatio 11.
Market testing A process whereby various external organizations are invited to bid for contracts by an organization wishing to lest the efficiency of its own internal division in supplying the good or service in question. See contracting-in, umtracting-out.
Marxian theories   See neo-Marxism.
Masculinism An approach that privileges and represents as normal the activities of men.
Materialization Restructuring a service into a physical form that can be bought, sold and transported.
Material spatial practices Flows of money, goods and people across space to facilitate accumulation and social reproduction. May also be termed material spatial practices. Contrast with discursive practices.
Mediation A term used in cultural studies to indicate the processes through which cultural forms and styles are appropriated and reinterpreted by certain people and before being passed on to others. See cultural industries, cultural intermediaries.
McDonaldizalion A term coined by G. Ritzer to indicate the ways in which processes ot mass consumption are eroding cultural differences throughout the world. See globalization.
Megacities Manuel CasLells' term for large cities in which some people are connected to global information flows while others are disconnected and 'information poor'.
Mental map The mental images that people form of areas. See cognitive distance.
Merit goods Goods and services that are regarded as so desirable they cannot be left lo private markets and are allocated by the public sector. The reason for this is that the
benefits to the community exceed those to the individual, so the latter will tend to consume too little for the common good.
Mestizo A term originally used lo indicate racial mixing of European and indigenous peoples in Latin America but now used in a general sense to indicate both geographical and metaphorical spaces on the margins of dominant cultures where new hybrid forms of identity can emerge (from the Spanish term mestizaje). See borderlands, creolization, heterotopia, hybridity, liminal space, third space.
Metanarrative A theory or conceptual framework thai purports to be a superior way of looking at the world providing superior or privileged insights. Also known as a totalizing narrative. See also postmodernism, decpnstructkm.
Metropolitan fragmentation The administrative subdivision of US cities into numerous local governments. Also known as Balkanization and jurisdictional partitioning
Mieropowers Everyday interactions through which social control becomes exercised. See disciplinary regimes.
Micro-simulation Numerical techniques that use detailed cross-tabulations for observations such as individuals and households obtained at large spatial scales to simulate complex information at smaller spatial scales. Also used to integrate at a small spatial scale data from different sources and various spatial scales.
Mimetic approach The idea that writing and other forms of representation are mirrors that reflect the world around us. Contrast with social constructionism.
Mimicry A term used in postcnbnial theory lo indicate the copying of the culture ot'the dominant group by a colonized people. May lead to an undermining of authority through the development of hybridity and mockery. See ambivalence, liminal space, third space.
Minority group A subgroup of society that is characterized by factors such as race, religion, nationality or culture.
Mixed ecorj om y o f welfa re A sy st em i n wh i ch well a re nee d s arc met by a diverse set of agencies including the voluntary and private sectors rather than exclusively by the state. Also termed welfare pluralism.
Mode of production The way in which productive activity in society is organized (e.g. socialist or capitalist). It comprises Lhe forces of production and the social relations of production. It also involves methods of social reproduction, the social division oflabour and the technical division of labour.
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Glossary
Mode of regulation An idea central to regulation theory which asserts that conflicts within a capitalist society are mediated by various types of norms, rules and regulations that are manifest in various types of legislation and institutions. See also regime of accumulation.
Modernism A mode of thinking characterized by a belief in universal progress through scientific analysis together with the notion that social problems can be solved by the application of rational thought. See Enlightenment protect, social engineering.
Modernity The period in which modernism was the dominant mode of thinking beginning in the late eighteenth century (the Age of Enlightenment) and lasting until the late twentieth century.
Mo n umental architect u re Archi t ec t u ra I fo mi s th at sym bol -jze power and authority. See iconography, monuments.
Monuments Elements of the landscape that have symbolic meaning, usually for national and ethnic groups (e.g. war memorials).
Moral landscape A landscape that incorporates many dominant societal values in ways that are often taken for granted (e.g. the Christian values embodied in the cathedral of the medieval European city or the materialism embodied in the shopping mall of the contemporary suburb).
Morphogenesis Processes that create and reshape the physical fabric of urban form.
Morphological regions Areas characterized by distinctive land uses, buildings and landscapes. See morphogenesis.
Multiculturalism Public policies that support the right of ethnic groups to maintain their distinctive cultures rather than assimilate into the dominant culture of the society. Also involves policies to promote equal opportunities for participation in society irrespective of ethnic background. Contrast with assimilation. See also structural assimilation.
Multinationals Companies engaged in production and marketing in more than one country. Sometimes regarded as synonymous with transnationals although the latter has a somewhat different meaning,
Multiple deprivation A situation where people are deprived in respect of a number of attributes such as income, housing, health care and education. See territorial social indicators.
Multiple nuclei model Hants and Ullman's model of urban city structure characterized by decentralization into numerous central points. See also edge cities, exopolis, keno capitalism. Contrast with concentric zone model and sectoral model.
Multiplex city A metaphor based on the theatre or the cinema to indicate cities characterized by numerous webs of social and economic interaction, some of which meet in creative ways and some of which remain isolated or disconnected.
Municipal socialism A form of local government that emerged in Victorian cities between 1850 and 1910 concerned to extend the scope of public services.
Natural areas An idea formulated by the Chicago School of human ecologists which asserts that certain areas of cities have a natural tendency to reflect a particular type of land use or social grouping. See dominance.
Naturalization The process whereby socially constructed differences centred around factors such as class, gender, race, age and nationality are regarded as natural and inevitable. See essentialism.
Neighbourhood Territories containing people of broadly-similar demographic, economic and social characteristics but without necessarily displaying elements of close community interaction. See community.
Neighbourhood effect The hypothesis that residential environments both influence and reflect local subcultures. See cultural transmission.
Neoclassical economics Attempts to update the ideas of the classical economists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Characterized by belief in the value of market mechanisms. The approach tends to focus on microlevel individual market problems rather than wider economic issues. It looks for universal, unchanging principles of human economic behaviour and tends to ignore the social context of economic activity. Contrast with embeddediiess and situated/less.
Neocolonialism The domination of previously colonized countries by former colonial powers in the period after colonialism, See postcolonial theory.
Neoeorporalism Corporatist forms of social organization designed to increase the competitiveness of the economy. See Schumpeterian workfare stale. Contrast with neoliberal-ism and neostatism.
332
Glossary
N e o - F ord ism A n c w regi n le of a ecu n 111la tio s i ba sed a ro mi d flexibility that it is assumed has, or is about to, replace the Fordist regime of accumulation based on mass production. Similar to flexible accumulation. Contrast with Fordism. Also used more generally lo refer to lower-order concepts such as labour practices and forms of industrial organization.
Neoliberal policies (also neoliberalism) Strategics to make economies competitive by various types of New Right policy including privatization and deregulation. Contrast with neocorporatism and neostatism. (May sometimes be referred to as neoclassical liberalism.)
Neo-Marxism Attempts to upgrade classical Marxist theories in the light of development in social theory and society in the twentieth century. Also termed Marxian and post-Marxist theories.
Neopluralism Attempts to update pluralism in the wake of extensive criticism.
Neostatism Direct state intervention to achieve international competitiveness. Contrast with neocorporatism and neoliberalism.
Network society The idea that societies {and the cities within them) consist of an ever-complex flow of diverse factors including knowledge, ideas, images, money, commodities, services and people. See spaces of flows.
New economic geography A diverse set of approaches in geography unified by their desire to escape the abstract reasoning of neoclassical economics and take account of culture, embeddednessand local contingency upon economic forms and processes.
New industrial spaces The geographical concentration of firms involved in dense networks of subcontracting and collaboration. Often related to innovative firms in sectors such as electronics and biotechnology. Also termed 'industrial districts' (although the latter term is often applied to small districts within cities). May be linked with flexible specialization and neo-fordism.
New Right A set of ideas that share a common belief in the superiority of market mechanisms as the most efficient means of ensuring the production and distribution ot goods and services.
New social movements See social movements, identity politics.
'New Wave' management theory A set uf ideas that stress the advantages of demolishing elaborate managerial hierarchies and their replacement by 'leaner/Hatter' managerial structures. Often associated With devolution.
NIMBY ('not in my backyard') An acronym for community action groups hostile to urban development in their neighbourhood. See exclusionary zoning, externality, 'turfpolitics.
Nomadization The destabilization of identities. This may result from geographical movement between cultures but the term is often used metaphorically. See authenticity'.
Non-excludability The idea that some goods and services have characteristics such that it is impossible to withhold them from those who do not wish to pay for them. See theory of public goods, non-rejec.labilily.
Non-rejectability The idea that some goods and services have characteristics such that once they are supplied to one person, they must be consumed by all, even those who do not wish to do so. See theory of public goods, non-excludability.
Non-scalar approach An approach to geographical analysis that refuses to equate processes with particular scales or levels of analysis, either geographical or institutional (such as the neighbourhood, city, firm or region).
Normative (theory) A theory that deals with what ought lo be. Contrast with positive theory.
Not-for-profit sector A term often used in the United States to denote the charitable or voluntary sector.
Nuclear family A family consisting of a married couple and dependent children. Often celebrated as an ideal family form. Characteristic of many suburban areas but diminishing in importance in Western societies. See family status.
Numerical flexibility The ability of firms (and public sector organizations) to adjust their labour inputs over time to meet variations in output. May be in the form of temporary, part-time or casualized forms of working.
Object hi cation A form of scientific analysis inherent in modernism that purports to subject people to objective scrutiny but typically leads to them being regarded as different and inferior. Often associated with the use of binary categories and exclusion. See binaries, gaze, othering.
Orientalism A term coined by Edward Said to describe the ways in which European thought constructed a view of the Orient. See discourse, othering.
333
Glossary
Othering A term used in posteolonial theory to indicate the discourses that surround colonized people. Also a mode of thinking that leads to people being regarded as different and inferior. A key element in the work of Foucault on those excluded from power, including prisoners, gays and the mentally ill. See objectification, post-colonial theory.
Outreach services Services that travel to the consumer (such as lire or ambulance services). Contrast with point-specific services.
Overdetermination A term used in Marxian theory that denotes that social structures and behaviour have more than one determining factor and cannot therefore be reduced to economic factors alone. Contrast with economic determinism. See also relative autonomy.
Panopticon A metaphor derived from Jeremy Rentham's nineteenth-century plan for a model prison in which a central tower would enable all inmates to be kept under continual surveillance. Used to describe the processes whereby people are scrutinized and controlled in contemporary society. See disciplinary society, gaze.
Paradigmatic city A city that illustrates more clearly than others the key features of urban patterns and processes in a particular period (e.g. Manchester in the nineteenth century, Chicago in the early twentieth century and (possibly?) Los Angeles in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries). See Chicago School, Los Angeles School.
Paradoxical space   Another term for third space.
Parapolitical structure Informal groups that mediate between individuals and the state in the operation of politics [e.g. business organizations, trade unions, community action groups, voluntary organizations). See coalition building, governance.
Pariah city A city that is stigmatized in the wake of extreme social problems and financial difficulties. Set fiscal imbalance.
Patriarchy7 Social arrangements such as in the form ol institutional practices and prevailing social attitudes that enable men to dominate women.
Performance The ways in which identities are socially constructed through particular ways of acting and not the result of some biological essence. See subjectivity, subjectivities, subject positions.
Performativity The process through which identities are constructed. See performance. Also the practice of monitoring the performance of workers. Can involve worker productivity and efficiency in terms of output but also the extent to which workers perform certain roles, as in service jobs. Used as a defining clement of postmodernism through new forms of governance. Also a key element of View wave' management theory.
Phenomenology A set of perspectives that focus upon people's subjective interpretations of the world, rather than some external objective reality. Contrast with mimetic approach. See life world.
Place A term used by geographers to indicate that the characteristics of territories or spaces are socially constructed (but also have a material base). See social constructionism.
Placelessness The tendency7 for spaces in contemporary cities to be modelled on other places but in ways that produce a uniform, anonymous pastiche. See elsewhereness, simulacra.
Place marketing   See place promotion.
Place promotion Pol icies to encourage economic development through advertising, lobbying and other incentives such as Lax exemptions. Also used to encourage tourism. See civic boosterism.
Pluralistic model A theory which argues that the diverse interest groups in US cities have equal access to the democratic system and there is no systematic bias in favour of one particular group (e.g. business or labour interests), Contrast with instrumentalism.
Point- (or place-) specific services Services (either public or private sector) that have to be located at a particular point, such as a school or libraries. Contrast with outreach services.
Polarization   See social polarization.
Polity A type of government (i.e. democratic, fascist, etc.) See civil society.
Polyvalency The capacity of workers to undertake multiple tasks. Another name for functional flexibility.
Positional good A good that displays the status of the consumer. See cultural capital.
Positionality The values adopted by an individual. Linked to the argument that writings arc not an objective mirror of reality but reflect the cultural context in which they are produced. Contrast with the mimetic approach. See
con textual theory and situatedness.
334
Glossary
Positive theory A theory that is concerned with what actually exists (rather than what ought to be). Contrast with normative theory.
Postcolonial society/state A nation that has gained independence following a period of colonialism. May be associated with appropriation, ambivalence and hybridity.
Postcolonial theory An approach that examines the discourses running through Western representations of non-Western societies, both in the colonial period and in contemporary texts. A perspective that attempts to subvert the notion, embedded in these writings, that Western thought is superior. Attempts to expose ethnocenirism. See also colonialism, imperialism, otheriug.
'Postindustrial' societies Cities dominated by service activity. Often the outcome of deinduslrialization. May exhibit postmodern forms of consumption and culture, and the postwelfare society.
Post-Keynesianism A term that encompasses both economic-theory which has emerged to replace Keynesian theory as well as broader social and economic conditions following the demise of the Keynesian welfare state. See Keynesianism, postwelfare state/society.
Post-Marxism Another name for neo-A4arxist theory. Places greater emphasis upon cultural issues than classical Marxism. Attempts to avoid economic determinism. May also be used as a catch-all phrase for various postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives that attempt to avoid being metanarratives.
Postmetropolis Another term for postmodern global metropolis. Sec galactic metropolis, heteropolis.
Postmodern global metropolis Ed Soja's term to describe the structure of Los Angeles that is seen as an archetype of new urban forms. See galactic metropolis, California School.
Postmodernism A term with many meanings: rejection of the idea that there is one superior way of understanding the world (see metanarralive and totalizing narrative); a type of analysis known as deconstruction; a style characterized by eclecticism, irony and pastiche (as in architecture but also in writing and advertising); a period of history and a cultural trend that is the logical accompaniment to the era of neo-Fordisrn or flexible accumulation.
Poststructuralism A type of analysis. Unlike structuralism, which assumes a close relationship between the signijier
and the signified, poststructuralism assumes that these are disconnected and in a continual state of flux. Sec decon-struction, text, intertextualiiy.
Postwelfare state/society A term used to indicate the broad range of changes to the welfare state in contemporary societies including residuaiization and privatization. Also used to indicate broader cultural shifts such as the move towards greater privatism and an ethic of self-sufficiency. May be linked to notions of neo-Fordism. See also Schumpeterian workfare state.
Power geometries Massey's term for a relational approach to geography. Sec also non-scalar approach.
Preindustrial city A city without an industrial base, usually in earlier historical periods before the Industrial Revolution.
'Primary' relationships Social ties between family members and friends. Contrast with secondary relationships.
Principal components analysis A quantitative technique used by geographers for summarizing large data sets that is technically very similar to factor analysis and used within factorial ecology.
Privatism An ideology underpinning most Western capitalist societies, based around belief in superiority of private ownership of wealth and the allocation of goods and sen-ices by market mechanisms. See liberalism.
Privatization A diverse set of policies designed to introduce private ownership and/or private market allocation mechanisms to goods and services previously allocated and owned by the public sector. Sec asset sales, commercialization, commodiftcation and marketizatton.
Professionalization thesis The argument that the social structure of Western societies is displaying an increase in professional and managerial groups. Contrast with proletarianization thesis. Se also creative cities.
Pro-growth coalition Another name for growth coalitions. See also civic entrepreneurialism.
Projective identification A tendency to define one's own culture in terms of the imagined failings of other cultures. See binaries, otheriug.
Proletarianization thesis The argument that the social structure of Western societies is becoming biased towards lower social classes. Contrast with professionalization thesis. See also deskilling, social polarization.
335
Glossary
Properly-led development The regeneration of urban areas by private speculators investing in office properties. See urban development corporations.
Proprietarization The tendency for voluntary or non-profit agencies to adopl the strategies of private sector organizations. See commercialization,
'Psvchic overload' The proposition thai the diversity, density and anonymity of social relationships in cities lead to anxiety and nervous disorders. Similar to psychological overload'.
'Psychological overload' The notion rhat in urban environments people arc bombarded with stimuli that may lead to aloofness, impersonality and deviant behaviour. See
behaviourism, GeseUschaft.
Public goods Goods and services that have characteristics which make it impossible for them to be allocated by private markets. May also be used in a general sense to indicate goods and services provided by the public sector. See theory of public goods.
Public space A space that is owned by the state or local government and in theory is accessible to all citizens but which in reality maybe policed to exclude some sections of society.
Public sphere Forums in which people can discuss issues on the basis of equality (at least in theory if not in practice). See civil society. May literally be a space in the city (such as Speakers' Comer in London).
Purified communities A term coined by Richard Sennett to indicate the ways in which some groups attempt to segregate themselves from other groups whom they consider to be different and inferior. See authenticity.
Purified space   Another term for purified communities.
Quality-of-life indices Social measures of people's lives (as a supplement to or in place of economic indices), May also be termed social indicators, and measures of social well-being. See territorial social indicators.
Quango An acronym for quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organization. See governance, 'hollowing out'.
Quantitative approach Studies that attempted to analyse the world in a scientific, value-tree manner developing universal laws of human behaviour based on mathematical models and statistics. Contrast with situatedness. See also 'god trick'.
336
Quasi-market A market in which goods and services are purchased for consumers by intermediaries (as when health care is purchased by hospital administrators or physicians). See internal markets.
Quasi-stale New institutions that undertake roles previously performed by central and local government but that are now outside traditional channels of democratic control. See governance, quango, shadow state.
Queer An abusive term for homosexuals that has been adopted by advocates of queer theory. See also queer politics.
Queer politics Political practices such as those advocated by the gay activist group Queer Nation including 'kiss ins' and 'mock weddings' that attempt to subvert dominant naturalized notions of sexuality.
Queer theory A theory, much inspired by the work of Michel Foacauit, that attempts to expose the fluid and socially constructed character of sexual identities. The appropriation of the abusive word queer is meant to draw attention, in an ironic way, to the repressive character of social discourses surrounding sexuality.
Race-preference hypothesis The argument thai some ethnic groups (typically African-Americans or Latinos) receive the worst levels of both public and private sector service provision. See underclass hypothesis.
Racial group A group of people who arc assumed to be biologically distinct because of some characteristic of physical appearance, usually skin colour or facial appearance. Since these differences are of no greater significance than other physical attributes such as hair colour, a racial group is one in which certain physical attributes are selected as being ethnically significant. See racism, ethnicity, ethnic group.
Racism A set of ideas and social practices that ascribe negative characteristics to a particular racial group who are mistakenly assumed to be biologically distinct. See ethnic group.
Rationalization The closure of industrial capacity typically-leading to employment loss. May also refer to the closure of facilities within the welfare state. See deindustrialization.
Recapitalization A broad term for various New Right policies designed to put the interests of business at the top o f t h e p o I i t i ca 1 agenda. See Schumpeterian work fan• state.
Reccntralization A trend for the reconcentration of facilities in urban centres following a period of decentralization.
Sec gentrification.
Glossary
Recommodification The reallocation of goods and services from non-market to market mechanisms. Similar to market-tzation, c.ommoditication.
Recursiveness A key element of structuratiort theory which recognizes that social systems are made up of the numerous everyday interaction of people. Also termed recurrent social practices.
'Redlining* The practice by building societies and mortgage companies of withholding loans for properties in areas of cities that are perceived to be bad risks.
Reflexive accumulation I ash and Urry's term to describe the emerging economy characterized by services, knowledge-intensive industries and the aesthetieization of products. Argued to be a superior concept to both flexible specialization and flexible accumulation that are production dominated and ignore the growth of the cultural industries.
Reflexivity The capacity of people to have knowledge of die situations that face them and to make choices based on this knowledge. See human agency.
Regime of accumulation An abstract concept central to regulation theory which claims that from time to time within capitalist societies there emerge stable sets of social, economic and institutional arrangements that serve to link production and consumption. See also mode, of regulation, Fordism,, neo-Fordism.
Regime theory An approach that examines how various coalitions of interests come together to achieve outcomes in cities {often the promotion of local economic development by pro-growth coalitions of business interests). Argues that power does not flow automatically but has to be actively acquired.
Regulation theory A set of Marxist-in spired ideas that attempt to relate changes in labour practices and forms of industrial and social organization to wider economic developments and the changing relations between nation states. See regime ofaccumulation, mode of regulation, Fordism and neo-Fordism.
Reifkation Treating people as objects (but may also involve regarding objects as having agency).
Reinstitutionalization The process whereby ex-patients of welfare institutions that have been closed, such as psychiatric hospitals, end up in other types of institution, especially prisons. See deinstitutionalization.
Relative autonomy The idea embodied in certain structuralist approaches that the ideological superstructure is not rigidly determined by the economic base of society. See also economic determinism, fancl.ionalism, overdetermination, state apparatuses.
Relational approach An approach that focuses upon the interrelationships between phenomena and tries to avoid equating processes with particular scales or levels of analysis. Tries to avoid essentialism. See non-scalar approach.
Relativism The notion that truth and knowledge are relative to particular times and places. See embodied knowledge, situa.ted.ne5s.
Rent gap The disparity' between the rents currently charged for run-down, inner-city areas and their potential market rents following renovation. If large can lead to urban development and gentnfeation. See also revanchtsl city.
Representation All the ways in which societies portray themselves and the world around them.
Representations of space Lefebvre's term for the discoutses used to represent areas. See material practices and -paces of representation. Also termed representational space.
Reproduction A metaphor derived from biology used within Marxian theory to refer to all the elements needed to ensure maintenance of the capitalist system. Also termed social reproduction. See accumulation.
Reserve army of labour The idea derived from classical Marxism that with in capitalist economies there are groups of marginalized low-income workers who are given employment in times of high demand and laid off in times of recession.
Residential differentiation The tendency for people with distinctive characteristics and cultures to reside close to each other in cities, thereby forming distinctive neighbourhoods. Also termed sociospatlal differentiation. See clustering, community, neighbourhood, segregation, ghetto.
Residuahzation Reductions in welfare spending so that services are limited to deprived minorities. See ghettoization.
Residual welfare state A welfare system that comes into operation only as a last resort when other means of meeting welfare needs, through families, voluntary bodies and private sector agencies, fail. See postweljare society.
Relerritorializaiion Castells' term for the restructuring of urban space by powerful economic interests. See gentrilica-lion, revanchtsl city. Contrast with delerriiorialization.
337
Glossary
Revanchist city Neil Smith's terrn for a city in which the powerful lake their 'revenge' (from the French work revanche) by reasserting their authority through processes such as gentrification, privatization and deregulation,
'Risk society' Ulrich Beck's notion that the risks in contemporary society are much greater than in previous societies.
Rotation A technical procedure used within factor analysis to obtain the clearest patterns within the data. Also used within principal components analysis. See factorial ecology.
Scale A term used by geographers to indicate that geographical processes operate at different levels (e.g. global, national, regional, neighbourhood, household, etc.). II is increasingly reeogmV.ed that these processes are interconnected in complex ways. See global-local nextes.
'Scanscape' A term used by Mike Davis to describe the electronic surveillance strategies utilized in Los Angeles to exclude groups regarded as undesirable from certain parts of the city. See Panopticon.
Schumpelerian workfare state (SWS) An emerging form of welfare state in which the needs of individuals are subordinated to enhancing the international competitiveness of the economy, Unlike the Keynesian welfare state, the SWS tends to be based on discretion, minimalism and means testing.
Scripting The process whereby spaces (and social groups} are produced or constructed through various forms of discourse or representation. See text,
Search space The region within which a potential migrant searches for a newr location. See a spiral ion region, awareness space, activity space.
Secondary relationships Relationships with people other than family and friends designed to achieve a particular purpose. Sec expressive interaction, instruntental interaction.
Sectoral model The model of urban residential structure advocated by Homer Hoyt which suggests that class differences in residential areas arc arranged in sectors. ContrasL with concentric zone model. See filtering.
Segregation The tendency for minority groups to be unevenly distributed in cities (i.e. to display residential differentiation). Very rarely are groups completely separate in residential terms - hence studies measure the degree of segregation. Sec ghetto, index of dissimilarity, assimilation.
Self-provisioning A situation where individuals make their own arrangement to meet their welfare needs, rather than relying upon the slate. The alternatives could be self-help, the voluntary sector or private sector agencies. See also domestication.
Semiology The study of signs and their meanings. Also termed semiotics. See signifiers, signified, text.
Se m i ot i c redundancy The te n de n cy for changes in stylo aha fashion to make existing products undesirable even though they may currently function adequately. Sec aestheticization, semiology.
Sendee-dependent ghetto Concentrations of ex-psychiatric patients and other dependent groups in inner city areas close to community-based services. Also known as the 'asylum-mthout-walis'. See community care.
Sexism Sets of ideas, attitudes and behaviour that ascribe one of the sexes with inferior characteristics. See gender, feminism.
Sexuality Ideas and concepts about sex. Implicit in this term is recognition that human sexual activity is primarily a learned form of behaviour shaped by cultural values-Shadow state The tendency for the voluntary sector to take over services that were previously allocated by the state. The shadow state is diverse and outside traditional channels of democratic control.
Signification The process whereby places, peoples and things are given meaning in writing and other forms of representation. See Spaces of representation.
Signified   The cultural meaning that is indicated by the
signifier. See also text.
Signifier That which points to some wider cultural meaning. This may be a word, sign or material object. See signified.
Signifying practices Social activities that are full of cultural meaning. See representation, signification, signifier, signified, signifying systems.
Signifying systems The idea that culture involves signs, symbols and material activities which provide a way of interpreting and understanding the world.
Simulacra Images or copies of the 'real' world that are difficult to distinguish from the original reality they purport to represent. May be thought of as copies without originals that take on a life of their own', A key element in postmodern culture. See postmodernism, hyperrealily.
338
Glossary
Situatedness An approach which recognizes that all writings and other forms of representation emerge from people with particular values and in cultures that are distinct in time and space. An approach which denies that there are invariant patterns of human behaviour across time and space, as assumed in much neoclassical economics. Also referred to as situated know-ledge.
Social Area Analysis The work undertaken in the 1950s primarily by Shevky and Bel! that attempted to relate measures of social change to the geographical structure of cities. Influenced by the Chicago School of human ecology and in turn influenced factorial ecology. May also be used as a general sense to indicate geographical analysis of city structure.
Social capital Relationships within social networks based on trust, goodwill and sympathy thai some argue can be a valuable community resource while others argue can be a source of social exclusion and repression. See also cultural capital.
Social closure Another name for processes whereby powerful groups exclude other groups from wealth, status and power. May be called exclusionary closure. See purified communities.
Social constructionism An approach that asserts that most of the differences between people are not the result of their inherent characteristics but the way in which they arc treated by others in society. Can be applied to differences related to ethnicity and gender together with the characteristics of places and technologies. See place, racism and sexism. Contrast with essentialisrn.
Social Darwinism The application of ideas about natural competition in the plant and the animal world to the study of urban social geography. See Chicago School, human ecology.
Social distance Differences between people based on factors such as class, status and power leading lo separation in social life. May be the result of mutual desire or predominantly the wishes of the powerful. Often expressed in terms of physical distance and residential differentiation.
Social division of labour The social characteristics of the people who undertake different types of work (e.g. age, ethnicity, gender). See also technical division of labour.
Social economy The part of the economy made up of social enterprises that is not pari of the true private or public sectors. See social entrepreneurs.
Social engineering The belief that society can be improved by rational comprehensive planning based on scientific principles !as in comprehensive slum clearance and urban redevelopment schemes).
Social enterprises Organizations that use commercial activities lo achieve social benefits for defined communities and interest groups. Part of the social economy or third sector.
Social entrepreneurs Innovators in social policy; key drivers of social enterprises.
Social gatekeepers Professionals, managers and bureaucrats (in both the private and public sectors) who determine access to scarce resources and facilities (e.g. housing, mortgage finance, welfare benefits). See decision rules, managcrialism, 'street-level' bureaucrats.
Social movements Pressure groups and organizations with varying degrees of public support petitioning for change, often outside of conventional political channels. Sometimes termed new. social movements and urban social movements. These formed an important part of the theory of collective consumption.
Social polarization Crowing inequalities between groups in society. May refer to increases in the poorest, the wealthiest, or both (i.e. a disappearing middle class forming a social structure shaped like an hourglass).
Social rank The name frequently given to one of the main dimensions of urban residential structure revealed by factorial ecology studies, diiss-based variations in the material wealth of inhabitants. See family status, ethnic status, multiple deprivation. May produce results similar to territorial social indicators.
Social relations of production The various legal, institutional and social arrangements in society that permit the capitalist mode of production to function. See also forces of production.
Social reproduction All the various elements that are neces-saiy to reproduce the workforce and the consumers needed to keep a capitalist society functioning (e.g. the family, schools, health services, welfare state, etc.). A key part of Marxian theories that stress the role of the welfare slate in overcoming the problems of capitalism. Much criticized in the past for functiotuilism.
Social wage The public services and activities undertaken by the state (such as the regulation of labour markets) to maintain the welfare of citizens. Sec welfare sialism.
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Glossary
Social well-being   See quality-of-life indices.
Sociobiology Explanations ol human behaviour based on generic factors relating to biology. Disputed by (hose who. adopt soaai constructionism.
Sociospatial dialectic Ed Sola's term for the mutually interacting process whereby people shape the structure of cities and at the same time are affected by the structure of those cities.
Sociospatial differentiation Another name for residential differentiation.
Space A term often used in a general sense to indicate geography, location or distance, but also used specifically by human geographers to acknowledge rhe socially constructed nature of environments. Also termed place. Sec 'betM'eetmess' of place, purified communities, social constructionism, spatial ity.
Spaces of exclusion Areas in which certain groups of people are excluded by other more powerful groups. Often based on stereotyped notions of other .groups. See gated, communities, othering, purified communities.
Spaces of Hows Manuel Casrells' term to describe the spatial structures associated with the information economy. See cyberspace, diitancialion, time—space compression.
Spaces of representation A term used by Lctebvre to indicate the various ways in which new spatial practices can be planned or imagined in cities. Sec material practices, representations of space.
Spaces of resistance Areas of cities that challenge dominant, majority, ways of life through fostering 'alternative' lifestyles. See counter-site, heterotopia, liminal space, paradoxical space, third space.
Spatial autocorrelation Interdependence, resulting from spatial contiguity, among so-called 'independent' variables used in multivariate techniques such as factor analysis and multiple regression leading to unstable and unreliable results.
Spatial division of labour 'I*he tendency for different types of work (e.g. product assembly, research and design, finance and corporate control) to be undertaken in different places at varying scales {e.g. neighbourhoods, cities, regions, nations or trading blocks). Linked to h'ordism, and vertical integration and said to be undermined by vertical disintegration within neo-l'ord.ism leading to the growth ol fieri' industrial districts.
'Spatial fix' The periodic {usually temporary) resolution to problems of integrating production and consumption in capitalist economies as manifest in urban structures.
Spatiality Also known as sociospatialily, a term used by geographers to acknowledge the socially constructed and material nature of space [as with the term place). See space, social constructionism.
Spatialized subjectivities A term that recognizes the explicit role of space in the formation ofsubjectivities and identities.
Spatial science   Another name for quantitative geography.
Spectacle The idea that social lite is increasingly dominated by images. Sec commodity fetishism. Also may refer to tendency to promote cities through grand events and spectacular landscapes. Sec Disneyfication, festival retailing.
Spillover   Another name for an externality.
Splintering urban ism Increasing inequalities in cities resulting from differential access to new communications technologies (such as the Internet). See cyberspace, social polarization.
Standpoint theory The controversial argument that women can provide a deeper understanding of the world through their involvement in child rearing and social reproduction. Also used in a general sense to indicate theories lhal recognize the shuatedness of theory and the need to champion the oppressed.
State apparatuses A term used within structuralist theories to refer to key elements of the ideological superstructure such as the church, family and education system. Sec ideological superstructure, mieropowers, structuralism.
Strategic essentialism The temporary adoption of essen-tialisl attitudes by dec.onstructionists to achieve political objectives. See essentialism, deconstruction, discourse, social constructionism.
Street level' bureaucrats Managers who have direct contact with the public, such as housing inspectors and police officers. See decision rules, rnanagertaiism.
Structural assimilation The process whereby a minority group is incorporated into the class and occupational structure ot the wider society (or charter group). Contrast with behavioural assimilation.
Slrucluralism A theoretical approach derived originally from the study of languages that involves delving below
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the surface appearance of human activity to examine the underlying structures that affect human behaviour. See poststrueturalism.
Structuration theory A theory expounded by Anthony Guldens that attempts to bridge the divide between voltint-arisl and determinist theories. See voluntarism, economic determinism.
Structure Used in a general sense to indicate a broad over-arching framework. Also a key part of structuration theory that refers to the rules, norms and resources that individuals draw upon to carry out their lives. See system, recursiveness.
Structured coherence A term coined by David Harvey to indicate the ways in which urban regions assume distinctive characteristics that are the products of local systems of production, local labour markets and the associated modes of consumption and life style. A Marxian explanation that argues struggles over the labour process are the key (but not the only) process at work in cities.
Subaltern classes A term originally devised by Gramsci to denote subordinate groups in society who are subject to the hegemony of riding classes (from the army term 'subaltern' meaning ranks below the officer class). Used in postcolonial theory to highlight people subject to colonialism.
Subcontracting A situation in which one organization contracts with another for the provision of a good or service. Also termed contracting-out.
Subcultural theory An approach that examines the influence of factors such as class, ethnicity and family status upon behaviour in cities arguing that new subcultures are spawned by urban living.
Subculture A group with values and norms different from the majority culture in society. Often expressed in residential differentiation in cities. Maybe termed a deviant subgroup.
Subject formation The process whereby identities are socially constructed. See social constructionism. Contrast with essentialism.
Subjectivities A term similar to subjectivity but one that explicitly recognizes the context-dependent, and therefore continually changing, nature of the concept. See spatialized subjectivities.
Subjectivity The continually changing views that people take of themselves and the world around them. In cultural
studies these views are seen as the product of ideology- and discourse and not some stable factor resulting from innate characteristics (as argued in essentialism). Similar to identities but a more dynamic concept resulting from the interactions of the self, experience and discourses in different contexts. See subjectivities, spatialized subjectivities.
Subject positions Ways of acting and thinking that are implicit with various discourses about people classified in some way (e.g. on the basis of class, age or gender). These interact with subjectivities to form identity.
Subsidiarity The idea that national-level decision making should be devolved to the most appropriate level (usually downwards to local communities). See devolution and decentralization.
Suburban exploitation thesis The argu nienr, mainly applied to the United States, that residents in relatively wealthy suburban local governments are consuming services (such as roads and policing) in poorer inner cities for which they are not fully paying. Related to fiscal imbalance, free-rider, metropolitan fragmentation.
Succession A term derived from the study of plants and animals used by the Chicago School of human ecology to refer to the process whereby a new social group begins to dominate a residential district after initial invasion. See also dominance, natural areas, social Darwinism.
Superorganic (culture) The controversial view of Carl Sauer and the Berkeley School of cultural geography, derived in part from evolutionary theory, that the culture of a region should be regarded as a single over-arching entity struggling with other cultures.
Superstructure A term derived from classical Marxism to indicate all the elements of society outside of the system of production including the state and legal system. Similar to the notion of civil society. See state apparatuses.
Surplus value A key element of Karl Marx's labour theory of value - the difference between the wages paid to workers and the prices the goods they produce can command through market exchange. See exchange value, use value.
Surveillance The scrutiny and control of subordinate peoples. See gaze, interpellation. Panopticon, 'scanscape'.
Sustainability A much-contested idea with many different interpretations but generally alludes to economic development in a manner that can be sustained in the long run
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for future generations. See ecocentric approach, technocenmc approach, urban social sustainability.
Symbolic capital Goods and services that reflect the social position, taste and distinction of the owner. May also be reflected in imposing buildings also known as monumental architecture. Sec aestheticization, cultural capital, positional good, symbolic distancing.
Symbolic distancing The tendency for people to display their social position through various forms of ostentatious consumption (including residential location and housing type). See symbolic capital.
Syncretism   See appropriation.
Synekism F.d Soja's term tor processes leading to the creation of regional networks of settlements that excel at innovation, both social and economic. Sec creative cities.
Synergy   Another name for hybridity.
System A term used in many different ways according to the approach in question but generally used to refer to the interdependent parts of a larger entity. In structuration theory the system is the outcome of all the actions undertaken by people. See also structure, recursiveness, reflexivity.
Tapering   Another name for distance-decay effect.
Taylorism A set of ideas developed by US engineer Frederick Taylor to manage the labour processes that were adopted by Henry Ford in the early twentieth centmy to mass produce automobiles in Detroit. Also termed the 'principles of scientific management'. These involved simplification of tasks, managerial control of workers and the utilization of'time and motion' studies to determine the most efficient ways of working. Sec Fordism.
Technical division of labour The types of work that need to be undertaken within an industrial system. Contrast with social division of labour.
Technoburb A relatively independent suburban area or edge city characterized by high-technology industries. See edge, cities, new industrial spaces.
Technocentric approach An approach to sustainability which argues that environmental problems can be met without fundamentally7 disturbing the capitalist system. Also called ecological modernization. Stresses the capacity of existing institutions to adapt and meet environmental problems and the ability of science and technology to meet these challenges. Contrast with ecoeentrie approach.
Technological determinism The notion that technology exists as some independent external force which impinges 'upon' society7. Disputed by social constructionists who argue that technologies are an integral part of society (he. the product of economic, political and cultural processes).
Telematics Services that link computer and digital media equipment to new forms of satellite and fibre-optic telecommunications channels. Sec cyberspace.
Territoriality A term wifh various interpretations, includ-ing the idea that humans have an innate desire to occupy a specific territory to satisfy needs of safety, security and privacy and to enable the expression of personal identity. Sometimes called the 'territorial imperative'. A form of explanation based on sociobiology that is disputed by those who take a social constructionist approach. Also a concept on postmodern thought that involves any institution which represses people's desires (such as the family). May also be a strategy to achieve political power by mobilizing the support and resources in geographical areas such as urban neighbourhoods, cities or regions.
Territorial justice The allocation of resources across a set of areas in direct proportion to the needs of the areas. See territorial social indicators.
Territorial social indicators Measures of social disadvantage (or need) (hat relate lo particular types of geographical region such as residential areas within cities or local government areas. May be used to evaluate degrees of territorial justice.
Text A key concept in cultural studies that refers lo any form of representation which conveys social meanings — not just the written word but also paintings, landscapes and buildings. See discourse and deconstruction.
Theory of public goods A theory which states that some goods and services have characteristics that make it impossible for them to be allocated by private markets. See joint supply, non-excludahility, non-rejectability.
Third sector The part of the economy that lies between the private and public sectors comprised <»! voluntary organizations and social enterprises. See social economy.
Third-party effect   Another name for an externality.
Third space The mixture of meanings that emerges yvhen two cultures interact, as under colonialism. Sec ambivalence, hybridity, linunal space, paradoxical space.
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lime—geography The work originated by Torsten Hager-straild that examines the joint influences of time and space upon people's daily lives. Sec authority constraint, capability constraint, coupling constraint.
Time-space compression David Harvey's term to indicate the ways in. which various processes including technological change have speeded up processes of capital accumulation.
Time-space convergence The idea that, new transport systems are leading lo much greater mobility and a 'shrinking world'. Contrast with distanciation.
'Tipping point' A situation when a new minority group migrating into a residential area becomes such a significant presence that they provoke a sudden and rapid exit of the remainder of the original population. See 'blockbusting', invasion.
Totalizing discourse   See totalizing narrative.
Totalizing narrative A theory that purports lo be a privileged way of interpreting the world, providing superior insights. May also be termed a mcta.narrative.
Transculturatiou Another term for the reciprocal interaction of dominant and subordinate cultures as depicted by hybrtdhy.
Transitional cities Cities in economies that have moved from centrally planned command economics under communist regimes to market-led capitalist economies.
Transmitted deprivation The idea that poverty results from poor skills and low aspiration levels which result from poor parenting.
Transnalionals Companies whose production, distribution and marketing operate in more than one country. May also refer to companies whose operations are integrated at a global level. See globalization, global-local nexus.
Transnational urbanism New urban forms created by migrants who maintain diverse connections with more than one nation. Contrasts with previous distinctions between permanent migrants (who might undergo assimilation) or temporary migrants who might remain excluded from the host society. Has been linked with the growth of transnational and flexible forms of capitalism that require a mobile workforce. May be elite groups or the relatively disadvantaged. See also diaspora.
Trope A regular pattern or convention in storytelling (such as the victory of the individual over 'the system' in Hollywood movies).
'Turf politics   Anothci" name for community action.
Underclass The poorest and most disadvantaged in society. Often linked with the culture of poverty explanation. Also used to denote the growing numbers of the poor and the changing character ot poverty. See social polarization.
Underclass hypothesis The argument that the poorest groups in society receive the worst levels of both publicand private sector service provision. See race-preference hypothesis.
Urban development corporations (UDCs) Quasi-public sector bodies in the United Kingdom that encuurage private sector investment in run-down urban areas through the provision of infrastructure such as reclaimed land and transport networks. See property-led development.
Urban entrepreneurial ism A new period of governance in cities characterized by competition between cities to encourage economic development. May also be termed civic entrepreneurialism and be linked with the 'hollowing out' of the central state. See civic boosterism, growth coalitions, regime theory.
Urban governance All the methods and institutions by which cities are governed. "I'he term is commonly used to indicate the shift away from direct government control of cities via hierarchical bureaucracies towards indirect control via diverse non-governmental organizations. Associated with the demise of local forms of government. May also be termed governance. Sec quango, quasi-state.
Urban growth coalitions   See growth coalitions.
Urban managcrialism Urban-based versions of the man-agerialist thesis. See ma.nuge.ria.lism.
Urban morphology The physical structure of the urban environment. See morphogenesis.
Urban nightscapes Districts ol cities catering tor the nocturnal leisure-based activities of young adults (e.g. clubs, pubs, bars and cinemas). Linked with civic boosterism and increasing surveillance,
Urban social areas Residential districts within cities, in which people with similar characteristics tend to live near one another.
Urban social movements   See social movements.
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Urban social sustainabilily Social lite within cities that is relatively free of inequality and conflict and which can be sustained in the long run. A component of sustainability.
Urban villages Neighbourhoods within cities characterized by dense networks of primary relationships. See community, ethnic village.
Use value The utility of a commodity (such as housing) to the consumer. Related to but distinct from exchange value.
Vacancy chains The chains of movement resulting from properties becoming available through factors such as new-building, the subdivision of properties, and the death or out-migration of existing occupants. See filtering.
Vertical disintegration A situation in which companies and organizations subcontract work out to other (usually small) organizations. Contrast with vertical integration. See also contracting-out.
Vertical integration A structure in which functions are integrated into a large organization in a complex interdependent hierarchy. Contrast with vertical disin teg ration.
'Voice' option A strategy of overt campaigning by a community action group. Contrast with 'exit' and 'loyalty' options. See community action, 'turf' politics.
Voluntarism The use of the voluntary sector to meet welfare needs. See also shadow state. This term may also refer to a type of social analysis that envisages people as capable of making decisions to evolve in an almost infinite range of possible directions. This approach therefore plays down the constraints upon people. See also human agency. Contrast with economic determinism.
Voluntary organizations interest groups and pressure groups in cities {e.g. work-based clubs, religious organizations, community groups, welfare organizations). Only a small proportion are likely to be overtly politically active at any given time.
Voluntary sector May refer to voluntary organizations in general but more usually to the diverse set of non-profit-making agencies attempting to meet welfare needs such as charities, charitable trusts and pressure groups.
'Weightless world' Diana Coyle's term to indicate the increasing importance of knowledge and non-material products in modern economies. See culturalization of the economy.
Welfare corporatism A society characterized by corporatist forms of collaboration in which certain groups can gain privileged access to government to derive benefits of various types (e.g. contracts, tax concessions). Usually applies to big business or organized labour rather than the most deprived. See corporatism.
Welfare pluralism A system in which welfare needs are met by a diverse set of agencies including those from the voluntary and private sectors- rather than relying upon universal provision by state agencies. Also known as the mixed economy of welfare. See contracting-out, privatization.
Welfare state A set of institutions and social arrangements designed to assist people when they are in need through factors such as illness, unemployment and dependency through youth or old age.
Welfare statism The notion that the state should have responsibility to ensure an adequate standard of living for its citizens through policies designed to achieve full employment, relatively high minimum wages, safe working conditions and income transfers from relatively affluent majorities to deprived minorities.
Wirthian theory The h igh ly i nflucntial ideas of Louis Wirlh, which suggest that social life in cities (i.e. 'urbanism') is characterized by increased rates of crime, illness and social disorganization that are largely a product of the increasing size and heterogeneity of urban life. Sec 'psychic overload'.
Work fa re A system in which those who are unemployed have to undertake work in order to receive benefits. Also associated with a number of other policies designed to regulate the behaviour of welfare recipients.
W,Porld cities   See global cities.
Worlding The discourses used to represent colonized territories (see colonial discourse}. May be used to describe the ways in which any place is represented.
Zeitgeist The spirit of the age (i.e. the prevailing ideology, or hegemonic discourse).
Zone in transition The name given by the Chicago School of human ecology for the concentric ring between the city centre and working-class residential areas. Characterized by a mixture of industry and poor-quality rented accommodation, often inhabited by immigrants and various forms of 'social deviant'. Also termed transition zone.
Zoning   See exclusionary zoning.
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