ABSTRACT
21This chapter deconstructs key myths about urban alienation and discontent found in the works of Wirth, Simmel, Freud, Roszak, and Sennett. These include the myths of vanishing primary groups, pathological density, creative individualism, the community-as-a-whole, and primitive communal solidarity. I sharply challenge assumptions derived from Freudian and neo-classical economic discourses on the societal benefits of calculative egoism. In addressing the question: “Is the city alienating?” I focus on each theorist’s consideration of the repressive and conditioning powers of the urban built environment and of their alternative blueprints for overcoming urban discontent. My analysis sorts out how much the repressive characteristics of cities identified by these theorists derive from the city’s physical and social structure, and how far they are necessary corollaries of the unequal distribution of the structural costs and benefits of capitalist economic development. This was my first move taking into account the structural as well as the cultural and historical influences contributing to the making, unmaking, and remaking of cities.
