ABSTRACT
The intensified restructuring of urban space and the growing importance of citystates for social democracy have been themes that I have already addressed. Here I want to consider the idea of struggle or contestation over urban space, one of the central concerns of Marxist urban theorists and neighbourhood groups. The work of Manuel Castells is particularly relevant, given his prominence in the annals of urban sociology in the last two decades. As I noted in the previous chapters, Maragall’s conception of a city-state as a haven for the centre-left in a period of global neo-liberalism has powerful echoes in Castells’ work. And Castells’ personal intellectual trajectory has close parallels with those of his generation who are now in power in Barcelona’s city council. He came to international attention in the early to mid-1970s at the same time as neighbourhood protest groups were reaching their peak in Spain’s major cities; one of his key theoretical works-The City and the Grassroots (1983), an attempt to formulate a ‘cross-cultural theory of urban social change’—was constructed on the basis of his experience as an activist in Madrid. From the late 1980s, however, he has grown more and more involved in charting the spread of the ‘informational city’,2 the technopole,3 and has most recently argued of the importance for the Left of addressing globalisation wholeheartedly, rather than adopting an ostrich-like stance.4
