ABSTRACT

There is a long tradition in western social and political thought which associates urbanism on the one hand with individual freedom and liberation from what Marx termed the 'idiocy of rural life', and on the other with increasing misery, social disorganization and political disruption. These twin strands of thought are found, of course, in the work of Marx and Engels, and especially in their emphasis on the significance of spatial concentration in aiding the development of a radical working class movement. But they are found also in varying liberal and conservative perspectives, and are reflected in various political movements from the nineteenth century onwards (e.g. the establishment of paternalistic company towns such as Bournville in England or Pullman in the United States, the development of the garden city movement in the early twentieth century, the growth of environmental movements in the last few years, and so on) which have aimed at averting the social and political consequences that are seen to develop out of an increasing concentration of a disadvantaged class in towns and cities. In the nineteenth century especially, the new industrial towns were seen by liberals and conservatives to represent 'a formidable threat to the established social order' (Glass 1968, p. 67), but even today, there is a strong ideological legacy of antiurbanism which may be explained with reference to the perceived threat to the status quo posed by urban concentration.