ABSTRACT
Douglas Rae's (2003) emphasis on 'the end of urban ism', associated with the decentralization of economic activity, the rise of suburbia, and the eclipse of central public urban space, poses serious issues regarding the significance of voluntary associations for generating involvement and activism in contemporary urban conditions. Rae relates the golden age of voluntary associations to the emergence of the industrial city itself, so re-iterating the emphasis of urban sociologists from Max Weber to Richard Sennett (1977) who insist on the distinctive role of the urban public realm within modern urbanism. What, then, is the significance of voluntary associations in the contemporary city? Some urban theorists now see communication and association as organized in fundamentally different ways, through the elaboration of lifestyle enclaves (Fischer 1982; Bellah et al. 1984), virtual communication and digital coding (Graham and Marvin 2001; Amin and Thrift 2002), and forms of belonging which do not require local, face to face interaction (Savage et al. 2005). Such an account is consistent with much of the social capital literature which sees voluntary associations as thriving better in small town locations and challenged by the rise of urban sprawl (Putnam 2000, and see the discussion in Chapter 1).
