ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the relationships between market processes and local political processes in urban areas. The objective is to specify the conditions under which, in market societies, local interests are likely to be reflected in spatially decentralized, localistic political processes. The chapter addresses itself to a curious Anglo-American contrast. American cities are characterized by a vigorous competition between local groups and their political agents solicitous of the future of respective turfs. In British cities, this structure of relationships does not emerge with equal clarity. The chapter identifies the contrasting structures of local political processes in American and British cities. It explains a specification of: firstly, the general conditions under which these contrasting structures are likely to emerge; and, secondly, of those particular attributes of American and British societies which contribute, to a differential degree, towards the satisfaction of these conditions.
