ABSTRACT
Urbanization processes have typically been studied by social scientists as if they were isolated in time and explicable only in terms of other processes and structures of rather narrow scope, limited to the boundaries of such areas as nations or regions within nations. Urbanization has been one of the most frequently studied features of the modern world. Within North American social science the process of urbanization has conventionally been viewed as an evolutionary outcome of, first, the elaboration of trade relations among relatively isolated localities, and then of industrial development within regions or nations. From the Marxist perspective urbanization cannot be understood apart from the mode of production under which it exists. Orthodox Marxists have indeed interpreted urban phenomena as part of the capitalist mode of production. There are several studies that examine relatively local patterns of urban change in terms of cycles of accumulation and stagnation, but very little work has been done on macro-urban processes in the world-economy.
