ABSTRACT
In his essay on Urbanism and the City David Harvey discusses the relationships between the formation of towns and cities, and the production, appropriation and distribution of social surplus product. Michael Lipton shares in a tradition which has viewed towns as being mainly exploitative and 'parasitic' in relation to their hinterlands, while John Mellor's theory belongs with a range of models involving the conception that towns have 'generative' functions. The terms 'generative' and 'parasitic' are used here metaphorically, and the various analytical models which may be referred to in this way examine different aspects of urbanism. Both Mellor and Lipton offer readers only partial accounts of rural-urban relations, and there may be circumstances in which both could be found to be substantiable empirically. They are most clearly contrasted with regard to the trends which may be set in motion by the expansion of commodity production in agriculture.
