ABSTRACT
Urban crisis is not new to Britain. At least since the Industrial Revolution British cities have been a subject of concern and of various attempts at reform. But the most recent crisis, centred on the plight of the inner cities, is different in one fundamental respect: it follows a period of massive state intervention in urban society based on certain principles of urban change and growth. The latest crisis must in part, therefore, be attributed to a failure of government. On a wide front, government activities are under fire. Among the more important criticism are claims that state housing provision is characterised by social and spatial inequalities; that land use planning policies have resulted in urban blight and decay and have aggravated the disparities between inner cities and suburban and New Town locales; that land values policies have failed to stem land price inflation; that transport policies have done little to halt the environmental damage wrought by the rising tide of motor vehicles; that policies designed specifically to improve the lot of the urban disadvantaged are hopelessly underfunded and possibly based on false empirical assumptions; and finally that governments of all shades and at every level are unresponsive to citizens’ demands and needs. Not all of these accusations are fully justified, and by no means are all contemporary urban problems a consequence of government actions. Non-Marxists and Marxists alike agree that some degree of territorial injustice and exploitation is inevitable in industrial societies, irrespective of particular forms of economic and social organisation. Scholars also agree, however, that wide differences between capitalist societies exist, including the role of the state in urban life.1 Where the disagreement and confusion occurs is in the analysis of the specific role of the state in relation to social classes and urban change. This is true of debate within Marxist urban sociology,2 within liberal social science,3 and between Marxists and non-Marxists.4
