The Social Production of Urban Space
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In The Social Production of Urban Space Gottdiener argues that prevailing approaches to the study of urban areas have not adjusted to the emergence of a new model, the "polynucleated metropolitan region" (p. 7). It is Gottdiener's goal to produce a conceptual means of analyzing the production of space that is based on materialism. To this end he synthesizes various strands of marxian analysis to produce an analysis based on the notion that "spatial and social relations are dialectically related" (23). Employing this idea, Gottdiener analyzes the present version of settlement space of which the unique feature is socio-spatial organization restructured by "the combined efforts of Late Capitalist social process and the spatial process of deconcentration" (p. 23). The essence of his critique is displayed very effectively in his analysis of metropolitan regional deconcentration in housing, in industry, and in the so-called Rustbelt to Sunbelt shift. Gottdiener claims that his critiques of these phenomena, commonly regarded as instances of normal social evolution, expose deconcentration as "an uncoordinated form of profit taking aided by the state and involving the manipulation of spatial patterns by vested interests operating within the property sector" (p. 23). And they do just that. Central to Gottdiener's analysis is his conception of space as a force of production. In developing this idea he employs Lefebvre's approach to use values and exchange values of land becaus
. . .
e" (p. 184). Thus investment in land is capable of attracting investment in a recession or depression because its value is almost always subject to various types of manipulation. This manipulation, which Gottdiener had sought to explain on a theoretical basis, involved institutions as well as the property sector.
In general, mainstream analyses of institutional involvement in urbanization processes tend to see such involvement as producing some logical pattern of growth out of a chaotic welter of conflicting policies, regulations, and interests. But Gottdiener holds that this process is far more anarchic than this and that the decision making associated with land use is best termed "uncoordinated yet calculated" (p. 191). This is often ignored by those who do not wish to face the consequences of such calculation -- the social costs that "uncoordinated, secondary circuit activity causes" (191). Because it is so easy, in the right setting, to invest in real estate and turn it over for a profit this gives impetus to an endless process of property turnover accompanied, of course, by spatial restructuring as the potential of the real estate is exploited. This returns us to the contention that real estate is a force of productio
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Approximate Word count = 1454
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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