Discuss Manuel Castells's perspective on urban development. In what ways, according to Castells, does the city operate as a profit-generating machine that reproduces capitalism?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

From the urban political economy perspective, the city is a profit-making machine fed by the reconstruction and redevelopment of the built environment wherever revenue can be generated. Manuel Castells (1977) connects Marxist theories to the city by interpreting the dual roles of the city as a unit of production (similar to Harvey's ideas) and a locus of social reproduction. Uneven and unequal social relations are reproduced by individuals' consumption of goods like food and clothing and their collective consumption of services like housing and other social services (health care, education, and recreation). Castells argues that the state is a tool for the wealthy. Therefore, cities are organized so the state provides the minimal social services and facilities needed to reproduce and maintain a flexible, somewhat educated, and mostly healthy workforce at the lowest cost possible. This includes providing government-subsidized housing, often cheaply and poorly built.
Castells (2000, p. 293) stresses that the spatial form of the city reproduces the contradictions of capitalism Marx outlined long ago for cities that exhibit great disparities in wealth: "Spatial transformation must be understood in the broader context of social transformation: space does not reflect society, it expresses it; it is a fundamental dimension of society." He criticizes the Chicago School as well as other scholars who have unrealistically approached the city as a distinct ecology independent of the larger capitalist system.