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Specifying the link between capital and urban development : the U.S. case

Περιλήψεις συνεδρίου

• Goottdiener, Mark

Recent work seeking to identify the causal mechanisms of urban development in the U.S. has rejected mainstream, neo-classical explanations in favor of a critical approach based on marxism. Yet, this new perspective remains limited by the failure to integrate several different approaches and the need to pass beyond determinism and economism. This paper seels to overcome present weaknesses in the critical approach.This paper seeks to overcome present weaknesses in the critical approach. Three arguments linking capital with urban development are examined for the U.S. case: work by sociologists hypothesizing the existence of a separate class, the rentiers; growth coalition research which argues for political as well as economic determinants; and, the circuits of capital approach centering in the case of development, on real estate interests as a fraction of capital. The limitations of these three perspectives are discussed. In the synthesis which is proposed two new aspects are developed. First, it is necessary to show that real estate interests represent neither a separate class nor a separate class fraction of capital, but a"sector" combining several classes and involving the state. Second, it is necessary to apply an epistemologica! approach deriving from the theory of structuration in order to understand how both voluntaristic elements and structural forces associated with the real estate sector combine to produce urban development. This is the case because such growth in the U.S. represents neither the logic of capital nor the democratic outcomes of the free market. Rather, the process is more contentious and less functional for society than is often asserted.

• Sociology

• Κοινωνικές επιστήμες

Περιλήψεις των παρουσιάσεων στο συνέδριο της ΛέσβουAbstracts of papers presented at the Lesvos conference