Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Source: Author's own collection
For example, while you might expect to see urban
planning authorities objecting to the sprawl of
cities (perhaps on the basis of the extra pressure
that such developments place on the provision
of roads, sanitation and other basic utilities),
metropolitan authorities also benefit from the
spatial expansion of cities in the form of increases
in their tax base and associated sources of public
revenue. Local newspapers could offer resistance
to the growth of cities on the basis of its impacts
on traffic levels in the city and the rise of associ-
ated forms of air pollution. But, of course, urban
newspapers also benefit from the growth of
cities as their potential readership and circulation
area increases. Molotch thus argues that rapidly
sprawling cities tend to be characterized by a
coalition of interest
that converges on the theme
of
growth
. Given the collective power of such
coalitions of local landowners, politicians, planners
and newspaper editors, it becomes very difficult to
stop the unregulated expansion of cities, despite
the adverse environmental effects this may have
(see
next section)
. It is in this context that Smith
(2002) claims that for many cities now the second
circuit of capitalism is actually the principal circuit
of capital accumulation (see also Roy, 2009).
6.3.3 Alternative interpretations of
the city
The dynamics of urbanization identified by both
Harvey and Molotch are helpful when it comes to
trying to understand the environmental impacts
of urbanization and what may be driving them.
However care must be taken not to reduce the
complexities of the urbanization process to either
the dynamics of industrial production or property-
based growth (see Castells, 1983; Ward, 1997).
