The City: The Basics by Archer Kevin

Author:Archer, Kevin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Politics within the City

While the political context of cities is thus important, city politics is really about what goes on within cities. Until this point, in other words, cities have been described as if they were really political actors themselves instead of merely places comprised of many different political actors. The politics of maintaining social order in cities is, instead, more about the use and abuse of differential power within the city. In this respect, it is important to note that the extent and distribution of the public services of social order listed in the last section is determined by those most powerful. In imperial cities, these would be imperial agents who would make their decisions based on imperial interests in the city. In post-Renaissance cities, these would be those most wealthy. The key is that the service needs of these most powerful city people were what were taken care of first, while those of other city people were relegated to secondary or tertiary status if they were accorded any status at all. So, as described in previous chapters, the most powerful resided in the center of the city and the less powerful in ring after ring of the city toward the outskirts. In turn, public services were most dense and efficient in city centers and less and less so as one moved out the spatial scale of the city. Such a pattern of the distribution of public services can still be seen today in most post-colonial cities of the Global South.

The Industrial Revolution changed this pattern rather dramatically. The centers of industrializing cities soon became overfull of much less wealthy, low-skilled people and massive factories of divided labor took the place of merchant warehouses and artisanal crafts workshops. This process put enormous pressure on the public services designed for a much different city population. Everything from police and emergency services, to accessible streets, to water supply and waste disposal, to, of course, housing facilities were now sorely inadequate in older established cities such as London and sorely needed in newer, fully industrializing cities such as Manchester. The maintenance of social order became, as a result, that much more difficult, rendering cities, in turn, increasingly dangerous places to reside for everyone, particularly, of course, the relatively wealthy.

So, with industrialism came the growing abandonment of central cities by the very people with the most means to help fund the very public services now in increasing demand. Indeed, from this point in time until today’s metropolitan world of sprawling suburbs and exurbs, this became a continuing theme in city politics. Here, however, the focus is on this now growing need for public services in cities increasingly populated by the least wealthy. Again, it is in every city person’s interest to maintain public safety and public health because of the close proximity of everyone’s living and working quarters. Particularly in the early phases of industrialization when even those who moved to the suburbs still worked in the city, this truly public interest in the maintenance of social order remained relatively high.

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