Development and Diversity in Urban Geography

Abstract

Since the publication of Models in Geography, the whole context of work in urban geography has dramatically changed. In the mid-1960s economic growth still seemed assured in most advanced capitalist countries, there was an expectation of continuously rising living standards, and a large measure of social consensus prevailed. Although a handful of writers in Britain and America were in the process of ‘rediscovering’ poverty, many of what were perceived to be urban problems were related to growth and its consequences. By the 1980s, however, economic growth had faltered or come to a halt in all but a few favoured economies, unemployment had increased alarmingly and in many cities deprivation had deepened in the inner areas and begun to spread to more and more suburban estates. New sources of social tension and new lines of political cleavage emerged, culminating in Britain in several waves of urban riots.