Localities, regions and social class

by JohnUrry

Social scientists in general and sociologists in particular have paid insufficient

attention to spatial variations in social phenomena. In this paper I shall discuss such
variations in relationship to the analysis of social class. In order to achieve this I
shall, in the first section, summarize some general features of the relationship be-
tween the social and the spatial. I shall, however, argue that such spatial effects d o
not arise simply from these spatial relations, but from the particular ‘causal powers’
of the social entities which happen to occupy these particular relations of space.
Following this, I shall briefly defend a realist philosophy of social science, a philo-
sophy under which analysis of the relations between such powerful particulars is
justified. And in the third section, I shall show how a broadly realist conception of
the relations between the spatial and the social provides an adequate basis for
understanding certain crucially significant changes which are occurring within
contemporary class relations. In particular, I shall argue that these changes are
resulting, first, in an increased fragmentation of classes on the local level, and sec-
ond, in the heightened importance of non-class based ‘local social movements’. I
will not suggest that the adoption of a realist philosophy of science is absolutely
necessary in order t o investigate such issues; but rather that such a philosophy
enables the more satisfactory elucidation of those processes. Nor shall I suggest
that many of the separate points that I make are original; rather that the linking
together of issues in geography, social science, and the philosophy of social science
provides a mutually constructive framework of understanding.

I Social objects, space and science

Two deficiencies of much sociological writing lie in the inadequate specification
of the relationship of the ‘social‘ to both the ‘temporal’ and the ‘spatial’.’ In terms

‘This is in part an autocritique, as is fashionable nowadays. In Urry (1981) I present an

anatomy of capitalist societies in terms of the relations between the economy, civil society and
the state. But I fail to indicate what spatial relations are presumed to exist between these
entities. These issues were clearly brought home to me by Giddens (1979, chapter 6). This
paper should be Seen as a result of the collective discussions held in the Lancaster Regionalism
Group, at present financed by the Human Geography Committee of the SSRC.Earlier versions
of this paper were given to the Geography Department, University of Lancaster, and the De-
partment of Town Planning, UWIST. I am particularly grateful for the comments of Nick
Abercrombie, Robin Flowerdew, Scott Lash, Dan Shapiro, Sylvia Walby and Alan Warde.
456 Localities, regions and social class

of the first, there has been a tendency to associate the temporal with social change,
as though socieites only exhibit temporality when they are experiencing change.
If they are not so changing, then they are taken to be, in a curious sense, atemporal.
With respect to the spatial, sociology (apart from its urban specialism) has tended
to pay insufficient and ineffective attention to the fact that social practices are
spatially patterned, and that these patterns substantially affect these very social
practices.2 Moreover, this particular deficiency is now more significant because of
the major changes that are occurring within contemporary capitalist relations
which are undermining the coherence, unity and wholeness of individual ‘societies’.
A crucial theoretical problem has been how to develop ways of understanding, not
just how societies come into external relationships with each other, but the nature
of these processes, especially of multiplant, multinational companies and inter-
national state structures, which are transforming individual units, known as
‘societies’.
First of all, it is clear that most, if not all, theories in the social sciences contain
implications about the patterning of human activity within time-space. Social
activity necessarily involves passing through time and space. The passage of time
involves movement through space. Pred, for example, talks of social activity
as ‘a weaving dance through time-space’ (1977, 208). Changes in the temporal
order of events generally involve changes in spatial patterning. Even the repetitions
of everyday life involve both temporal and spatial regularities (see Giddens, 1979,
201 ff). However, most sociological theories of such activities do not draw out the
temporal and spatial implications. They tend to remain at an implicit level. Indeed
in many cases if the implications were fully specified they would be found to
contradict other aspects of the theory in question. To illustrate this, I will briefly
consider Marx’s famous, if controversial, discussion of the growth of revolutionary
consciousness and organization amongst the working class.3 I will take this for
discussion because he, unlike many other social and political scientists, is well aware
of the importance of spatial relations. Indeed, it is a major element in his account
that as capitalism develops there is an increasing concentration of workers within
the progressively larger capitalist workplaces and cities. Hence, the growth in the
productive forces produces increases in the size, organization and effectiveness of
the working class, a class which at least on some accounts is historically destined to
revolt and overthrow capitalist relations of production. According to Marx, a
necessary condition for this is the growth of the spatial proximity of workers
within capitalist workplaces and cities. However, this account is not fully adequate,
and there are two important spatial implications which run counter to this argu-
ment and which seriously undermine it. On the one hand, although each capitalist

’See Gregory (1978, 120 ff.) who points out that relationship between the social and the
spatial has normally been seen in geography as a question of whether, and to what degree,
one structure can be seen as reflected in, or mapped upon, the. other structure. My comments
here will be very brief and are not intended to provide a general account of such relations.
’The classic discussion of this in Marx is of course his analysis of the French peasantry, see
Marx (edn 1973,238-39).
 John Uny 457

enterprise grows in size, this does not mean that workers within them are placed in
ever closer proximity to each other. Marx fails to demonstrate how class organiz-
ation and consciousness can overcome this necessary ‘friction of distance’ between
spatially distinct capitalist enterprises. On the other hand, Marx does not suf-
ficiently explore other important spatial foci within capitalist societies, namely
neighbourhood, town, region and nation state. Although these spatial foci are
intimately related to the patterns of accumulation within the economy, they are
not simply to be reduced to such patterns (as we shall see in more detail below),
nor are their political effects to be seen as subordinate to those within the economy.
Capitalism dichotomizes home and work for wage labourers; the spatial location of
one’s home, in a particular neighbourhood/town/region/nation state, cannot be
viewed as politically irrelevant. Marx fails to show that these spatial foci will
become less politically salient as capitalism develops. (The importance of such
‘localities’ will be further considered in section 11.)
This brief discussion suggests that spatial relations are of some importance. I
will now make a few brief general points which relate to the connections between
the social and the spatial (see the recent discussions in Gregory, 1978, chapters
2 and 3; and Sayer, 1979,65-70). First of all, space is not to be viewed in absolute
terms. It is not an empty container which is somehow separate from the material
objects located ‘within’ it. However, it is also not the case that space can be merely
reduced to such objects, as Castells would appear to do on occasion. He says, for
example: ‘space in itself has no meaning’ and that we must research ‘the spatial
expression of social relations’ (Castells, 1978, 181; and see Sayer, 1979, 66). He
thus locates objects within urban space, seeing these as essentially the product of
the ‘social’. But this too seems inadequate - in rejecting the thesis of ‘absolute
space’, it is essential that we do not eliminate all spatial effects through a concen-
tration upon the mere distribution of objects in space. Sayer maintains that it
remains appropriate to use terms such as ‘distance’, ‘continuity’, ‘betweenness’,
etc. to characterize the different spatial forms taken by such objects. The sig-
nificance of this for the analysis of class will be explored below.
This emphasis upon the spatial as consisting of the relations between social
objects means that it is illegitimate to talk as though there were an interdependence
between different spaces per se. Spatial patterns cannot be said to interact, only
the social objects present within one or more such spaces. It may therefore be
incorrect to talk of one area exploiting another area; to suggest that a region is
exploiting another region, or that the centre is exploiting the periphery, may be to
fetishize the spatial.
Another kind of fetishization should be avoided, and that is where the spatial
structure is seen as determining the patterns of social organization. This view was
in part held by the human ecology school in urban sociology. It has since then been
effectively criticized in sociology, although Giddens suggests that one reason why
spatial notions have recently been so neglected here has been to avoid accusations of
‘ecological determinsim’ (see Giddens, 1979, 202). It is also necessary to avoid
suggesting that spatial characteristics should be merely seen as providing the
458 Localities, regions and social class

environment within which social activity happens to take place. Such a view leads
to an easy academic division of labour, between geography which studies the spatial
structuring of the environment (physical and human), and the social sciences which
study the manifold variety of social activities within such environments. This
separation is erroneous because it neglects the manner in which most aspects of
the spatial are themselves humanly produced and humanly changeable. This means,
amongst other things, that they convey meaning, that they are part of the meaning-
ful structures which flow from and which reproduce ongoing social activity (see
Tuan, 1977). Thus, different areas, towns, agricultural zones, new trading estates,
shopping centres, arterial roads, etc. are not merely elements of a given spatial
structure and determinative of human activity from outside. Rather they are
themselves social, socially produced and socially reproducing. They cannot there-
fore be separated from the significant social objects present within a given society,
and the characteristic forms in which such objects are interconnected.
This argument clearly suggests that it is impossible and incorrect to develop a
general science of the spatial. The latter cannot be separated from the social in such
a manner that a general set of distinct laws can be devised. This is because space
per se has no general effects. The significance of spatial relations depends upon the
particular character of the social objects in question. So the spatial relationship
cannot be limited to some general effect - it only has effect because the social
objects in question possess particular characteristics, namely, different causal
powers. Such powers may or may not manifest themselves in empirical events -
whether they do or not depend upon the relationship in time-space established
with other social obejcts. These effects thus stem not from the ‘contingent’ re-
lations between phenomena in time-space but from the internal structures of dif-
ferent social objects, objects which possess different causal powers. These will
give rise to particular events if, and only if, they are brought into specific spatial
relations with each other (cf. Gregory, 1978, 100). If they are not, then the
particular events will not be manifest. This also means, incidentally, that social
objects do not have to be spatially contiguous for one object to cause another
object to behave in specified ways. This Human restriction on the application
of the concept of cause is inappropriate to the kind of position articulated here
(on these points see Hard; 1970; Sayer, 1979).
Thus far I have argued for a particular view of the relations between the social
and the spatial on the basis of a broadly realist conception of science (see Benton,
1977; Bhaskar, 1975; 1979; H a d , 1970; Hard and Madden, 1975; Keat and
Urry, 1975; amongst others). By contrast, a positivist conception of science would
be associated with the attempt to construct a general science of spatial relations, a
general science which I have suggested could not be developed. In order to support
my argument further I will briefly summarize positivism and some of its attendant
difficulties. 1 will then consider a couple of aspects of a realist conception of
science before turning to one particular deficiency. Having shown how that de-
ficiency may be overcome I will then, in the next section, consider certain aspects
of the analysis of social classes which is based on a broadly realist approach to the
analysis of social and spatial relations.
 John Urry 459

For the positivist, science is an attempt to gain predictive and explanatory

knowledge of the external world? To do this, it is necessary to construct theories.
These consist of highly general statements which express the regular relationships
between separate, discrete events occurring in the natural world. These general
statements, or laws, enable us to predict and to explain the phenomena that we
discover by means of systematic observation and especially by experimentation.
Explanation and prediction are isomorphic. To explain something is to show that it
is an instance of these regularities or laws; and predictions consist of the deducing
of empirical consequences from such laws. Empirical testing of laws through obser-
vation and experimentation is the only sure basis of knowledge. It is not the pur-
pose of science to get behind these empirically demonstrable regular relationships
to give us knowledge of mechanisms or essences which might somehow necessitate
these phenomena. According to the positivist there are no necessary or logical con-
nections in nature. There are only regularities, successions of separate events or
phenomena which can be represented within the universal laws of science. Logical
relations consist in deducing empirical consequences from the laws (and antecedent
conditions). Positivists take science to be an empirically based, rational and objec-
tive enterprise in which scientific knowledge is accumulated, in which lower level
laws are to be deduced from higher level laws, and in which science gradually
enables us to predict, to explain and to control the external world even more
successfully.
There are many criticisms of this conception of science. There is the problem of
induction, of how a finite number of empirical observations can generate a sup-
posedly universal law. Can a law ever be corroborated, or is the most that can be
achieved, merely a lack of falsification? Is there indeed a logic of falsification?
What problems are caused by the uncertain character of the distinction between
theory and observation? Is there a theoretically neutral observation language?
Are there universal criteria for choosing rationally between different theories? Is
science really open and democratic so that the best theory will triumph? How far
are our theories not descriptive of the external world but merely conventions?
Indeed, how far are the concepts and categories that we employ not merely des-
criptive or conventional, but constitutive of the supposedly external world? To
what extent are all attempts at imposing a logic of science false, and should we not
simply adopt the anarchistic doctrine of ‘anything goes’? I will now conisder some
realist criticisms of positivism, but I shall ignore many of these otherwise crucial
issues.
First, then, realists criticize positivists for analysing scientific explanation as
though it were a form of logical explanation. Thus, there may well be arguments
which satisfy the specified conditions of explanation (as in the deductive-nomo-
logical model), but these in fact enable us only to predict and not explain the
occurrence of particular events. The positivist confuses the provision of grounds for

This account is a summary of Keat and Urry (1975, chapters 1, 3 and 4). I have also bene-
fited from reading Benton (1977) on these issues.
460 Localities, regions and social class

expecting an event to occur, with giving a causal explanation of why that event did
occur. The fact that a purported explanation satisfies the criteria of the deductive-
nomological model does not mean that it is satisfactory scientific explanation.
The model does not provide sufficient conditions for such an explanation. Some-
thing else is required, and according to the realist this can be provided by identify-
ing the necessary, causal connection between things in nature or society.
This entails the rejection of the Humean view of causation, the regularity theory.
In this it is held that one event can only be the cause of another if it occurs prior to
it, and that, whenever the first occurs, it is always followed by the second. The
realist rejects this on two main grounds. First, this grossly impoverishes the notion
of cause. When we say that something is the cause of something else, we normally
mean that the first in some sense produces the latter. The former has certain
powers, or there is some mechanism, which causes the latter to behave in specified
ways. There would seem to be no reason to excludc this sense of cause, given the
fact that science itself, as opposed to its philosophy, has enabled to to discover
such powers or mechanisms. Let me quote HarrC’s comment on Humc’s view that
when we say that the vibration of the string is the cause of a particular sound we
merely mean that the sound contingently follows the vibration, and that all similar
sounds follow all similar vibrations.
HarrC says:
This, Hume contends, must be the correct analysis since we can form no idea of the
connection between the vibration and the sound. But the theory and experiments of
sonic physics and neurophysiology gives us a very good idea of the connection between
the vibration and the sound. We all know nowadays of the train of pressures in the air,
the operation of the ear-drum, the cochlea, and so on, and we now know something of the
train of electrochemical happenings between the inner ear and that part of the brain
identified as the seat of audition. Furthermore, to explain what we mean by the ‘vibration
causes the sound’, rather than something else, typically involves, I contend, reference to
the intervening mechanism which links the vibration in the string to the sound we hear.
The vibration of the string stimulates a mechanism which then acts in such a way that we
are stimulated and hear a sound (HarrB, 1970, 105-106; see also Keat and Urry, 1975,
28ff).

Thus, Hark argues that science has in a sense rejected Humean prognosis. Scientists
have sought to identify the mechanism intervening between the vibration and the
string, to open up the black box. Thus, while regularities may provide us with
grounds for thinking that there is a causal relationship between two phenomena,
the identification of that relationship necessitates describing the mechanisms which
connect one phenomenon to another.
There is a second reason why the realist will reject the regularity or constant
conjunction conception of cause. So far we have used certain terms ‘events’,
‘phenomena’, ‘mechanism’, implying that the former, events or phenomena, are to
be accounted for in some sense by the latter, mechanism. In the example just
discussed, the events or phenomena were the vibration of the string and the sound
produced; the mechanism was the inner ear and that part of the brain responsible
of audition. The positivist, however, would reject that distinction. For the positivist
there are simply events or phenomena and the point of science is to express the
 John U n y 461

regularly occurring relationships between them in the form of universal laws. The
realist, by constrast, is committed to a different ontology, to the thesis that there
are, on the one hand, separate and discrete empirical events or phenomena, and on
the other hand, structures or mechanisms which may or may not express them-
selves within such events or phenomena. Thus, for the realist the natural or social
world docs not merely consist of separate and discrete, atomistic events or
phenomena i.e. in geography distributed in a spatial pattern. There are two orders
of reality: that of persistently enduring real structures, and that of certain events
and phenomena to which the former contingently give rise, if they are placed in an
appropriate spatial relationship. The realist therefore advocates that science should
concern itself with the constitution of these structures or mechanisms, with
describing how they are formed, their powers and how they respond to changes (see
Harre and Madden, 1975, on the superiority of a thingontology over an event-
ontology).
So far in this section I have briefly outlined two conceptions of science. I have
suggested that the former is problematical in some quite crucial respects; it has not
been possible to develop satisfactory criteria which will enable us to demarcate the
scientific from the non-scientific and many scientists have failed to follow its
prescriptions. This means that it is not appropriate to claim that a particular science
is strictly speaking positivistic - although clearly certain sciences do contain
positivistic elements. Much of the literature seems to suggest that many aspects
of geography are positivistic - vis. search for general laws of spatial relations,
emphasis upon predictive success, opposition to identification of underlying entities
which may generate spatial patterns, belief in a theory-neutral observation language,
etc. To the extent to which this is the case, it would mean that a science is being
practiced that is structured by a philosophy of science which many believe has
been shown to be fundamentally flawed.
I am not concerned here to claim that a realist conception of science is wholly
unproblematical. Some of the difficulties in positivism are also difficulties for a
realist position. Furthermore, it is somewhat unclear as to the relationship be-
tween the ‘structure’ of a given social object and empirical events. What is the
structure - is it necessarily unobservable? Are the empirical events merely observ-
able requiring ‘deeper’ explanation, or are they distorted, contradicting the underly-
ing structure? Do all social objects take the same form of an underlying structure?
As a way of considering certain difficulties here I will briefly consider the argument
of Buch-Hanson and Nielson (1977). They suggest that until recently there had
been two sorts of work bordering on the relationship between geography and
marxism: first, that which described the spatial expression of a particular social
problem, such as the urban ghetto; and second, that which provided a very general
characteristization of the overall properties of the capitalist mode of production
(CMP). They argue, however, that these two enterprises are not satisfactorily
complementary, they are not be viewed as the micro-aspect, on the one hand, and
the macro-aspect, on the other (cf. Peet, 1975). Buch-Hanson and Nielsen argue
that the different aspects should be fully investigated, to show how each mode of
462 Localities, regions and social class

production forms its own territorial structure. The latter is built up around and
reflects the given economic structure of capitalist forces and relations of production.
It might thus be said that they adopt a realist conception of science, that a par-
ticular structural mechanism, the pattern of accumulation within capitalism,
necessitates a certain set of empirical processes, the spatial distribution of pro-
duction, consumption, and infrastructural activities. Buch-Hanson and Nielson do
argue that a proper approach is ‘dialectical’ but they never really specify what this
means except to suggest that the spatial structure need not always adjust itself
immediately to developments in the CMP.
I would suggest that in this case the adoption of a realist conception of science
has had somewhat deleterious consequences. Buch-Hanson and Nielsen use as
evidence for their position the observation that certain changes in the spatial struc-
ture have undoubtedly been produced by changes in the CMP. However, it does not
follow from this that the territorial or spatial structure is merely the consequence
of the mode of production, that the CMP is the only social object that has sub-
stantial causal powers with respect to the distribution of economic/social activities
within space. There is a danger in a naive realist position that the CMP will be
viewed as providing the explanation of an over-wide range of empirical phenomena
- that most, if not all, of the ‘appearances’ of each capitalist society will be seen
to be expressions of its real underlying relations. In order to avoid this it is necessary
to achieve a much more developed understanding of the various social objects
which are pertinent in this case to spatial distribution. The difficulty is that ‘realism’
does not per se provide more than an overall orientation to the identification of
these. Two errors in particular need to be avoided: first, the over-extension of
empirical phenomena that can be accounted for in terms of the particular structural
mechanism; and second, the failure to see that in social science analysis needs to
be provided of diverse kinds of social objects bearing complex interdependencies,
one with the other.
Thus, in the following discussion of the relationship of spatial relations to the
analysis of social class, I shall assume the following. First, it is necessary to in-
vestigate the changing spatial relations between the diverse, determinate social
objects in order to explain the realm of empirical events. Second, the spatial pat-
teming.of such events is to be viewed as the complex effect of the relations be-
tween such social objects. Third, spatial relations never have a general effect separ-
ate from the constitutive properties of the social objects which are in some deter-
minate spatial relationship with each other. And fourth, such spatial variations, of
contiguity, or distance, or betweenness, d o matter, and they matter in ways which
social science has generally failed to recognize.

II Class, regions and the ‘local‘

I have so far talked very generally of the spatial relationships between diverse
social objects. In this section by contrast I want to consider certain aspects of
 John U n y 463

social class, and to show that the changing spatial distribution of class relations is
of particular importance. Before doing so, however, 1 should make it clear that I
shall refer to a number of different kinds of analysis here, some of which would be
termed neoweberian, others neomarxist (see Crompton and Gubbay, 1977, chapters
2 and 3 on this distinction). Although there are important differences between
them, I shall not adhere rigidly to one framework or the other. This is because it
would seem that in the substantive analysis of changing patterns of class conflict,
both neoweberian and neomarxist theories display certain similar characteristics,
in particular, the tendency to economic reductionism and inadequate analysis of
the constituting role of class and other forms of popular struggle (see Przeworski,
1977, on the inadequacy of the distinction between structure and struggle). In
the following I shall consider how spatial considerations bear upon such issues.
We can begin by noting how in most analyses of class relations the basic unit
of investigation is taken to be the nation state. Classes are national - the working
class, in most accounts, consists of all male manual or productive workers resident
in Britain. For example. in Goldthorpe’s recent and authoritative analysis of social
mobility and the class structure, the focus is on male national classes, and on the
absolute and relative rates of mobility in and out of such classes (see Goldthorpe,
1980). Yet, Goldthorpe is particularly concerned to consider the determinants of
class actions and struggle, and in this he takes to be crucial, the degree to which
particular classes are self-recruited (that is, sons with the same occupational status
as their fathers). The contemporary working class in Britain is notable here since,
with the changing occupational structure and its decline in size, it is now over-
whelmingly self-recruited. It is this which is used by Goldthorpe as the main explan-
ation of the continued solidarity of working-class partisanship and of its com-
mitment to both trade unionism and the Labour Party. But there are two dif-
ficulties in this generally interesting discussion. First, the nature of this continued
commitment seems to be highly variable, and even in certain cases rather prob-
lematical (see Hindess, 1971, on the Labour Party in Liverpool, for example).
One would have thought that Goldthorpe’s previous research on the varying orien-
tations of workers would have implied some significant subnational variations
in the attitude to trade unionism, for example (see Goldthorpe etaZ., 1968; 1969).
Second, it is not adequately shown that the rate of self-recruitment of a class is
the main determinant of that class’s cohesiveness and likely effectiveness in struggle.
Indeed in Goldthorpe’s discussion of the ‘service class’ this factor has to be relatively
underplayed because of the fact that, with its very considerable increase in size,
recruitment had to take place from all social classes in approximately equal pro-
portions (see Goldthorpe, 1980,42ff). Moreover, Goldthorpe does not demonstrate
in relationship to the working class that national patterns of self-recruitment are of
especial significance to the generation of class conflict. It would seem that two
further important and related considerations would be:
1 the local patterns of income, occupational and class mobility; and
2 the organization of the local labour market, its sectoral, occupational and gender
changes; and the dominant forms of class struggle.
464 Localities, regions and social class

Incidentally, I use ‘local’ here and ambiguously to refer to both the ‘non-national’
and to labour markets defined in terms of travel-to-work areas.
Thus, in relationship to Goldthorpe’s project of explaining class conflict in
terms of patterns of social mobility, it would seem that local variations in the
latter would be particularly significant. This can be put more generally, that there is
a danger of committing the fallacy of composition if one does not investigate the
diverse forms of local class structure. When added together there may be a ‘national
class structure’ which is not in fact pertinent to anybody’s specifically local class
experience. Thus, initially then, I am arguing that local variations in class and
mobility structures are of relatively un-acknowledged importance. Foster’s com-
parative analysis of nineteenth-century Oldham, South Shields and Northampton
provides prima facie grounds for thinking that it is essential to investigate such
spatial variations in local class structure and practice (see Foster, 1974).
However, this is a fairly weak claim. I now want to suggest that because of
changes in contemporary capitalist relations, such local class structures are in
fact of increased importance. Yet, it might be argued that this is historically back-
to-front. It was important to have analysed such local class structures when labour
was relatively immobile - but with the growth in the mobility of labour and capital
at least within nation states, the appropriate unit for the investigation of class
relations is surely now only that of the nation state. However, I d o not believe that
this is the case. Important changes in contemporary capitalism are at present
heightening the economic, social and political significance of each locality. The
following are the main determinants.
The increased concentration and centralization of capital nationally and
internationally (see Prais, 1976); this leads to: a) an increase in the degree to
which capital can redistribute its activities in order to take advantage of all
possible variations in the price, availability, skills and organization of the local
labour force which remains relatively immobile (see Westaway, 1974; Massey,
1978a) and b) a decline in the interlinkages between local/regional capitals,
and an increase in the ‘external control’ of each local economy (see Firn, 1976,
and (2) below).
The increased role of state expenditure and employment, the allocation of
which is not simply market-determined but dependent upon forms of struggle,
both to affect the state, and to use the state to affect the location of capital
(see discussion in Carney e l al., 1980).
The increased ‘politicization’ of economic location and change, the allocation/
expansion/contraction of economic activity being a matter of conflict - both
resulting from class and other local struggles and affecting such struggles through
changes in class/gender/racial composition, etc.
Thus, important changes are occurring in the spatial relations between sig-
nificant social objects. Capital increasingly appropriates space internationally,
while nation states and political movements remain national or subnational. This
produces the following effects upon the spatial organization of social classes within
contemporary capitalist societies:
 John Uny 465

1 new local variations in such class structures

2 increasing significance of regional of local deprivations based on the ‘inferiority’
of one’s own class structure visd-vis some other class structure.
3 increasing importance of struggles centred around the locality vis-2-vis other
local/regional/national/internationalstructures.
I will consider each of these in turn.

1 Under this heading 1 want to consider how there are important variations in
the degree to which local class structures have changed. The main develop-
ments are.
a) a decline in the size of the ‘capitalist class’ proper
b) an increased bifurcation between ‘local/regional’ capitalists and international
capitalists.
c) an increased tendency for capitalists to be resident outside that locality, and
not to be concentrated spatially
d) the increased size of the intermediate classes, especially as a result of employ-
ment by the state
e) the increased degree to which especially these classes are comprised of women
f ) the decrease in the relative size of the working class, both male and especially
female
g) the growth in an underclass of unemployed, both male and female.
One important aspect of these changes is the increasing participation of women
in the labour force - in the UK now constituting two-fifths (see Department of
Employment, 1979). In many households the income of women is of central sig-
nificance and this undermines t t e concept of the ‘family wage’ supposedly earned
by the male breadwinner (see West, 1978, 225; Barrett and Mclntosh, 1980, 57-
59). There are a number of important consequences. First, the increased partici-
pation of married women in the labour force heightens the relative immobility of
labour since there is a reluctance for household partners to work in separate areas.
This varies in part depending upon the size of the local labour market. Second, it
becomes difficult to allocate ‘families’ to a particular class position simply on the
basis of the location of the male within the national economy. Third, the variation
in the participation of women within different labour markets will affect the
potential forms of class organization and struggle. And fourth, the marginalization
of much of women’s work means that they function in part as an industrial reserve
army - however, the degree to which this is the case will greatly vary (see Beechey,
1978, on women as an industrial reserve army).
The interrelation between these points and a)-& means that there are a number
of local class structures that exist (local still being used ambiguously and ignoring
ethnic differences). Four of these are:
i large national or multinationals as dominant employers - smallish intermediate
classes - large working class, either male or female, depending on supposed
skill level.
ii state as dominant employer - largish intermediate classes - declining working
class - high employment of women.
466 Localities, regions and social class

iii traditional small capitals as dominant employers - large petty bourgeois sector
- largish male working class - lowish female employment.

iv private service sector capitals as dominant employers - largish intermediate

classes with high female component - smallish working class.
Thus far I have argued that important changes in contemporary capitalism will
produce significant variations in local class structures. In the next section we will
consider how such differences may give rise to local or regional deprivations.

2 This issue has been explored by Buck (1979) who points out that although
there has been some lessening in regional inequality in recent years, in certain
counties there has been no obvious reduction in the ‘regional sense of grievance’
(see Brown. 1972; Buck, 1979; Keeble, 1976). That there has been such a narrow-
ing in regional inequalities suggests moreover that radical theories which postulate
an increasing gap between the central and peripheral regions are in part inadequate.
By contrast Buck argues that it is important to considcr, not the quantifiable
economic indicators such as income, growth or employment levels, but rather the
‘deeper’ class structures present within capitalism (Buck, 1979, 518; see also
Buck and Atkins, 1978). Thus, even if there were a full equalization of such
economic indicators across all regions within capitalism, there would still be sub-
stantial class inequalities. Moreover, these class conflicts may assume a spatial form
if class interests are localized. In particular, Buck analyses the consequences which
follow from the imbalanced dism’bution of classes between regions that produces a
sense of regional grievance. If particular classes are overwhelmingly concentrated
in some regions rather than others, then there will be grievance experienced in those
regions relatively deprived of dominant class locations. And this will be increasingly
the case as its internationalization enables capital to appropriate space in an ever
more subtle and complex manner. Buck points out that there is an increasing
concentration of higher order activities within the centre (of ‘orientation’, ‘planning
and development’) and of routing industrial processes (both clerical and manual)
within peripheral areas (see also Buswell and Lewis, 1970; Leigh and North, 1978).
He postulates that the more pronounced is this tendency, the greater the ensuing
sense of regional deprivation.
In his analysis, he. finds, that in terms of a number of measures, Britain and
France exhibit fairly high regional variations in the proportions of ‘high order to
total male allocable employment’ (Buck, 1979, 521). In Britain, this ranges from
13.9% in the north to 23.8% in the southeast planning region. Germany and
Australia by contrast exhibit considerably less regional variation in proportions of
higher order to total male employment. As a consequence Buck argues that the
reason why France and Britain exhibit higher rates of regional grievance is because
in these two countries there is a more unequal class distribution between the
different regions. He summarizes:
regional grievances in Britain and France are correlated with a high degree of regional
concentration in high-order jobs, i.e. public and private sector control is heavily con-
concentrated in regions such as the southeast of England and Paris at the expense of
 John Urry 467

peripheral areas like the north of England and France Nord (Buck, 1979,523; for detailed
changes in different regions in Britain, see Buck and Atkins, 1978, 214).

One difficulty in this otherwise interesting argument is that Buck concentrates

on the spatial allocation of male occupations and ignores the significant changes in
female occupations referred to earlier. However, the main difficulty concerns the
widespread presumption that all those problems and issues which concern the
distribution of activities within the geographical area of the nation are to be viewed
as ‘regional’. Buck himself does refer to the imbalances within regions (p. 522),
but concentrates in his analysis purely on the differences between regions. In the
following, I shall argue that the concept of region is not well established and that
we should consider the ‘local social structure’ as the more salient unit of analysis.
We can begin by noting that there are two rival principles by which an area
might be designated a region (see Brown, 1972, 27 ff). The first is that of homo-
geneity - that the area contains a particular set of shared economic, cultural and
political features which mean that is should be treated as a unit. The second is that
of self-sufficiency - that the area contains a set of relatively self-contained and
complementary activities which justify its treatment as a self-sufficient unit. These
principles may be antithetic - the former leading to the isolation of areas sharing
some characteristic (e.g. dependence on a particular industry like textiles) - the
latter leading to the isolation of areas which embrace a number of different charac-
teristics (the interdependence of different industries). One can see both principles
are embodied in the eight economic planning regions in England and Wales - the
northwest may have been designated on principle one, Wales on principle two,
while the north, which stretches from Workington across to the Wear, seems to
embody neither principle.’
This brief discussion illustrates that the problem about regions is not the deter-
mination of which is the correct criterion by which they should so be designated.
It is rather that all such criteria are arbitrary. They are arbitrary because of the
extraordinary complexity of capitalist accumulation. When Marx talks blandly
of the territorial division of labour which ‘confmes special branches of production
to special districts of a country’, he cannot really be taken seriously (Marx, 1965,
353). Of course there is such a territorial or spatial division, but it is not simply a
question of assessing its nature and thereby producing a successful division of the
country into a number of regions.
This is because the nature of the spatial division of labour at any one time is in
part the outcome of a whole series of previous rounds of accumulation each super-
imposed on the other (see Massey, 1978b). Each round of accumulation is the
effect of a large number of determinants, including the patterns of class and popu-
lar struggle, and of state action. And the effect of these successive spatial divisions
of labour will not generally produce coherent economies, on either principle
mentioned earlier. Thus, the attempt to impose ‘regions’, distinctive entities de-
fined in terms of supposed homogeneity or self-sufficient interdependence, is not
See the map in Brown (1972,30). For an excellent discussion of the concept of a ‘region’, see
Massey (1978b), and of British regional policy, Morgan (1980).
468 Localities, regions and social class

a plausible project. It results from the way in which the state has attempted to
devise non-national economic policies. So although there are spatial problems,
there is no coherent concept of ‘the region’. What we find is that there are a variety
of patterns in terms of which capital appropriatcs space. The superimposition of
these different patterns gives rise to spatial inequalities but there is no warrant for
treating these as ‘regional’. So although Buck‘s account of analysis of spatial in-
equality is of interest it is necessary to develop further understanding on the basis
of non-regional spatial concepts.

3 In this section I shall consider in a little more detail just why the changes in
contemporary capitalism mean that a regional analysis is problematical. I will
begin by referring very briefly to the thesis of the new international division of
labour (see Frobel et al., 1980; and Jacobson et al., 1979 for a critical assessment).
It is argued that three developments in particular have now made it profitable for
industrial production to take place in third world countries: first, a certain capilal-
ization of agriculture so releasing an enormous third world industrial reserve army;
second, the fragmentation of the production process so making it profitable for
certain subprocesses to be carried out by veiy briefly trained unskilled workers; and
third, the development of a globally efficient transportation and communications
technology. As a result thousands of ‘world-market-factories’ have been established
in the third world, predominantly because of the low wages (10-20% of those in
the industrialized countries) and long flexible and intense hours that can be worked.
A worldwide market for labour is established in which workers from all capitalist
countries compete with each other. There is thus being formed a new hierarchy of
economies, and this depends upon the relative cheapness and availability of labour.
The advanced capitalist economies are at the bottom of this new hierarchy.
Although this thesis may be in part overstated, what it does is to demonstrate
the central importance of the supply and cost of labour power in determining
industrial location. In general it appears that transport costs are relatively less
significant,6 and that what determines industrial expansion are the changing pat-
terns of labour power which are available, in particular to international capital
(see essays in Carney et aZ., 1980). This is particularly relevant to the kind of
unskilled or semi-skilled work that Frobel et d. are analysing. However, it is not
the case that markets for labour power in the same region necessarily share any
of the same characteristics. Large national or international capital will seek those
labour markets which fit its requirements and, following the new international
division of labour thesis, it will look for a variety of markets, each being appropri-
ate to its different fractional operations. These operations will not be patterned in
terms of different regions, but in terms of the different relevant labour markets.
In the previous section, I argued that the concept of the ‘region’ is ambiguous; in
this section I have suggested that the region is undermined by the ability of capital
to fractionalize its operations. Hence, it is the local labour market which is
6This is generally shown from locational studies, see Holland (1976) and Luttrell (1962) for
summaries.
 John Urry 469

increasingly crucial to capital, and not the overall region. International capital
(that which enjoys ‘international spatial elasticity’, Hamilton, 1978, 37- 38) may
have no othcr interest in the region.
I will now briefly list those aspects of each labour niarkct which are pertinent:
overall size, including the latent industrial reserve army; the cost of labour including
any regional incentives; the distribution of skills, both general (managerial/technical/
manual) and job-specific; the geographical distribution and transportation between
residence and work; the existing patterns of ownership of capital and the nature of
state employment; the segmentation of the labour force, by sex, age, race and
primary/secondary characteristics; and the patterns and strength of class organiz-
ation and militancy (see especially Beechey, 1978; Doeringer and Piore, 1971;
Gordon, 1972).
So far then I have suggested that subregional markets for labour power are of
particular significance to highly mobile capital. However, their importance has
further consequences for the characteristic forms of social struggle. In particular
the centrality of the local labour market has the following effects: a) as we have
seen, to decompose further national classes, and b) to heighten the importance of
non-class based social movements centred around the axis: local social structure
uis-avis capital and the state. Thus, this development is important in producing
‘local social movements’ based on protecting the locality (as broadly defined by
the local labour market) vis-a-vis capital and the state. However, these movements
will embrace a variety of classes although much of the initial strength will probably
be generated by the labour m c w n e n t . As with urban social movements there is
supposedly a ‘growing homogeneity in the interests of all popular classes’ (Castells,
1978,61) - however, it is not a homogeneity that transcends the locality but is one
which is based on the specific differences between that locality and other localities.
The homogenization is only local. It is the result of, and reproduces, the tendency
noted above for the politicization of economic change. So there is a mobilization
of popular forces, but it is difficult to see how that mobilization can do anything
but to fragment social classes and to prioritize non-class based political movements.
‘Local social movements’ seem to be an important non-class consequence of the
new international division of labour.
Thus, if we return briefly to the discussion of Marx above, it can be seen how
the new international division of labour has created conditions under which new
forms of struggle will develop which will in part deflect and undermine working-
class struggles to abolish capitalist relations. Local social movements will struggle
to affect the state t o increase the attractiveness of the locality to capital. Such
struggles are not intended to abolish capitalist relations but to increase the capitaliz-
ation of that locality. They are also intended to increase, or at least to prevent a
decrease in, the manufacturing base of the local economy, that is, to counter its
deindustrialization and the growth of both services and the informal economy
(see Pahl, 1980). However, paradoxically, the struggles to sustain manufacturing
employment will increase the likelihood that that locality will be further deskilled,
and treated as a repository of secondary labour, on a par with many third world
470 Localities, regions and social class

economies. This is of course not always the case; it depends on the form of the
local social structure, as we saw above.

I11 Conclusion

Sociologists have not totally ignored the importance of local variations in class
structure. Indeed, although in section I1 I criticized Goldthorpe’s recent analysis of
mobility and the class structure, he and his collaborators in the earlier affluent
worker project were well aware of the diversity of local social structures (see
Goldthorpe et al., 1969, in particular on social imagery). Indeed, they chose Luton
as the site for their empirical research precisely because it would provide an
extreme test for their theory - if the embourgeoisement thesis did not work in this
‘affluent’ locality then it would not work in more ‘traditional’ working-class locales.
The related research on ‘images of class’ (see Bulmer, 1975) is also based on the
diversity of local contexts and how working class images of society vary between
different social structures. However, this literature, although interesting, has not
been followed up in any detail - there are some important difficulties:
1 there is a tendency to focus on the explanation of beliefs and attitudes rather
than on the analysis of the relations between social classes;
2 there is a tendency to concentrate upon manufacturing industry, and the classes
generated within such economic forms, and to neglect both state and service
employment ;
3 there is little analysis of the local labour market, of its boundary; its size; distri-
bution; ration of primary/secondary workers; changes in ownership, etc. (see
Blackburn and Mann, 1979, for an exception);
4 there is little attempt to relate such structures to the development of con-
temporary capitalism; in particular, to changes in its spatial organization, growth
of the state, forms of social struggle, etc.
In this paper I have tried to indicate how such considerations might begin to be
analysed. In particular, I suggested that social scientists have tended to neglect
‘spatial’ effects, and I have tried to indicate the relationship between the spatial and
particular social objects. I analysed briefly how such objects are to be viewed, that
is, as possessing causal powers which may or may not be manifest within specific
empirical events. In the main section of the paper I developed an analysis of such
social objects, showing that certain spatial effects followed and had important
social consequences. In particular, I considered distinct local social structures, that
is, structures that are somewhat spatially differentiated and have specific social
characteristics. I also considered how these were in part generating ‘local social
movements’. These are not to be seen as simply produced by the organization of
space, but by the potential causal powers of the particular social objects in question
(viz. capital and its tendency to valorization and accumulation, the state and its
potential t o reorganize the conditions for production and reproduction, and certain
social classes and popular forces and their potential for socially transforming the
 John Urry 471

state and/or the conditions for successful accumulation). Social classes are spatially
distributed, and changes within that distribution do matter in sociologically im-
portant respects.

Department of Sociology, University of Lancaster, UK

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J’examine dans cet article certains des rapports entre le spatial et le social. Je relkve dans la
premiere partie un certain nombre de points relatifs B ces rapports. Ma conclusion est la
suivante: tandis qu’il n’est pas possible d’elaborer une science generale des relations dans
I’espace, il faut cependant absolument tenir compte des liens dans I’espace entre differents
agents sociaux soumis des causes differentes, et ils sont B considerer sous des optiques que la
science sociale conventionnelle a gknkralement ignore. J’etudie dans la seconde partie deux
philosophies differentes de la science, qui s’averent chacune Btayer une conception diffkrente
du rapport entre !e social et le spatial. Je recapitule les concepts B la base du positivisme et
indique ensuite les difficultks bien connues qu’il soulkve. J’examine egalement quelques
difficult& provenant de la position r&iste opposke et suggkre comment cefle-ci est susceptible
de mener de faqon non valable B une reduction du spatial a I’economique. Je tente de suggkrer
a quoi conduirait une approche plus pertinente et rkaliste. Celleci est ensuite dkvelopp6e en
detail dans la troisikme partie, qui met I’accent sur les rkpercussions qu’a l’espace sur les classes
et leurs formations. J’indique les diverses deficiences qui president B nombre de ces analyses
men& en sociologie, et en particulier, la non considhation des ‘structures de classe locales’.
Je tente en outre de montrer que certains changements dans la nature du capitalisme contem-
porain rendent I’analyse des structures de classe locales et les mouvements sociaux locaux de
plus en plus pertinente. J’avance enfin l’hypoth8se selon laquelle I’analyse ‘rkgionale’ est moins
approprike qu’une analyse des varietks de structures de classe locales, cellesci Btant conpues
comme des rbervoirs de diffkrents types de maind’oeuvre.

In dieser Arbeit untersuche ich einige der Beziehungen zwischen dem Raumlichen und dem
Sozialen. Im ersten Abschnitt fuhre ich verschiedene fiir die Beziehung relevante Punkte an. Ich
schlielk mit dem Argument, daO zwar keine allgemeine Wissenschaft der raumlichen
Beziehungen moglich ist, d d jedoch die raumlichen Zusammenhange zwischen verschiedenen
sozialen Objekten mit unterschiedlicher kausaler Kraft von Beutung sind, und zwar auf eine Art
und Weise, die von der herkommlichen Sozialwissenschaft im allgemeinen ignoriert wird. Im
zweiten Abschnitt betrachte ich zwei verschiedene Wissenschaftsphilosophien, die zwei
verschiedenen Konzepten des Zusammenhangs zwischen Raumlichem und Sozialem
zugrundezuliegen scheinen. Ich fuse kurz Positivismus zusammen und weise auf einige der
bekannten Schwierigkeiten hin. Dann betrachte ich einige Schwierigkeiten des entgegengesetzten
realistischen Konzepts und zeige, wie dieses zu ungiiltigen Ableitungen vom Raumlichen auf die
Wirtschaft ftihren konnte. Ich versuche, Vorschliige fiir eine angemessenere realistischere
Methode zu geben. Auf diese gehe ich dann im dritten Abschnitt ausfiihrlich ein, der sich n i t
den Auswirkungen des Raumlichen auf Klassen und Klsssenformation befafit. Ich merke
verschiedene Mange1 an, die bei vielen solchen Analysen in der Soziologie zu fmden sind,
insbesondere den, daO die “ortlichen Klassenstrukturen” vernachlhsigt werden. Des weiteren
versuche ich zu zeigen, dafi die Analyse lokaler Gesellschaftsstrukturen und -bewegungen
474 Localities, regions and social class

angesichts bestimmter Anderungen in der Natur des gegenwartigen Kapitalismus zunehmend an

Relevanz gewinnt. Ich behaupte, d d eine “regionale” Untersuchung weniger relevant ist als
eine Analyse der verschiedenen lokalen Gesellschaftsstrukturen, die als Gemeinschaft
verschiedener Arbeitskrafte gesehen werden.

En esta ponencia. exploro algunas de la relaciones entre lo espacial y lo social. En la primera

seccidn, expongo algunos puntos pertinentes a la relacidn. Concluyo con un argument0 que, si
bien no es posible una ciencia general de relaciones espaciales, las conexiones espaciales entre
distintos objetos sociales, que poseen diferentes potencias causales, si que son importantes, y de
maneras que la ciencia social convencional no ha examinado en general. En la segunda seccidn
considero dos filosofias de la ciencia diferentes que parecen sostener diferentes conceptos de la
relacidn entre lo social y lo espacial. Hago un resumen del positivisnio indicando algunas de las
bien conocidas dificultades. Tambidn considero algunas dificultades de la posicidn realista
opuesta, y sugiero c6mo esto pudieru conducir a reducciones invilidas de lo espacial a la
economia. Esto se desarrolla detalladamente en la tercera seccidn, que esta enfocada en 10s
efectos del espacio en la formacih de las clases. Sugiero varios defectos en muchos andisis
semejantes en la sociologfa, especialmente al desatender las ‘estructuras de clase locales’.
Ademas, trato de mostrar que ciertos cambios en la naturaleza del capitalism0 contemporineo
hacen que el adlisis de las estructuras sociales locales y 10s movimientos sociales locales sea mas
pertinente cada dia. Arguyo que el ana’lisis ‘regional’ es menos pertinente que un anilisis de las
variedades de estructuras sociales locales, concibihdose estas como grupos de mano de obra de
distinta clase.