Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning

4
Urbanity
The antagonism between the town and country can only exist
within the framework of private property. It is the most crass
expression of the subjection of the individual under the division
of labor, under a definite activity forced upon him—a subjection
which makes one man into a restricted town-animal, the
other into a restricted country-animal, and daily creates anew
the conflict between their interests.
—Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology
There’s little doubt that the encounter with Guy Debord and the
Situationists piqued Henri Lefebvre’s interest in things urban.
Hitherto, the peasantry and the countryside had captured his
imagination; hitherto, his Marxist social and political theory had
critiqued fascism and pilloried state socialism, burrowed into
59