ancient cities

A representation of space is constructed by capitalistic
developers and utilizers with the help of
knowledge and technical expertise. In contrast, a
space of representation is directly experienced by
community users and inhabitants through symbols
and images. These two moments of social space
are in tension with one another: Whereas the former
is a mental, abstract space revealed in strategies,
plans, or programs oriented toward exchange
value, the latter is a concrete, lived space of everyday
life and routine activities oriented toward
use value.
Spaces of Accumulation
According to Lefebvre, the survival of capitalism
depends on the production of new spaces for capital.
The spatial practices of the capitalist class are
primarily oriented toward the extraction and realization
of surplus value, although the diverse fractions
of capital (e.g., industrial capital, commercial
capital, financial capital, and landed capital) are
put in place differently according to their capabilities
and market opportunities. Space characteristic
to capitalism is where surplus value can be extracted
and realized for further accumulation. Such a
space of accumulation is subject to the recurrent
waves of restructuring due primarily to the crisis
tendencies of capitalism. The crisis-induced restructuring
accompanies changes in the spatial organization
of production and thus the landscape of
built environments.
Under late capitalism, as Lefebvre points out,
the production of space is indispensable for the
reproduction of social relations of production. The
shift from Fordism to a flexible regime of accumulation
entails the geographical extension of capital
on a global scale. The production of goods and
services is now coordinated by utilizing the global
production system for the global market. The
global production system is made of commodity
chains that connect spatially dispersed production
sites and activities. Transnational corporations
exploit any locational advantages by decentralizing
their production processes and business functions.
The global production system makes vertical
disintegration and economies of scope possible,
but only at the costs of labor.
With the advent of global capitalism, according
to Lefebvre, the realization of surplus value is ever
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more deterritorialized. The geographical extension
of capitalism necessitates localized social infrastructures
and institutional frameworks embedded
in the built environment. Thus, reterritorialization
is another aspect of spatial configurations under
late capitalism. Reterritorialization means the
restructuring of spatial organization as a precondition
for the accelerating mobility of capital, labor,
commodities, and information across national
boundaries. Such worldwide circulation is expedited
through the medium of social infrastructures
(e.g., networks of transport and communications)
and with the help of financial and state institutions.
Urban space displays the ensemble of networks,
linkages, and circuits that engage in the
worldwide circulation of capital, labor, commodities,
and information. Through the dialectical
processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization,
the most remote, separate, and distinct localities
are linked together into a space of capitalist
accumulation.
Each mode of production has its own spatial
organization and spatial configurations. Nonetheless,
space is not a simple reflection of the mode of production
alone. The production of space is subject
to historical contingency, depending on the complex
interplay between structural forces (e.g., state
intervention, the second circuit of capital) and
agents (e.g., growth networks, grassroots movements)
operating on all spatial scales.
The Role of the State
and State Intervention
Along with capital and capitalism, the state and
state intervention play a central role in the production
of space. Some believe that the power and
role of the state are doomed to decline due to
footloose activities of transnational corporations
and the accelerated mobility of capital in an era of
globalization. According to Lefebvre, however, the
reversal is true: The state, at all levels, continues to
intervene in and make use of space in order to
reproduce labor power, the means of production,
and the social relations of production. Through
the production, management, and transformation
of space, the state not only protects corporate
profit making in a competitive environment but
also reproduces the relations of domination for its
own sake. For the state, the expansion of capital