ancient cities

the phenomenon under investigation (i.e., presuppositionless
representation). Thus, many urban
scholars working within large government agencies
continue to adhere to the long-standing positivist
notion that it is possible to produce universally
valid conceptions of cities without taking into
account the multiplicity of people’s subject positions
defined by race, class, gender, sexual orientation,
or religious status. In contrast, most critical
urban scholars reject presuppositionless representation,
arguing explicitly that such representation
is politically and philosophically impossible.
What we have, in short, is a brave new world of
urban theorizing that is contested, open, and fragmented.
Several trends are apparent. First, middlerange
variants of general theories are increasingly
supplanting broad-based paradigms as scholars
attempt to move toward constructive dialogue and
common ground in the direction of synthesized
theory building. This movement suggests that
future theorizing will not be about “adopting” and
“applying” a theory to “advance” a particular
paradigm or perspective. Such a notion is based on
the dubious ideas that there exist well-defined
theories and that theories actually make “progress”
toward an ultimate goal of complete knowledge
in understanding designated urban processes
and resolving empirical problems. Thus, the future
portends a decline in the popularity and influence
of broad paradigms such as urban political economy,
urban ecology, and the new urban sociology.
In the case of the new urban sociology, it is not
clear what is “new,” as many of the theoretical
assumptions were formulated in the 1980s and
before. On the other hand, middle-range theoretical
variants of these broad paradigms will continue
to guide empirical research and stimulate intense
debate as the urban world changes.
Second, theorizing is becoming redefined as a
practice that does not provide urban scholars with
statements to be tested but with questions.
Theoretical development consists of asking more
refined and provocative questions and revising
them in terms of what emerges in the process of
research.
Finally, theoretical development consists in
being eclectic and using different theoretical ideas,
concepts, and heuristic devices to examine previously
unanalyzed aspects of the urban world, or
theorizing cities in novel and original ways. Here
Urban Village
943
the merit of urban scholarship is not to be assessed
in terms of the factual authenticity or “truth content”
of statements but rather in terms of the richness
of descriptions, the depth of the analysis, and
the range of the interpretive probe. The measure of
urban theory today is the creation of new insights
and new ideas rather than the advancement of a
specific theoretical perspective or paradigm. These
new and different ideas may be theoretically and
analytically useful for a time and ultimately altered
or discarded for new and more useful ideas and
insights in the future.
Kevin Fox Gotham
See also Chicago School of Urban Sociology; New
Urban Sociology; Planning Theory; Regime Theory;
Urban; Urban Geography; Urban Sociology; Urban
Studies
Further Readings
Amin, Ash and Nigel Thrift. 2002. Cities: Reimagining
the Urban. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Benko, Georges and Ulf Stroymayer. 1997. Space and
Social Theory: Interpreting Modernity and
Postmodernity. New York: Blackwell.
Gotham, Kevin Fox. 2001. “Urban Sociology and the
Postmodern Challenge.” Humboldt Journal of Social
Relations 26(1–2):57–79.
———. 2003. “Toward an Understanding of the
Spatiality of Urban Poverty: The Urban Poor as
Spatial Actors.” International Journal of Urban and
Regional Research 27(3):723–37.
Lin, Jan. 2005. The Urban Sociology Reader. New York:
Routledge.
Storper, Michael. 2001. “The Poverty of Radical Theory
Today: From the False Promises of Marxism to the
Mirage of the Cultural Turn.” International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research 25(1):155–79.
Tajbakhsh, Kian. 2000. The Promise of the City: Space,
Identity and Politics in Contemporary Social Thought.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ur b a n vi l l a g e
The term urban villagers is most commonly associated
with the work of Herbert Gans, whose
book of the same name examined the social lives