Urban Geography and the Socialist CityAuthor(s): David M. SmithSource: Area, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Sep., 1988), p. 220Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20002622 .

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Area (1988) 20.3, 220

Urban geography and the socialist city David M Smith, Department of Geography and Earth Science, Queen Mary College, University of London, Mile End Road, London E l 4NS

This short introduction to work on socialist cities makes it clear that Dr Prawelska-Skrzypek's paper is a welcome addition to the limited literature that is currently available in English.

For a long time the study of urban geography in Britain, the USA and indeed the entire capitalist world, proceeded in almost total ignorance of the socialist city. Captivated by the empirical regularities of the Chicago School, intra-urban studies have been largely focussed on the American city, which still dominates most text books. Restricted access to Eastern Europe on the part of' western ' scholars, coupled with the limited scope of indigenous urban geography, led to a dearth of case material. In addition, the question of how to deal with the 'alternative ' system of socialism introduced a complication which could most easily be resolved by omission.

It was not until the publication of the collection of papers edited by French and Hamilton (1979) that the possible distinction of the ' socialist city ' was drawn firmly to the attention of geographers. While mainly the work of Britons, this book gave the first broad exposure in English to the pioneering studies of the internal structure of Polish cities by Andrzej Werwicki and Grzegorz Weclawowicz. Soon after this, the appear ance of an important study of two small Hungarian cities by Selenyi (1982) drew attention to the process of spatial/social sorting associated with access to housing. Selenyi's work represents a broadening of the increasingly multidisciplinary perspec tive being brought to bear on the internal structure of East European cities, with emphasis on social process supplementing scrutiny of spatial form. Housing in equalities and occupational segregation in ' state socialist' cities has recently been the subject of a special issue of the InternationalJournal of Urban and Regional Studies (1 1, 1, 1987). Studies of contemporary Soviet cities are still rare, despite the notable effort of

Hamilton (1976); Soviet geography itself is not renowned for its social sensitivity, a major exception being the series of papers on Moscow by Natasha Barbash (most accessible in Smith 1988).

The present study by Grazyna Prawelska-Skrzypek is an especially welcome ad dition to the literature. It eschews the superficialities of pattern identification and defensive retreat into technical sophistication characteristic of much work in this field, for a more critical perspective which outlines aspects of the process of spatial-social differentiation associated in particular with access to housing. As such work accumu lates, knowledge of urban life under socialism is enlarged, as is understanding of the actual practice of societies too often obscured by ideology or prejudice.

References French R A and Hamilton F E I (eds) (1979) The socialist city: spatial structure and urban policy (John Wiley,

Chichester)

Hamilton F E I (1976) The Moscow city region (Oxford University Press, Oxford)

Selenyi I (1983) Urban inequalities under state socialism (Oxford University Press, Oxford)

Smith D M (1988) Geography, inequality and society (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) Chapter 5

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