What Role for Social Science in the ‘Urban Age'?

Abstract

There is growing recognition of a new human ascendancy: ‘the urban age’. Rising interest in urbanism is evident in popular literature, the media and major global institutions. And yet, as with another great issue of the age, global warming, there is evidence that social science is being sidelined from a rapidly enlarging field of human concern. New urban knowledges are forwarded from the physical sciences and from popular commentary that are characterized by naturalism and its kindred tendencies, especially determinism. In this essay I consider why social scientific urbanism seems increasingly marginal to an ever broadening urban discussion. The regressive consequences for human knowledge and prospect are essayed. The essay's final part is prospectus: for a revivified social scientific urbanism that draws from Sayer's recent argument for renewal of critical human knowledge.

The Situations of Urban Inquiry: Thinking Problematically about the City

“…They are often characterized as the sources of suspect ‘urbanology' (e.g. Gleeson, ) and of neoliberal fast policy (Peck, ), as well as suffering from naïve ‘methodological cityism' (Angelo and Wachsmuth, ). In contrast, we seek to avoid the deep‐seated suspicion of fields of applied urbanism by paying attention to what is at stake in the reframing of so many issues as ‘urban' in some sense or other.…”

Coordinating density; working through conviction, suspicion and pragmatism

“…'Urbanologists', can be seen to put forth discourses of conviction concerning the compact city with an almost "evangelical fervour" (Gleeson 2013. These discourses of conviction accompany the economic changes that have occurred over recent decades, which have led to a focus on the tendency to agglomeration and the economic value that this generates (Sassen 2001;Scott 2001).…”

“…International institutions have also joined the 'new urban conversation' and bought into the compact city project by promoting denser cities with more public transport as solutions to climate change (Gleeson 2013). UNEP's Green Economy Report features a chapter named Cities, and one of its key messages announces that, "compact, relatively densely populated cities, with mixeduse urban form, are more resource-efficient than any other settlement pattern with similar levels of economic output" (UNEP 2011: p458).…”

Social sphere and sustainable development of urban territories

“…Quality of life is the integrated concept that comprehensively characterizes level, degree of welfare, freedom, social and spiritual development of the person. Researchers (see Gleeson, 2013) use sometimes other close concepts (a population standard of living, etc.). In our opinion, it is expedient to use the concept "quality of life of the population" because it is accepted in foreign researches and opens a way to inner comparisons.…”