Defining the urban

Abstract

In everyday discourse, the term ‘urban’ causes few problems, but it certainly has for social theory. While the paper accepts the recent consensus that the term no longer serves to refer to a distinct object in capatalist societies, it argues that the familiar arguments have been confused by inadequate approaches to the problem of definition and inadequate concepts of ‘space’ and ‘ideology’. Clarification of such definitions is a prime task of social theory and different methods of definition are discussed. The paper ends with a commentary on what is probably the best attempt at defining the urban — Raymond Williams‘ ‘The Country and the City’.