Into space

Abstract

Many scholars argue that capitalism relentlessly reshapes space in accord with its own implacable pursuit of growth and profit. In accounts based on the USA, the agent of change is either the anarchic mechanisms of the capitalist economy or the specific, purposive machinations of the bourgeoisie. By contrast, in France—at least in Paris—the efforts of the Bonapartist state radically to restructure urban space in conformity with the needs both of capitalist development and state power are well documented. As in Bonapartist France, the maturation of Chinese capitalism has vastly increased the scale of urban construction and planning. Moreover, in both countries this work has been carried out by a developmental state intensely focused on fostering that rapid capitalist growth. Yet in China, the very capitalism promoted by the state has, dialectically, begun to interfere with the capacity of the state to regulate and rationalize urban development.