Abstract
The cities of the west have been noisy places in recent years. Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s they provided the arenas for a great many collective agitations: from the racial violence of American cities or the celebrated riots of May 1968 in Paris, to the most diverse array of demonstrations and protests by squatters, council house tenants, ratepayers, environmentalists and others. The action has been channelled through national political parties, local political groups, residents’ associations, community action committees and a host of ad hoc organisations.
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Notes and References
M. Castells, City, Class and Power (London: Macmillan, 1978) p. 167.
D. Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books, 1972).
A. Touraine, The Post-Industrial Society (New York: Random House, 1971).
On the expansion of white-collar work and the growth of unionism in this section of the workforce, see R. F. Elliott, ‘The Growth of White Collar Employment in Great Britain 1951–1971’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, XV (i), March 1977.
R. Price and G. Bain, ‘Union Growth Revisited: 1948–74 in Perspective’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, XIV (3), 1976.
The best-known examination of these differences is D. Lockwood, The Black-coated Worker (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966).
The point is made in many sources. See. J. Westergaard and H. Resler, Class in a Capitalist Society (London: Heinemann, 1975).
A. B. Atkinson (ed.), Wealth, Income and Inequality (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973).
A. B. Atkinson, Unequal Shares: Wealth In Britain (London: Allen Lane, 1972); or An A to Z of Income and Wealth, the last publication of the Royal Commission on Income and Wealth (London: HMSO, 1980).
A recent study commenting on this phenomenon is that by O. Gill, Luke Street (London: Macmillan, 1979).
J. Rex, ‘Black Militancy and Class Conflict’, in R. Miles and A. Phizacklea, Racism and Political Action in Britain (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979).
See the journal, Race Today, or the book by R. Moore, Racism and Black Resistance (London: Pluto Press, 1975), which draws heavily on this and other black press sources.
With our colleague, Frank Bechhofer, we have written about this. See F. Bechhofer, B. Elliott and D. McCrone, ‘Structure, Consciousness and Action: a Sociological Profile of the British Middle Class’, British Journal of Sociology, XXIX (4), 1978.
K. Roberts, F. Cook, S. Clark and E. Semeonoff, The Fragmentary Class Structure (London: Heinemann, 1977).
C. Hartman, Yerba Buena: Land Grab and Community Resistance in San Francisco (National Housing and Economic Development Law Project, Earl Warren Legal Institution, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974) p. 106.
D. Ley, ‘Liberal Ideology and the Post-Industrial City’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 70 (2), 1980.
Ibid, p. 258.
B. Hindess, The Decline of Working Class Politics (London: Paladin, 1971).
T. Forester, The Labour Party and the Working Class (London: Heinemann, 1976).
For details of changes in party composition at a national level, see R. W. Johnson, ‘The British Political Elite, 1955–1972’, Archives Europeén de Sociologie, XIV, 1973.
An amusing portrait of a traditional, long-dominant local party is contained in M. Bulmer, ‘Tammany Hall beside the Wear’, New Society, 24 November 1977.
See Moore, Racism and Black Resistance, for a description of the disputes at the Mansfield Hosiery works or the Imperial Typewriter company, perhaps the best-known instances where black workers were not supported by the predominantly white unions.
A collection of articles dealing with the so-called middle-class revolt is found in R. King and N. Nugent, Reluctant Rebels (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1979).
For evidence of this, see the recent report by Members of Parliament, in The Joint Committee against Racialism, and newspaper commentary on this. For instance, The Sunday Times, 8 February 1981.
Their formation is documented in many issues of Race Today. For a plea to co-ordinate self-defence for Asians and West Indians see the article by Darcus Howe, Race Today, October 1978. For a recent example of an organisation concerned with the defence of a local black community, see newspaper coverage of the New Cross Massacre Action Committee.
J. Kirkpatrick ‘Politics and the New Class’, Transaction, 16 (2), 1979.
Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.
R. Miliband, ‘A State of De-Subordination’, British Journal of Sociology, XXIX (4), 1978.
See the recent books by P. Saunders, Urban Politics: a Sociological Interpretation (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980), and P. Dunleavy, Urban Political Analysis (London: Macmillan, 1980).
C. Cockburn, The Local State (London: Pluto Press, 1977).
P. Saunders, ‘Towards a Non-spatial Urban Sociology’, Working Paper 31, Urban and Regional Studies, University of Sussex, July, 1980 and elements of the argument are to be found in his book Social Theory and the Urban Question (London: Hutchinson, 1981).
M. Castells, ‘Is There an Urban Sociology?’, in C. Pickvance (ed.), Urban Sociology: Critical Essays (London: Tavistock, 1976).
P. Dunleavy, ‘The Urban Basis of Political Alignment’, British Journal of Political Science, 9 (4) 1979.
M. Castells, ‘Urban Social Movements and the Struggle for Democracy: the Citizens’ Movement in Spain’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2 (1), March 1978; J. Olives, ‘The Struggle Against Urban Renewal in the Cité d’Aliarte’ (Paris), in Pickvance, Urban Sociology.
Touraine, The Post-Industrial Society.
Among a great many studies see: C. Bell and H. Newby, ‘Community Communion, Class and Community Action’, in D. Herbert and R. R. Johnson (eds), Social Geography and the Study of Urban Areas (London: Wiley, 1977).
D. Donnison, ‘The Micro-Politics of the City’, in D. Donnison and D. Eversley (eds), London: Urban Patterns, Problems and Policies (London: Heinemann, 1973); P. Leonard (ed.), ‘The Sociology of Community Action’, Sociological Review Monograph, no. 21, 1975.
J. O’Malley, The Politics of Community Action (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1977).
D. Perman, Cublington: Blueprint for Resistance (Oxford: Bodley Head, 1972).
N. Wates, The Battle for Tolmers Square (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976).
M. Harrington, ‘The New Class and the Left’, Transaction, 16 (2), 1979.
A Marsh, Protest and Political Consciousness (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977).
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© 1982 Brian Elliott and David McCrone
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Elliott, B., McCrone, D. (1982). Power and Protest in the City. In: The City. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16925-2_7
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