The Marxist Urban Sociology of Manuel Castells

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to assess, systematically, the writings of Manuel Castells. These writings date from 1967 and, as the bibliography reveals, they are extremely copious. They represent one of the first attempts within urban sociology to develop a Marxist analysis of urban areas. Castells’s writings can be classified into three different categories: those concerned with a critique of conventional urban sociology; those concerned with formulating an alternative Marxian approach for urban analysis; and those concerned with empirical research. While this classification is not watertight it is broadly accurate and will be adopted in this chapter. Thus, Castells’s critique of conventional urban sociology will be discussed in section 6.1; his formulation of a Marxist approach to urban analysis in sections 6.2 to 6.6; and his empirical research will be examined in section 6.7.