THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE

The construction and reconstruction of space developed radically during the 20th century. This construction/reconstruction of space is driven by the process of capital accumulation. David Harvey argues that "capitalism is necessarily growth-oriented, technologically dynamic, and crisis prone. One of the ways it can temporarily and in part surmount crises of overaccumulation of capital (idle productive capacity plus unemployed labor) is through geographical expansion" (Harvey 1996: 295). Harvey calls this process the "spatial fix." In this process, capital may be exported from one place to another. This may occur within a nation-state, or cross borders as a form of economic imperialism. It can radically change the character and meaning of a place. It can practically destroy a place. The effects of rapid deindustrialization in a city like Baltimore provides an example. In 1970, the population of Baltimore was 905,759; today, it is just over 600,000. In 1970, there were 7,000 vacant housing units; today, there are 40,000. Since 1960, about 100,000 manufacturing jobs have left the city. Since 1970, 25,000 jobs have been lost at Bethlehem Steel once a major producer. There have been other serious job losses in the automobile and electrical industries, in ship building and repair, and in dock work (Harvey 2000: 133-56).

See David Harvey, Justice, Nature & the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell Publishes, 1996 www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/book.asp/ ; David Harvey, Spaces of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000 www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9143.html ; Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1991 (1996) www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/book.asp/ .