DPU Working Paper - No. 23

Author: Ronaldo Ramirez

Publication Date: 1990

In this paper I will briefly examine the following propositions: that a concept of urbanization and of the urban with explanatory capacity to illuminate the understanding of urban and social processes in developing countries has practically disappeared from social sciences; that efforts to replace unsatisfactory concepts with alternative ones, sufficiently comprehensive to provide this understanding have yet to be successful; that in the absence of a concept of the urban, the analyses of particular processes that take place mainly in urban areas, such as the provision of public housing, offer a possible way towards the formulation of such a concept; and finally, that the concepts of general conditions of production and of reproduction of labour power are useful although limited instruments of analysis for these endeavours.

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