TECHNOBUREAUCRACY ANO CITY LIFE and criteria ... the decision will have been made originally and will be finally determined by owners calculating profit » (35). Williams (quoted above) is saying that intervention in the intermediate mechanisms of resource allocation will not fundamentally alter the urban system. Despite Williams' faithful re-iteration of Marxist theory which leads him to seriously under-estimate the significance of the « state » and the « planners » his conclusion that inequities cannot be removed by manipulation of a basically inequitable system of resource allocation is worth taking note of. Others such as Harvey, however, argue that « In contemporary "advanced" societies the problem is to devise alternatives to the market mechanism which allow the transference of productive power and the distribution of surplus to sectors and territories where the social necessities are so patently obvious » (36). TENURE AND BUREAUCRATISATION Both Williams' and Harvey's analyses and proposals only serve to obscure the actual processes at work in our cities. Far from « ownership » being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands the institutions are trying to make us all « owners » of the house we live in. However, we can only join the ranks of « owners » through the mediation of the institutions that contro! access to both the housing and the finance to purchase housing. « Property is theft » said Proudhon, and in so saying described exactly how the big landowners acquired their « property ». But Proudhon also said that « Property is Freedom » thinking of the people's right to control the houses they live in, their environment and their means of production. The institutions now want to make us all « property owners » but their intention is not to give us « freedom » but to increase their domination over our lives. During this century there has been a massive growth in the owner-occupied housing sector (which was previously pratically non-existent), growth in the publicly-owned housing sector and an enormous decline in the privately rented sector (which was the main form of tenure previously). The cost of (35) R. WILLIAMS, Cities and Countries, from « Cities in Modern Britain », p. 83. (36) D. HARVEY, Socia[ Justice and Spatial Systems, from « Cities in Modern Britain », p. 75. 35
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExMDY2NQ==