Urban problematic in marxism: Examples of David Harvey and Manuel Castells

Despite that the city constitutes a very important part of social life, thinkers did not give due importance to city within social works. Utopian socialists revealed the problems caused by the industrial city and settled them on utopian cities with a longing for a new world. In classical urban theory, the city has been addressed as long as it was useful in analysing capitalist mode of production. The city was addressed within the context of a life style and a physically environment, similar to ecological environment, by the systematically urban research of the Chicago School for the first time. With the large scale transformation of the cities after World War II, modern urban theories began to come up. Researches revealing the relation between capitalism and urban environment, that began with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels even if with few researches, gained a new dimension with Henri Lefebvre in the 1960?s and the urban problematic in Marxism rose up to a position within modern urban theories as never before. The aim of this research is to investigate the appearance of the urban problematic in Marxism. After Lefebvre, many Marxist thinkers included the relation between the city and the capitalist mode of production to their researches. Two outstanding names, among these thinkers are David Harvey and Manuel Castells. In this research, the issue of urban problematic in Marxism is going to be investigated on the studies of Harvey and Castells. Key Words: 1. City 2. Capitalism 3. Marxism 4. David Harvey and Manuel Castells 5. Urban Social Movements