The Urban Revolution

by Henri Lefebvre

Originally published in 1970, The Urban Revolution marked Henri Lefebvre’s first sustained critique of urban society, a work in which he pioneered the use of semiotic, structuralist, and poststructuralist methodologies in analyzing the development of the urban environment. Although it is widely considered a foundational book in contemporary thinking about the city, The Urban Revolution has never been translated into English—until now. This first English edition, deftly translated by Robert Bononno, makes available to a broad audience Lefebvre’s sophisticated insights into the urban dimensions of modern life.Lefebvre begins with the premise that the total urbanization of society is an inevitable process that demands of its critics new interpretive and perceptual approaches that recognize the urban as a complex field of inquiry. Dismissive of cold, modernist visions of the city, particularly those embodied by rationalist architects and urban planners like Le Corbusier, Lefebvre instead articulates the lived experiences of individual inhabitants of the city. In contrast to the ideology of urbanism and its reliance on commodification and bureaucratization—the capitalist logic of market and state—Lefebvre conceives of an urban utopia characterized by self-determination, individual creativity, and authentic social relationships.A brilliantly conceived and theoretically rigorous investigation into the realities and possibilities of urban space, The Urban Revolution remains an essential analysis of and guide to the nature of the city.Henri Lefebvre (d. 1991) was one of the most significant European thinkers of the twentieth century. His many books include The Production of Space (1991), Everyday Life in the Modern World (1994), Introduction to Modernity (1995), and Writings on Cities (1995).Robert Bononno is a full-time translator who lives in New York. His recent translations include The Singular Objects of Architecture by Jean Baudrillard and Jean Nouvel (Minnesota, 2002) and Cyberculture by Pierre Lévy (Minnesota, 2001).

Genres: Sociology, Urbanism, Nonfiction, Architecture, Philosophy, Urban Studies, Cities

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 1970

About the author

Henri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectics, alienation, and criticism of Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism.

In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He founded or took part in the founding of several intellectual and academic journals such as Philosophies, La Revue Marxiste, Arguments, Socialisme et Barbarie, Espaces et Sociétés.

Lefebvre died in 1991. In his obituary, Radical Philosophy magazine honored his long and complex career and influence:
the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, died during the night of 28–29 June 1991, less than a fortnight after his ninetieth birthday. During his long career, his work has gone in and out of fashion several times, and has influenced the development not only of philosophy but also of sociology, geography, political science and literary criticism.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blight of Gentrification!

How do you define the Postmodernity of our Bleak, Soulless, Modern Cities? Let me give you a bit of help...

Take a look at New York City. After the rampage of Covid-19 there, services declined. So guess what? As a result many of the Very Rich packed up and left town.

With rental prices plummeting, The Big Apple was being reborn for a while.

How does that apply to US, though?

Say your new neighbours just moved in. You haven’t seen them, let alone introduced yourself to them in order to welcome them to the ‘hood. But your wife has questions - which she voices to you:

‘Are they nice? Are they senior citizens like our group of 35-year veterans of our neck of the woods (unlikely, but it would be a plus for us...)? Are they homebodies (like so many of us)?’

Well, now the high summer is nearly upon us (finally)!

So I’m at my guard post out front one bright, cloudless day (still dreaming in technicolor!) with my handy e-reader in one hand, sprinkler in the other, making myself look useful, when next door from behind the garage - out pops a forty-something, weary, bearded face -

‘Hi! You must be our new neighbour - welcome to our cozy crescent!’ I chirrup...

Silence. Complete, utter, vacuous silence. Then - a glimmer of understanding; a sly grin; and the Dawn of a Knowing Leer...

You see? It’s everywhere now. That bitter, sly understanding that passes for neighbourliness. Yes - it’s everywhere.

The Oncoming Unavoidable Spiritual Drought of an Older and Wiser, Heartless, Pan-Dehumanized Postmodernity.

We’ve checked all our Compassionate Credentials at the Door to this Hell.

“Give up hope, all ye who enter herein!” And while you’re at the checkpoint, don’t forget to Check all your Joy in that antechamber as well.

“You won’t need it - or find it here.

“But HERE you’ll find every Risqué One-Liner you’ll ever need to prevent you from being a Too Square Party Pooper.

“And don’t forget to check your Heart and Brains at the door here, too - they’re also verboten, unless your business is pleasure...”

THAT, folks, is postmodernism.

A Radically Depersonalised, Dehumanized, Gentrified Makeover for our Desentimentalized, Heartless Urban Spaces.

THIS is the 21st Century Urban answer to Lefebvre’s 20th Century Vibrant, Faithful Renewal.

“Fear in a handful of dust...” - such gentrification is the corporate response to Derrida’s and Lefebvre’s Radical Humanism: an endless deferral of all really Human possibility, outside of its yawning, “legitimizing”, “normalized” free-market abyss. Where all human potential is now grist for the market.

Realpolitik.

Where, oh where, is the right-minded Christian neighbour with his boundlessly enthusiastic welcome to the new neighbour, in all this?

Gone, with the Dodo?

Or, perhaps, still fighting for oxygen somewhere within our warmly beating heart?

You know, the great, groundbreaking literary scholar and humanist Harold Bloom recently conceded defeat to these nameless forces of voracious free-market nihilism now overrunning our planet (you can see that recent interview on YouTube).

Are WE going to do the same?

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but with a whimper...

That seems to be up to EACH ONE OF US.

CAUSE WE MAY SOON HAVE NO CHOICE.

[Alix · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Urban Revolution offers both an account of the way that the urban dominates the organization of life and production beyond cities themselves, and a methodology for studying this process. This was not the easiest read and it doesn't subscribe to the norms of an academic text. However, the basic insight that the urban goes beyond the city itself is easy enough to grasp.

[Andrew]

Writing in the heady days of 1970, Lefebvre was making an impressive contribution to the urban imagination. By rejecting the market-driven and state-driven urbanism of the official account of the city, while also rejecting mainline French Marxist interpretations as structuralist obfuscation, he was pushing into new terrain.

But, unfortunately, I have to conclude that a lot of his recommendations have been gleefully co-opted by the neoliberal ideologues-- something you get the sense he was probably terrified would happen. Still, as a program for how to do urban studies, this remains an impressive if rather primitive step towards something interesting. He's still bogged down in a lot of the godawful structuralism, and, of course, being a French intellectual, he writes like a rabbit chasing a carrot, but there's still something valuable to be gleaned here.

[Aslihan · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, for those who are making an early entry into urban sociology or urban studies it’s an important starting point, because it provides an overview of the urban question in 1970s, representing the perspective of the French academia. Two things are noteworthy in this overview: the historical transformations of the urban experience and the scholarly ways of studying the city. However, the structure of the book is so fluid that it doesn’t lead the reader in an inductive or deductive way. It sort of spirals around the very personal academic interests and tendencies of Lefebvre. There is a very distinct separation between French and American social sciences and it’s not just idiographic vs. nomothetic, something beyond that one discovers more by reading and comparing more.

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this book or find it enlightening in some way as I explore a career in Urban Planning. unfortunately, I simply found it way to philosophical to really understand what Lefebvre was talking about most of the time. Lefebvre's philosophies of urbanism underpin many of the theories I am currently learning but I just really found this text extremely difficult to see those philosophies as they were presented here.

[Sovatha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book deconstructs the myths and legends of urban society and explains some of the major concepts such as urbanization and urbanism. The understanding of these important concepts should be a must read for anyone doing urban research.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good intro to Lefebvre. Some of the writing is obscure. I still don't know what a "blind field" is, seems unnecessary to put that chapter (2) so early in the work. But I am sure someone has built their career on unpacking that concept, accurately or not. I recommend Chapters 1, 3 and 4.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lefebvre...a great deal of difficult high-philosophy meandering that you plough through and I confess I put this book down three times before finally finishing it. But finish it I did, and thing with Lefebvre is, the gems of insight you find here and there are worth it. I think. But I can't always follow how he gets there, and I've decided that it isn't so important.

Neil Smith's intro does a great job of situating Lefebvre in the intellectual ferment of France post WWI and WWII -- along with his history as a resistance fighter. He notes the critiques of one of Lefebvre's primary arguments -- that urbanization has replaced industrialization as the 'motor of capital accumulation' (xviii) The connection between these, however, is clearly a key one, and not fully thought out here by Lefebvre -- or indeed anywhere. Smith seems to have agreed with me as well regarding the meandering, judging from his final caveats about style and content.

So, to focus on the insights: Society has been completely urbanized, where urban society is that which 'results from industrialization, which is a process of domination that absorbs agricultural production' (2). Perhaps this is not entirely global, but close.

He has a lovely thing about streets -- that sort of exemplifies him thinking out loud:

Revolutionary events generally take place in the street. Doesn't this show that disorder of the street engenders anotehr kind of order? The urban space of the street is a place for talk, given over as much to the exchange of words and signs as it is to the exchange of things. A place where speech becomes writing. A place where speech can become 'savage' and, by escaping rules and institutions, inscribe itself on walls.
Against the street. A meeting place? Maybe, but such meetings are superficial. In the street, we merely brush shoulders with others, we don't interact with them. It's the 'we' that's important. The street prevents the constitution of a group, as subject; it is populated by a congeries of people in search of...of what exactly? (19)

This chapter is a series of 'for' and 'against'. There is another nice phrase on monuments:

Monuments project onto the land a conception of the world, whereas the city projected (and continues to project) social life (globality)...monuments embody a sense of transcendance, a sense of being elsewhere. They have always been u-topic. Throughout their height and depth, along a dimension that was alien to urban trajectories, they proclaimed duty, power, knowledge, joy, hope. (22)

Another insight on the conflicts of the industrial city created by its spatiality:

Several logics meet head-on and sometimes clash: the logic of commodities (stretched so far as to attempt to organize production on the basis of consumption), the logic of the state and the law, the organization of space (town and country planning and urbanism), the logic of the object, of daily life, language, information, communication. Because each logic wants to be restrictive and complete, eliminating anything that is felt to be unsuitable, claiming to govern the remainder of the world, it becomes an empty tautology. In this way, communication only transmits the communicable. But all these logics and all these tautologies confront one another at some point. They share a common space: the logic of surplus value. The city, or what remains of it or what it will become, is better suited than it has ever been before for the accumulation of capital; that is, the accumulation, realization, and distribution of surplus value (35).

Here a definition of the urban that I love -- yet that fails completely to describe many an urban area, like L.A. for example

The urban is defined as the place where people walk around, find themselves standing before and inside piles of objects, experience the intertwining of the threads of their activities until they become unrecognizable, entangle situations in such a way that they engender unexpected situations (39).

This is the irrepressible nature of it:

In spite of any efforts at homgenization through technology, in spite of the constitution of arbitrary isotopies, that is, separation and segregation, no urban place is identical to another .... the urban is a highly complex field of tensions, a virtuality, a possible-impossible that attracts the accomplished, an ever-renewed and always demanding presence-absence. Blindness consists in the fact that we cannot see the shape of the urban, the vectors and tensions inherent in this field, its logic and dialectic movement, its immanent demands. We see only things, operations, objects...(40)

In oppostion to a beautiful complexity:

Separation and segregation break this relationship [in which difference thrives]. They constitute a totalitarian order, whose strategic goal is to break down concrete totality, to break the urban. Segregation complicates and destroys complexity (133)

Thus L.A. may be a city, even one striving for complexity, yet it is struggling against great odds to be urban, to contain difference. I think maybe that this explains a few things on the level of feeling really, I am still trying to get my head around it.

Theres this lovely sentence:
Urban reform, which would clear the soil of the servitude that results from private property (and consequently from speculation), already has a revolutionary component...The period of urban revolutions has begun (43).
Perhaps my favourite thing in the whole book is unexpectedly and unaccountably drawn from the philosophy of Heidegger (which I find so compromised) and the poetry of Holderlin (which I find fairly sickly mawkish).

The human being cannot build and dwell, that is to say, possess a dwelling in which he lives, without also possessing something more (or less) than himself: his relation to the possible and the imaginary...The relation resides in the dwelling and in habiting...A home and language are two complementary aspects of the human being'...the 'human being' cannot do anything but inhabit as poet. If we do not provide him with (as an offering and a gift) the possibility of inhabiting poetically or of inventing a poetry, he will create it as best he can. (82)

I find this an amazing way to think about the meaning of home, how we try to shape and craft it to suit ourselves no matter our circumstances. I struggle to put all of these things together of course, but relish them individually. And then put them together as I want, which perhaps is no bad thing.

From power over home to power over cities:

The working class never had any space other than that of its expropriation, its deportation: segregation.
...there is a remarkable isotopy in the spaces created by state rationalism: long straight lines, broad avenues, voids, empty perspectives, an occupation of the soil that makes a clean break with its antecedents, without regard for wither the rights and interests of the lower classes or cost (128).

As a novelist I like this idea of

...u-topia, the non-place, the place for that which doesn't occur, for that which has no place of its own, that is always elsewhere? On a map of Paris (the so-called Turgot map of approximately 1735), u-topia can be neither read nor seen, and yet it is there in all its glory. It is where the gaze that overlooks the large city is situated, a vaguely determined place, but one that is carefully conceived and imagined (imaged), a place of consciousness; that is, a consciousness of totality. In general, this place, imagined and real, is found near the borders of verticality, the dimension of desire, power, and thought. Sometimes it is found deep within the subterranean city imagined by the novelist or poet, the underside of the city given over to conspiracy and crime. U-topia combines near and distant orders (129-30).

I mean, what is he really trying to say there, academically speaking? Hell if I know, but it is awesome and makes me think great things.

You get to chapter 8 and there's loads of stuff, though when he says he's provided the conceptual tools for it all you may, like me, wonder when exactly that happened. But 8 is cool. Keep reading until you get there.

There are several urbanisms: the urbanism of humanists, of developers, of the state and its technocrats. the first group proposes abstract utopias; the second sells urbanism--that is, happiness, a lifestyle, a certain social standing. The activity of the last group dissociates, like the activity of the state, into will and representation, institutions and ideologies (151)

The deployment of the world of commodities now affects not only objects but their containers, it is no longer limited to content, to objects in space. More recently, space itself has begun to be bought and sold. Not the earth, the soil, but social space, produced as such, with this purpose, this finality (so to speak). Space is no longer only an indifferent medium, the sum of places where surplus value is created, realized, and distributed. It becomes the product of social labor, the very general object of production, and consequently of the formation of surplus value. This is how production becomes social within the very framework of neocapitalism.

Here's where he argues that the nature of production has changed:

Capitalism, to ensure its survival, took the initiative in this. The strategy goes far beyond simply selling space, bit by bit. not only does it incorporate space in the production of surplus value, it attempts to completely reorganize production as something subordinate to the centers of imformation and decision making (155)

He argues that urbanism is not objective, but incorporates a class strategy. Today's urbanism 'lives off the compromise between neoliberalism (which participates in planning and in activities that are refferred to as 'voluntary' or 'consensual') and neo-dirigisme (which leaves a field open for 'free enterprise')' (158). He discusses to some extent real estate's function as a second circuit of capital parallel to that of industrial production, a buffer where capital can go in case of depression. And then, of course, he argues that capital shifts entirely, 'It can even happen that real-estate speculation becomes the principle source for the formation of capital, that is, the realization of surplus value' (160). But he doesn't look in any depth at how this surplus value is actually created in a Marxist understanding -- you have to look to Harvey for that. But he sees today's urbanism as a shutting down of possibilities, a reduction to a society of controlled consumption, a repressive space (164).

[burçin · Rating 3 out of 5]

ilk başta uzun felsefi irdelemelerle başlıyor, ben felsefi ve kavram dolu kitapları okumakta çok zorlanıyorum. yine bu kitabı da çok okumak istememe rağmen, uzun bi süre okuduklarımı hiç anlamadığım ve bence okuması zor olduğundan hem motivasyonum çok azaldı hem de takriben bu kitabı okumam gereksiz uzun bir zaman aldı. son kısımlarına ve anlamamı sağlayan sonuç bölümleri için üç puan verdim, yüksek bile sayılabilir. aşırı kısa özet: neoliberalsek şehir, radikalsek kent diyoruz.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone who thinks spatially, or wants to learn about the importance of space in the city. Lefebvre is stellar and hopeful. His concept of habiting (an idea he later expands upon to call lived space) is so necessary.

[Irina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fourth star is only for being important.

[Mills College Library]

307.76 L489 2003

[Cristian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitivamente no es el mejor libro para iniciarse con Lefebvre en mi opinión. O igual es igual de pedante y mal explicado en sus otros libros.

Definitivamente un tema importante y unos objetivos honorables, pero su lectura no atrae, es muy rebuscado, poco divulgador para querer expresar su ideario académico para en adelante, y además está bastante mal organizado.

Sí, el estudio del urbanismo debe ser totalizador y como totalizador paradójicamente se desgaja y pierde base (es básicamente como decir que mi campo de estudio es el más importante, lo he leído un millón de veces); sí, existió un periodo rural, seguido de uno industrial y uno urbano que se caracteriza por su centralidad de todas las características, desnaturalizando (más interesante no decir nada); y sí, el estudio urbanista ha perdido a los habitantes como intermediarios, se ha vuelto elitista y no incluye al ciudadano, estudiar por qué el habitante se conforma con ello debe ser nuestra principal crítica (si estás haciendo un cliff-hanger no me leo la parte dos tronco). En general decir mucho para contar poco, mejor otro título.

[Thomas Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great deal of difficult high-philosophy meandering that you plough through and I confess I put this book down three times before finally finishing it. But finish it I did, and thing with Lefebvre is, the gems of insight you find here and there are worth it. I think. But I can't always follow how he gets there, and I've decided that it isn't so important.

Neil Smith's intro does a great job of situating Lefebvre in the intellectual ferment of France post WWI and WWII -- along with his history as a resistance fighter. He notes the critiques of one of Lefebvre's primary arguments -- that urbanization has replaced industrialization as the 'motor of capital accumulation'. The connection between these, however, is clearly a key one, and not fully thought out here by Lefebvre -- or indeed anywhere. Smith seems to have agreed with me as well regarding the meandering, judging from his final caveats about style and content.

Society has been completely urbanized, where urban society is that which 'results from industrialization, which is a process of domination that absorbs agricultural production'. Perhaps this is not entirely global, but close.

[Sencer Turunç · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap kent sorunsalını ele alıyor ve çerçevelendiriyor. Bunu yaparken, bu sorunsalın tam olarak içindeki insanların sessizliğini de sorguluyor. İnsanlar, özlemleri hakkında biçimsiz mırıldanmalardan fazlasını yapamıyorlar. Bu tuhaf bir durum...

Bu sorunsalın ele alınmasında, pratik aklın ötesinde araçların işe koyulması gerekmektedir. Sadece teknik yaklaşımlar bu sorunsalı daha berbat bir hale getirmektedir. Böyle olduğunda, kentsel söylemin merkezinde yarışan bir vasatlık bulunmaktadır.

Diğer taraftan, kentsel işleyişin gerçekleştiği zamanda olup biten bir aşınma, ölüp dirilme söz konusu olduğu için insanın herşeyi bozan, kirleten, mahveden bir canlı olmasının neden olduğu tiksinti hafifliyor...

[Dylan Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lefebvre does an excellent job of recounting the history of urban development as it relates to societal transformations. His ability to ascertain the connection between the urban environment and its influence on our everyday life, although incredibly heavy handed and heady, offers an informative critique of conflicts within existing power structures behind the majority of the modern global development. Similar to the majority of his writings that I’ve read, there are many sections of the book that seem to ramble on with a sudden burst of poetic clarity that reinvigorates my interest and desire to continue on.

[Val Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certified hood classic. I would absolutely love to hear what Lefebvre would have to say about present-day online urbanism and the whole “Abundance” thing. This book is an excellent critique of urbanism as an ideology and a somewhat apophatic attempt to describe the urban condition. Lefebvre’s writing style is a bit odd and dialectical; the first half is kind of difficult and frustrating, but it makes the second half pretty rewarding, specifically the last 3 chapters. Some of it is obviously aged but there’s also moments that aged unbelievably well for how old it is. Absolutely rewards rereads.

[Narine Abgaryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes it's really difficult to understand the key points of his approach, there are various factors - confusion of thoughts, the way of describing the same object and problem from different perspective while being a sociologist, philosopher and "urban planner" at the same time.
Nevertheless, I am really happy that my first steps toward the study of space were inspired by him and his "La Production de l'espace".

[Diego Barbalho · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Urban Revolution is dense in theory, it is an essential read, giving insight into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s most influential theorists. His work is consistently cited urbanism literature and gives a surprisingly timely theoretical lens to view some of today’s urban problems.

[Ulises Ormeño · Rating 4 out of 5]

Las ciudades son estructuras que muestran cada día lo que es el sistema de clases. Me gustó saber que el la crítica del urbanismo es darle comunidad y conexión a la gente que la habita. Las ciudades se piensan y es importante disputar lo que significa incluso un recorrido

[Clara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunque todavía no entiendo lo que son las isotopías, heterotopías y utopías para él, he aprendido mucho. Urbanitas of the world, rise up.

[Luisa]

ÓDIO

[zofia maria nadzieja maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

"At times, especially to English-speaking audiences, his writing can come across as a stream of philosophical consciousness (...)" yes

[Muyu]

@2019-03-15 05:20:54

[Yanti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loving this book from the beginning❤❤

[Arthur e Luísa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brabo porém nem tanto

[aurora · Rating 5 out of 5]

la ciudad creada por y para el capital

[Su Alteen]

The french original is better if you read french. Very lovely book.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book last year, Loved it!