Modernization Theory Of Urban Citizenship

Significant shifts have taken place not only in the arenas and mechanisms of governance and new forms of political participation by residents, both poor and privileged. Distinct changes have also come about in the notion of aesthetics that govern the formation of the city; with particular imaginations of emergence, transformation and renewal. What do these dynamics tell us about inequality and the nature of urban citizenship? Put simply how have the claims, presence and resistance of a significant proportion of urban residents been managed and even evaded within urban politics? Negotiating the claims of differentiated citizens takes particular forms in different citizenship regimes, places and times. To explain and challenge the elusiveness

Rather, this term is shorthand for a variety of perspectives that were applied by non-Marxists to the Third World in the 1950s and 1960s. The dominant themes of such perspectives arose from established sociological traditions and involved the reinterpretation, often conscious, of the concerns of classical sociology. Evolutionism (with its focus on increasing differentiation), diffusionism, structural functionalism, systems theory and interactionism all combined to help form the mish-mash of ideas that came to be known as modernization theory. There were inputs from other disciplines, for example, political science, anthropology, psychology, economics and geography, and in the two decades after the Second World War such perspectives were increasingly applied to the Third World. In many respects, the beginnings of modernization theory can be traced to antiquity, when the notion of evolution was first used with reference to human society. Certainly, the idea of progress is a continuing theme in Western intellectual thought. However, it was not until the eighteenth century that the evolution of societies was studied in a systematic

Investment increases rapidly and new industries expand, as does the entrepreneurial class. Agriculture, too, is commercialized, with a corresponding growth in productivity, a necessary development if the demand emanating from expanding urban centres is to be met. At the fourth stage, ‘the Drive to Maturity’, between 10 and 20 per cent of national income is invested and the economy takes its place in the international order. Technology becomes more complex and there is a move away from heavy industry. What is produced is now less a matter of economic necessity, more a question of choice. This leads to the final stage, of high consumption, where the leading economic sectors specialize in manufacturing durable consumer goods and services. Basic needs are satisfied and there is a focus on social welfare and security. According to Rostow, in the United States this stage was heralded the mass production of the motor