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By contrast,marxist geographyviews such
unevenness as actuallyproducedby capitalism.
Neil Smith, the leading geographical theorist
of uneven development, emphasizes that it is
not merely a reflection of a highly heteroge-
neous world in which perfect uniformity is
always unlikely; nor is it even solely the result
of the fact that it is useful to capitalists.
Rather, it is anunavoidable consequenceof cap-
italism as amode of production, ‘. .. the
systematic geographical expression of the con-
tradictions inherent in the very constitution
and structure of capital’ (Smith, 1990,
p. xiii). If true, this would mean that that
ongoing capitalist development will not elim-
inate unevenness; rather, it will continually
recreate it. Empirically, the historical geog-
raphy of capitalistmodernitywould seem to
support the latter position.
Uneven development is central to the geog-
raphies of capitalism for several reasons.
Capitalist firms and states arguablydepend
upon geographical unevenness to perform
functions essential to the ongoingaccumula-
tionofcapital, such as displacing and ameli-
oratingcrisistendencies (e.g. via the constant
provision of new sites for investment) and dis-
ciplining workers or states (e.g. via threats to
move jobs to lower-wage locations, or punitive
disinvestment). More fundamentally, though,
capitalist production necessarily results in
uneven development, whether or not particu-
lar capitalists intend, desire or benefit from it.
This is because of the unavoidable tension
between the need to invest capital in the built
environment in relatively fixed and enduring
ways in order to engage in production, and the
need for capital to remain mobile in order to
circulate as value and remain available for
investment in new locations and industries
with higher rates of profit. As Smith puts it,
‘The spatial immobilization of capital in its
material form is no more or less a necessity
than the perpetual circulation of capital as
value. Thus it is possible to see the uneven
development of capitalism as the geographical
expression of the more fundamental contra-
diction between use value and exchange value’
(1990, p. xv). The concrete implications of
this rather abstract formulation are that the
process of development in a particularplace
is very likely to foster conditions that will make
it a less attractive location for further invest-
ment in the not-too-distant future: wages and
groundrentswill rise, the workers concen-
trated there will have increased incentives
and means to organize politically, and so on –
all meaning that the anticipated rate of profiton future investments there will compare
unfavourably to that in less developed
locations. Conversely, the consequences of
underdevelopment often include conditions
attractive to capital and conducive to high
rates of profit: high unemployment, low wages
and rents, states eager to co-operate and more.
Uneven development can thus be seen as the
unity of the seemingly opposed, but intimately
connected, processes of development and
underdevelopment.
Perhaps the critical point regarding uneven
development is that there is no reason to expect
it to end: capital can move back and forth
among places indefinitely in multiple rounds
ofinvestment, sequentially building up, aban-
doning and reinvesting in the same locations.
Debates over such dynamics have been central
tomarxism(see Smith, 1990): Marx himself,
as well as Rosa Luxemburg and others, sug-
gested at points that capitalist development
depended on the continual incorporation of
previously uncolonized areas, and that once
that the global expansion of capitalism was
complete, it would lead towards a homogenous
landscapeof capitalist development and the
preconditions for international socialism. The
end of colonial expansion failed to curtail the
development of capitalism, though, calling
such a vision into question and leading Lenin
and Trotsky to recognize and theorize the evi-
dent fact that capitalism could develop via
uneven development within areas already
internal to capitalism. Underdevelopment
came to be understood less as a condition of
neglect or exclusion from the international
capitalist economy, and more as something
actively produced though inclusion in that
economy, often on unfavourable terms.
marxist geographytackled the question of
uneven development anew in the 1980s and
1990s, with Harvey (1999 [1982], 2001) and
Smith (1990, 1996b) in particular seeking to
develop a systemic theory of the geographical
dynamics of capitalist development, and they
and others endeavouring to delineate more
precisely how uneven development works in
specifictypesofsettings. Neil Smith has intro-
duced at least two arguments that have influ-
enced much subsequent research in
geography. The first, developed with respect
to older urban areas andgentrification, sug-
gested that a largerent gapcould be identi-
fied as an underlying mechanism triggering
switches between periods of disinvestment
and reinvestment in urban areas (Smith,
1979c, 1996a). The second was that the
ongoing production of nature underGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_U Final Proof page 781 31.3.2009 9:34pmUNEVEN DEVELOPMENT