The Dictionary of Human Geography

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capitalism ensures that more and more of the

non-human world is transformed by the

dynamics of capitalist uneven development

(Smith, 1990). These concepts have informed

much subsequent research attempting to trace

howcapital circulates through built and nat-

ural environments, constantly recreating and

undermining distinctions such as urban versus

rural or suburban (e.g. Henderson, 1999;

Murdoch and Lowe, 2003; Darling, 2005).

Related work onindustrial locationtheory

has explored industrial geographies in light of

theories of uneven development – theorizing,

for instance, the ‘windows of opportunity’ for

firms and sectors to dramatically change their

geographies (Storper and Walker, 1989). jm

Suggested reading

Harvey (2001); Smith (1990).

universalism The idea that defining charac-

teristics of phenomena, conceptual definitions

or moral, aesthetic or epistemological truths

hold for all times and places, transcending

their immediate local circumstances (seeepis-

temology;moral geographies). Such char-

acteristics, definitions and truths are made on

the basis of wider practices and theoretical

schemes, the justification for which is given

by their universal starting point. Plato first

made the distinction between universals and

particulars. Universals are the general refer-

ents to which words such as ‘redness’ or

‘goodness’ or ‘beauty’ refer, whereas particu-

lars are their concrete instances; for example,

the red serge jackets of Canadian Mounties,

Mother Theresa or a Van Gogh painting. The

postwar history ofgeographycan be read as

the history of the invocation of different uni-

versals. So, for example, those committed to

human geography as spatial science

appealed to the universals ofquantitative

methods and rational choice theory;

marxist geographylooked to the universal of

value as defined by the labour theory of

value;andhumanistic geographyto a univer-

salhumanism. Recent work in thehumanities

and social sciences, including human geog-

raphy, and going under the signs ofpostmod-

ernism, post-structuralism and post-

colonialism, criticizes the use of universals,

connecting their deployment to systemic

powerdifferentials around (for example)gen-

der,classandrace. So, for example, the

‘universal’ subject of classical humanism

turns out to have been bourgeois, male and

European, but these markings were unre-

marked in the vocabulary of universalism to

which theideologyappealed. Universals are

thus another means by which oppression and

domination are realized. tb

Suggested reading

Tsing (2004, Introduction).

urban and regional planning The design

and institution of specific policies andlaws

to guide land use inmetropolitan areas(or

sub-areas), usually by or at the direction of

governments. Urban and regional planning is

inherently a spatial activity: the broad goal is

to ‘provide for a spatial structure of activities

(or of land uses) which in some way is better

than the pattern existing without planning’

(Hall, 2002c [1975], p. 3). Planning involves

predictive statistical analyses about future

growth of population and economies, com-

bined with architectural and landscape blue-

prints (often in the form of land-use and

zoningmaps) for the physical manifestation

of such growth in space. Computer technology

(especiallygeographic information systems)

has transformed planning from blueprints for

the future to a notion of ‘a continuous series of

controls over the development of [an] ...

area’ (ibid., p. 12).

utopianideals for the physical layout and

social structure ofcitiesandsocietieshave

existed for centuries (see utopia), but the

creation of formal planning as a profession

and activity ingovernanceculminated from

a series of separate yet interrelated political

and social concerns in the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries about public health

and sanitation,crime,povertyand, in the

USA, immigrantassimilation(Hall, 2002b

[1988]). It is rooted in the utopian ideals of

modernism, and a faith in the capacity for

scientific and technical reason to achieve the

goals of order, coherence and regulation. In

the twentieth century planning was institu-

tionalized at differentscalesof government

(e.g. federal, state and municipal) to manage

the growth and expansion of cities, especially

in terms of land use and provision ofinfra-

structure (particularly transportation and

utilities). Patrick Geddes and Lewis

Mumford were instrumental in reconceptua-

lizing American and British urban or town

planning intoregionalplanning in the 1910s

and 1920s. In the same period,zoningwas

established in the USA, enabling the land-use

controls that are essential to planning.

Ebenezer Howard’s design for and realiza-

tion of his ‘garden city’ in Letchworth,

England (between 1898 and 1903), was one

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UNIVERSALISM