This book makes available to undergraduates the author's recent writing (including a new essay on flexible accumulation and the city of spectacle) on the physical and social environment of western cities, in which he explores the links between the processes and pressures of urbanization, the culture of urban life - in effect the culture of the west - and the nature of capitalism in the post-industrial world. The collection contains three of the five essays from Consciousness and the Urban Experience and four of the eight from The Urbanization of Capital . The essays embody the combination of theory, observation and interpretation most characteristic of the author's recent work, and address the needs and interests of students of urban processes in departments of geography, sociology and politics. The book is aimed at students of urbanization and urban society in departments of geography, sociology and politics.