How should we write about London?: the Working Capital view

This paper discusses the issue of how social scientists might attempt to write in a coherent and empowering way about processes affecting the lives of people living within particular large and complex (i.e. diverse and highly connected) contemporary cities, in relation to the approach adopted by the Working Capital study of London (Buck et al., 2003). It explains that book’s attempt to combine narrative, social science and critique of the new conventional wisdom about change in cities – and argues for a non-reductive ‘ordinary city’ approach, using a mix of qualitative/local and quantitative/metropolitan analyses to question assumptions about how flexibilisation and global-cityisation impact on economic, social and political processes in particular cities, including this extraordinary one.