Urban Ambition

"Far away, in the factories (factories that produce the wonderful
objects, or produce the means of producing them), everything is
functional, or tries to be; everything is a signal of the repetitive
actions of work and it technical organization. Far away, in the
workers’ suburbs or on the working-class housing estates, everything
is functional, a signal of the repetitive actions that maintain the
workforce of everyday life…"


“It is not the consciousness of man that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness” (7). Man’s identity cannot be separated from society, so his consciousness is therefore a “social consciousness” (7) which is created, developed, and transformed within the public spectacle of the street which “trains the eye and stimulates the faculty of observation” (98). Man, submerged into this social realm, is faced with and apart of the social text which is comprised of signals, symbols, and signs. Recognizing this condition allows the transformation of “the bewitching world by which one was ‘possessed’ into a text that lies before one’s eyes” (150). The social function is to form our own consciousness while simultaneously helping to form the consciousness of others by recognizing social differences, which clothes and manners signify. The street asserts “the harmony of needs, desires, and goods” to form a “world of objects” (98) that become symbols of wealth or pleasure. “Completely within reach… and horribly inaccessible… objects lead their sovereign life behind display windows” (99) thus the street becomes the place of dreams.
The street, with endless possibility, is the place of action, a stage where the private is revealed through the social text. Thus occurs “the transformation of the urban fact into the concept of a city” (151). This city is driven by ambitious material desires and through fetishism merchandise transforms into an affirmation of self worth. “Every action connected with some fundamental ‘thing’… has symbolic import… everything abounds in life, the life of actions made more powerful by the symbols embodied in them” (96). The constant action of the city is driven by the structure of power “transforming a human multiplicity into a disciplinary society” (153) contingent on the means of production. In this way, “the concept-city is decaying” (152) because the multiplicity is diminishing, and a diversity of function collapses into actions of production. “Nature has disappeared and culture is no where to be seen” (97) when produce meets the means of production in the factory, a moment of apocalyptic proportion. Symbols are nullified and reduced to signals of work-related “actions that sustain the workforce” (97).
The factories may be physically far away, but factories act as the foundation on which societal values are established. Factories are an intrinsic part of the city. “The identity furnished by this place is all the more symbolic because, in spite of the inequality of its citizens’ positions and profits, there is… a network of residences temporarily appropriated by pedestrian traffic, a shuffling among pretenses of the proper, a universe of rented spaces haunted by a nowhere or by dreamed-of places” (158). Since man molds his consciousness within this place, the city, he consequently molds himself from the desolate realm of the factory. Man perceives the city as boundlessly expanding, and when “the street loses this attraction… the city turns into a lunar desert” (97). As long as the facade of distance between city and factory persists, the apocalyptic transformation into desolation is averted.