Cities are unique to themselves. Each has its own paradox that cannot be repeated elsewhere. Carandini’s research confirms “Every myth in Rome is true” Or Mary McCarthy’s “Nothing original can be said about Venice”. Or Angela Stienen’s Berne is the only capital city more provincial than its provinces etc. About Bath it can be said it is the only city never allowed to forget its past. It has no ghosts, despite the desperation of tour operators. It has no ghosts because it has no dead: only the living tyranny of its history. Twenty four years ago, it was given the status of a world heritage site. For many this was an accolade and a singular one as at that time it was the only city in the world to be given the recognition. In truth it was a global arrest without trial and a sentence to permanent urban crisis.
Of course Bath has endured many crises. According to Jean Marco, the city was built on seven ridges that took the impact of the Cotswolds on the Mendips. The City took a Celtic crisis, rumoured at Mons Badonis and made it into a Roman success. It took defeat at the hands of the West Saxons and emerged as a mediaeval wool town. Defeated by parliamentary forces during the Civil War it emerged as a Royal Spa. Bombed by the Nazis in their sinister Baedeker raids, it emerged as a global tourist centre. Each stage has witnessed a crisis resolved by a complete detour from its past, but one only achieved by fighting a rear guard action against those who would swallow it in its past. It began early on, this attack from the rear. The Saxon poet who wrote The Ruin, in the 9th Century, glorified its past despite admitting he, or she, did not know what that was.
Since Gordon Childe’s study in the thirties, there are two broad approaches to the city in modern economic thinking. Both centre on the most visible aspect of that of the built environment. David Harvey in Social Justice and the City, published over thirty five years ago, in 1973 and that of Henri Levebvre in The Urban Revolution that came out even earlier in 1970 . Harvey claims the city is a direct expression, or symptom of capitalism, whereas Levebvre considers the city to be its own space capable of rebelling against capitalistic forces. I argue for a middle way between them. Only the correct balance between state centralisation and local autonomy can keep Neo-Liberalism in check and guard against the Marxist addiction to mass unhappiness.