Historical patterns of reaction to urbanism: the case of Britain 1880-1939.

The article discusses the historical patterns of reaction to urbanism in Great Britain. The article is based on two assumptions. The first is that modern industrialism, as an economic and technological system based on inanimate sources of energy has, or had, an inherent spatial logic, and this logic is expressed in the existence of the industrial city and large-scale urbanization. Second, whilst modern industrialism, as an economic and technological system, results in similar and comparable urban forms, the extent to which the social, physical or spatial forms of such cities differ results from two variables--culture and power. The first part of this article deals with the historical patterns of reaction to urbanism in Britain at the height of the urbanization process in Europe. In the second part, the phenomenon of "temporary escape" from the city and its expression in the institution of the "vacation home," "residence secondaire," "wochenend haus" or "country cottage", a research topic previously monopolized by geographers and conceptualized by one of them as "seasonal suburbanization" is being highlighted.