Chapter 7, The Organization of Territory Summary and Analysis

Chapter 7 presents theses 165 through 179. Chapter 7 begins with a quote taken from The Price by Niccolò Machiavelli. Modern means of production and transit have unified geographic space to such a degree that localization has vanished. As the real local geography vanishes, it is replaced by a spectacular localization. Tourism is simply the leisure to go and see the banal spectacular localizations; tourism—human circulation—is consumption. Modernization removes time from travel, and also it removes space or geography from travel.

Urbanization is the logical extension of a society which alienates; urbanization is alienation. Urbanization is the freezing of life at a point in time. It safeguards class power and encourages individuals participate in sprawling isolation; it isolates people together in factories and other places of work. The mass character of spectacular life...