IDEOLOGY AND URBAN LANDSCAPES: CONCEPTIONS OF THE MARKET IN PORTLAND,MAINE*

This paper concerns the role of ideology in the operation of urban land and housing markets. We argue that existing work in this area tends to be overly abstract and to reify ideology. To correct this, we advocate examining understandings of particular land and housing markets. We focus on Portland, Maine, and analyze discourses on the uneven costs of social development, inner-city redevelopment, a recent decline in the regional economy and Portland's place in that economy. Traditional pro-market interpretations dominate, but we also identify more politicized understandings - many of which are also pro-market. They are applied very selectively, for example to explain a crisis but not a boom. We conclude that politicized conceptions of market operations are not necessarily radical and may in fact be crucial to the survival of capitalism.