The reader is presented with one of the classic works of D. Harvey, the most authoritative Anglo-American geographer, one of the founders of “radical geography”, laureate of the Vautrin Lud Prize (1995), which is considered the Nobel Prize in Geography. The book is a rare example of not just economic, but political economic research into the foundations and features of urban development. And although the author relies on an analysis of the processes that took place in the USA and Western Europe in the 1960s–1970s of the 20th century, his observations half a century ago are more than relevant for the situation in today's Russia. Harvey's work, closely associated with the ideas of leftist intellectuals (primarily French) of the mid-1960s, greatly influenced the Anglo-Saxon tradition of urban studies in the 20th century.