Sociologists and social historians reacted to the urban history boom of the 1960s and 1970s by criticising both its methodological eclecticism and the idea that ‘the city’ constituted a ‘social entity in itself and for itself’, independent of the wider societies in which particular cities were situated. These criticisms were part of a larger attack on the theoretical nature of urban studies, where it was argued that there was no such thing as ‘urban sociology’ or ‘urban geography’. There was merely sociology or geography which occurred within or had implications for life in cities. Urban history was either local history by a more academic name or, if it was at all based in theory, followed some brand of social historical method.

Certainly, the label ‘urban history’ imparts a false sense of unity to a random collection of research, much as ‘historical geography’ is often used as a catch all for any geography of the past. The writings of Michael Anderson on family structure in Preston, John Foster on class consciousness in Oldham, David Cannadine on aristocratic landlords in Birmingham, E. P. Hennock on local government in Birmingham and Leeds, Martin Gaskell on housing in Pennine towns, are all claimed as components of urban history, yet each author might see his work as part of another tradition - historical sociology, social history, political history, planning history in which ideas are more important than locations.