ancient cities

which they live and factors such as age, class, gender,
race, and ethnicity. For Wirth, urbanism is the
result of three objective features that are common
to all cities: size, density, and heterogeneity. It is,
however, now generally accepted that there is no
single urban way of life or culture. Although density,
size, and heterogeneity are important features
of every city and contribute to the structuring and
experience of urban life, they do not determine a
specific urban culture. Rather, urban culture is
formed through a complex range of competing, reinforcing,
contradictory, and intersecting urbanisms. It
is dynamic and multiple, relating to people’s uses of,
and identifications with, the city and its spaces as
well as to their cultural identities and biographies.
Urban cultures are thus developed in the context of
a range of social and political influences; most
importantly, they encompass the everyday experiences
of all citizens in the spaces of their cities.
Deborah Stevenson
See also Chicago School of Urban Sociology; Simmel,
Georg; Urban; Urban Anthropology; Urban Culture;
Urbanism; Urban Life
Further Readings
de Certeau, M. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gottdiener, M. and A. Lagopoulos, eds. 1986. The City
and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Hannerz, U. 1980. Exploring the City: Inquiries towards
an Urban Anthropology. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Robinson, J. 2006. Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity
and Development. London: Routledge.
Simmel, G. 1995. “The Metropolis and Mental Life.”
Pp. 30–46 in Metropolis: Center and Symbol of Our
Times, edited by P. Kasinitz. Houndmills, UK: Macmillan.
Stevenson, D. 2003. Cities and Urban Cultures.
Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.
Tönnies, F. 1957. Community and Association. London:
Routledge, Kegan Paul.
Wilson, E. 1991. The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the
Control of Disorder, and Women. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Wirth, L. 1995. “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” Pp. 58–85
in Metropolis: Center and Symbol of Our Times,
edited by P. Kasinitz. Houndmills, UK: Macmillan.
Ur b a n De s i g n
Urban Design
859
Urban design concerns the physical form of urban
space at the scale of a city or a precinct; it may be
conceived as the art of shaping cities and their
public realm while producing livable urban space.
Deriving from this, urban design has to draw
together many constituents of placemaking—such
as architectural forms, urban landscaping, functions
and uses of space, economic viability, social
equity, environmental sensitivity and responsibility—
into the creation of places of amenities, beauty,
and identity.
The evolution of urban forms over at least two
millennia exhibits a variety of schools of thought,
approaches, and methodologies of urban design.
However, the end of the twentieth century has
marked a major turning point in the significance,
complexity, and task of urban design. This is associated
with dramatic and universal changes and
developments concerning contemporary economy,
society, and space: Economic globalization, new
urban networks, and new flexible hierarchies of
cities; volatility of capital and intercity competition;
the rise of postindustrial urban economies
with cultural, leisure, and consumption economies
ranking top; new technologies, informational societies,
high mobility of individuals, and time–space
compression; mass migrations and the generation
of multiethnic urban societies; cultural diversity
and individualization and the creation of multicultural
postmodern societies; the deterioration of the
natural environment and the new environmental
ethics and consciousness.
Competition of Urban Design
Examining the impacts of global changes and
developments, it may be said that under the condition
of economic globalization, traditional factors
(e.g., geographical location, physical infrastructure)
that once affected the location of new business
to a specific place appear to matter less than
ever. Due to the capacity of capital to switch locations,
all cities—perhaps with the exception of
global cities having sufficient power to mastermind
the volatility of capital—have become interchangeable
entities to be played off one against another,
forced to compete from positions of comparative