Contemporary

• Restructuring of space


  Continually restructured and determined by: (a) large firms or corporations as they choose the areas where to place their factories, research and development and so forth; (b) the controls which governments operate over both the land and industrial production; and, (c) the activities of private investors who buy and sell houses and land
• Urbanism and social movements

  Social movements are groups or organizations that seek for reforms in the society. The pressure for reforms could have been triggered by urban concerns like the need to improve housing conditions, address air pollution, defend parks and green areas, and resist building development that changes the nature of an area, among others. Some of the active participants in these social movements are the marginalized sectors in the urban areas
• Agrarian cities


  The first cities in Sumeria marked a quantum leap forward in terms of technological development and innovation - they are commonly associated with the advent of civilization itself. This is partly due to the development of writing: cuneiform script developed at this time, allowing the possibility of deriving history from records. The wheel and the plow were invented. Formal social institutions began to take shape: centralized places of religious worship, city-based markets, and politically centralized city- states… Private property, military power and coercion, and patriarchal dominance became features of social life
• Industrial cities


  The Industrial Revolution remade city space, ... Although the first industries would establish themselves in locations outside cities, near natural energy sources, rivers, raw materials, and labour pools, they were transplants of techniques and crafts developed in cities. The new factories were soon brought into the city centre, along with the mass of wage labour that was required for their operation. The industrial city reflected the emergence of three new classes of urban population: firstly, of the proletariat working class, selling their labour as a commodity, and now packed into the centre of the city in slums and tenement blocks, situated next to the factories and industrial buildings at which they worked. This area came to be a familiar feature of capitalist cities: the central business district. Secondly, the industrial bourgeoisie, or middle class, emerged at this time as owners of the factories, and their residential neighbourhoods connected to the city centre by new technologies of transit. Finally, alongside these two classes came a growing number of urban poor, a homeless underclass
• Post-metropolis


  The information age began the third industrial revolution. The period is often termed as Post-Industrial to signify a change in the technology that was dominant in two different periods. The industrial period was dependent on machines while the post-industrial is dependent on information technology. The industrial period was primarily dependent on manufacturing while the post-industrial period was dependent on the networks of capital, production, and services. The cities that became the landing points of the world's flow of capital and goods as well as the locus of corporate headquarters and financial centers are labeled as global cities
• Global cities


  • The preeminence of these "global" cities rests largely on unique assets: the world's greatest universities, research labs, hospitals, financial institutions, corporate headquarters, and trendsetting cultural industries. These cities also disproportionately attract the rich and serve as centers of luxury shopping, dining, and entertainment. These cities are home to people with unique, highly specialized skills – actors, directors, app writers, oil geologists, and specialized financial consultants – who are often sole proprietors or employed by smaller firms. These workers tend to cluster in areas that specialize in their fields and provide the best marketplace for their services. These cities notably tend to have decent infrastructure, a high degree of cleanliness, and excellent cultural and recreational facilities. They generally lack the extreme congestion, high crime, and sanitation challenges common to poorer megacities of the developing world
• Traits of global cities

  • Developed into 'command posts' – centers of direction and policy-making – for the global economy; 2. Key locations for financial and specialized service firms, which have become more important in influencing economic development than manufacturing; 3. Sites of production and innovation in these newly expanded industries; 4. Markets on which the 'products' of financial and service industries are bought, sold, or otherwise disposed
• Roles of global cities

  • Taipei and Shenzen are the major node in the supply network of high tech electronics; 2. Geneva and Nairobi are important node in global civil society network; 3. Dubai and Hong Kong are for air transport network; 4. Washington and Brussels are international political networks given that summits and conferences that led to the formulation and signing of international agreements are done in these areas
• Emergence of post-familial city

  1. Trends toward ever-increasing density. Families generally avoid high-density housing. 2. Related phenomenon of high costs of housing. The unaffordability of housing and the unsuitability of house sizes for families are the principal reasons for the exodus of families. 3. Weakness of urban education system. The focus on material progress had undermined an interest in the family. 4. Ability of people to perform functions remotely via the Internet. University of California psychology professor Bella de Paulo asserts that the unattached constitute an advantaged group in that they are more cyber-connected and "more likely to be linked to members of their social networks by bonds of affection." 5. Women in the workforce. Women's growing involvement in the workforce has been necessary for decades in order for couples to afford children, but it also makes it more difficult
• Urban singletons


  • Transcended the barriers of race and even country
  • Embraced a "post materialist" perspective that focuses on more abstract, and often important, issues such as human rights or the environment, as well as aesthetic concerns
  • Prioritize cultural pursuits, travel, and almost defiant individualism
• Many urban singletons in their 30s and 40s indulge themselves in hobbies, fashion, or restaurants – personal pursuits not readily available to their homebound mothers or overworked fathers
• Lifestyle


  More important than family, personal networks mean more than family. It's now a choice to be single, self-satisfied, and well
• Women's growing involvement in the workforce has been necessary for decades in order for couples to afford children, but it also makes it more difficult for them to raise them
• Pervasive busyness


  Affects society in high-income countries, makes matrimony and child raising more problematic
• The shift to an aging population creates, particularly in Asia where urbanization is most rapid, the segregation of generations, with the elderly in rural areas and the younger people in cities
• The negative impacts of rapid aging and a diminished workforce are already being felt, even in such prosperous countries as Japan and Germany
• By 2030, Germany's debt per capita could be twice as high as that of a bankrupt Greece in 2014, and to help address the shortfall, officials have proposed more taxes
• In rapidly urbanizing, relatively poor countries such as Vietnam, the fertility rate is already below replacement levels, and it is rapidly declining in other poorer countries such as Myanmar, Indonesia, and even Bangladesh
• Urbanization changes us; it creates new environment, new ways of thinking, new patterns of work, of governance in production and exchange, of interaction between people of which we come to redefine ourselves and our relationship to the natural environment
• The Covid-19 crisis forced the city folks or the people in general to rethink and reevaluate their perception of and relationship to their environment and neighborhood
• Ethics of scarcity


  During the lockdown, citizens were forced to reuse old utensils and economize on food - goods such as flour, sugar, and eggs quickly disappeared from supermarket shelves
• The close presence of death, which was daily aired in the media and expressed in hair-raising figures, unleashed an existential crisis
• Millions of people, who until then had never worried about climate change, reconsidered their rushed form of life
• Materialism yielded to spiritualism. Community, friends, and family became priorities. Improving one's quality of life turned into the most recurrent New Year's resolution for 2021, and a different way of managing time seemed to be the key to achieving this: more time spent going for walks, cooking, enjoying hobbies, being with the family, etc.
• Luxury and superfluousness started to be regarded as irresponsible whims. While tourism, hospitality services, and night-time leisure activities suffered tremendous losses, the acquisition of personal and domestic hygiene products and food - especially fresh fruit and vegetables - increased by over 30 percent
• Over 60 percent of those interviewed claimed that they would continue to buy local products
• Resilience


  The message was to resist, and that forced cities to take a crash course in resilience
• Scientists issued a warning: mankind had invaded the habitats of animals like mice and bats, which entailed a high risk of disease transmission. In other words, more pandemics would come, and with them more economic and social crises
• During the first strict lockdown (in March and April 2020) road traffic throughout the world decreased between 50 percent and 75 percent, while urban traffic went down by 95 percent and the use of public transport diminished 50 percent. Consequently, CO2 emissions were reduced by an average of 8 percent - 17 percent in April only, and air quality improved spectacularly
• Pollution fell between 10 percent and 30 percent in Chinese cities and 50 percent in New York. The levels of nitrogen dioxide, a contaminant associated with the automobile, plummeted by 66 percent in New Delhi, 54 percent in Paris, and 45 percent in Madrid, Milan, and Rome
• The quick, dramatic spread of the virus revealed what up until then had been a seldom scrutinized risk of globalism: the transmission of infectious diseases
• Proximity - living near a local shop where one could get supplies, near a park to exercise, near a health center where help was available - became highly valued
• The practice of urban agriculture skyrocketed. Having access to a garden at home, to a community garden in the neighborhood, or a rural belt on the outskirts of the city enabled self-sufficiency, a key factor in times of pandemic
• Cities started to give priority to accessibility over mobility, establishing "chrono-urbanism" projects that were based on how long it took citizens to reach services and public facilities. The concept "15-minute city" was especially successful, ensuring the connection between six essential functions - to live, to work, to supply, to care, to learn, and to enjoy - in under a quarter of an hour on foot or by bicycle
• The disruption of supply chains due to the blockage of transport systems was a warning sign for cities regarding the risks involved in the huge distances that separated them from sources of energy, water, or food
• The coronavirus exacerbated the social inequalities that had been dogging cities after decades of neoliberal policies. The homeless did not have places to self-confine; the elderly had no social support networks; workers with precarious jobs were not able to telework; immigrants were crammed into tiny apartments
• People reacted to the social emergency unleashed by the pandemic with a tsunami of communal solidarity. Mutual aid networks multiplied, enlisting volunteers to carry out shopping for senior citizens, organize food banks, or patrol the streets distributing clothing and food among the homeless
• The public administrations reacted in a similar way, despite having exhausted their resources through austerity policies. They stopped evictions, started food distribution programs, prohibited cutting off water and electricity supplies, rented hotel rooms to lodge the homeless, provided children of low-income families with computers and internet connections
• Urban commons proved their tremendous potential. To ensure the reception of permanent feedback from their citizens, local administrations adopted some common forms of governance. 94 percent of the cities studied engaged the affected groups in the definition of their recovery plans, by giving them the power to make decisions instead of merely gathering information about their needs
• The occupation of co-living buildings shot up after the first lockdown. People wanted to live in places where they could share spaces with people with whom they also shared interests