Cities are like a magnet. They are growing and are the preferred living place (instead of villages). City life is attracting many people. People are moving into cities. The reasons for that are different. Some are getting attracted by the hard components the cities offer: Job opportunities and close distances for instance. Others are torn towards due to rather soft complements: the vivid city life and the excitement a city is transmitting.
So, now we always said “city”, but what is about the term “the urban”?
It is used in millions of different ways. The urban life style, urbanism, urban way of life and urban gardening – just to name a few. Sometimes it seems to be the new label for uprising cities, products and services. Media, as advertisement, videos, film for example are supporting the new demand for the urban. In the following weeks, Kathi and I, are going to explore how the urban and the city relate to one another. Therefore, we are looking from a geographical perspective onto the urban, processes in the urban, the everyday life and the interaction and relations of the urban and the city. To better point out our topics we often use certain cities. In those cases that city is just one example and it’s transferable to other places which fit into the understanding of the urban.
Starting today! We like to give some deeper insight into concepts of the urban and urban society.
A city often gets associated with its build environment. Thus, as a physical object existing in a certain physical location. It seems like a bounded unit. Urban geographers used to define a city as an area of agglomeration. People gather in those areas and develop a similar way of life (jobs, cultural preferences, political approaches and lifestyle). Size and density mattered to geographers to better distinguish between cities on a rural-urban continuum. Rural area were the ones which have a smaller and a more disperse population as characteristics. To think prospectively, we need let go the dualistic comprehension of the city and the rural surroundings.
The Urban isn’t a fixed Term
A more contemporary approach is a relative comprehension of a city. We need to reposition our understanding, so the we can understand the complexity of the city itself. Therefore, the terminology is shifting from the term city to the urban. The urban is rather an adaptive system which is not strictly linked to a certain physical environment. It can be looked at as a process. Differently said: It is a relative set of assemblies and encounters between people and objects. We might perceive it as shapeless and formless. The boundaries of the city are fading.
Planetary Urbanization is the latest theory to address the urban. The core idea of the approach is the description of the outreach of urbanization processes. Urbanization is not just appearing in the city, it influences nearly all areas around the cities and even those which are far away from any city. Imagine the commodity chain of our favourite product, you consuming it affects people and areas far away from your current residence. Thus, all the people and areas who are involved in producing it, are affected by urbanization processes. The urban theory Planetary Urbanization integrate all people and areas affected by urbanization. Basically, it looks closer to the spatial organisation of urban society.
Mediation, centrality and difference: The condition for urban societies
Those are the three condition for an urban society. Quickly summarized: The city owns the dimension of mediation through different actors. For instance, differential processes of mediation of the everyday and the global levels produce difference, the second condition for an urban society. between the are the aspects which are addressed by mediation. Futhermore, difference is produced by regular confrontation with different lifestyles, living environments and moral concepts in close networks of places. Often the city is called: A place of differences. The last condition for an urban society is the centrality. At this point centrality isn’t referring to how good you can reach the mall in the city. It is rather about the simultaneity of assembly, encounter, exchange and gathering between different people, people and objects and their made experiences.
„Any social theory of the city must somehow relate the social processes in the city to the spatial form which the city assumes.“
Harvey 1973: 23
Effects of mediated Content about Urban Society
Nowadays high usage of different digital devises is effecting the way of living in a society. Moreover, it effects the way a city is seen by its habitants, people living in different locations and tourists visiting the city. Just to name a couple of effects which first came to our mind. The digital space made it possible to receive information and images about a city, we never been to before. Thus, through media such as TV, series, film or the internet we can experience happenings in a city and get to know more about what is going on in one specific location. Thanks to the latest technologies of virtual and augmented reality such experiences are getting us closer to real experiences we just could experiences while visiting the city. Knowing local circumstances mediated by any of the above-mentioned media and seeing the transmitted pictures, let us be more empathic and take part in those events. Thus, it brings us closer to the people living in the place. Mediated content is contributing to an image everyone is producing in their mind based on their own knowledge about a place and their imaginations. Such combination can lead to a confusion about what is real and what is just imagined.
The Geographer’s Interest in the Urban and Urban Societies
Using those approaches to the urban and urban societies, we can perceive a new dynamic of organisation of societies. Extending the physical location of the city by the ideas of the planetary urbanization, it’s possible to recognize a spatial restructuring of what usually was perceived as the urban and the city. Thus, a spatial reorganization is a theme a geographical researcher is interested in.
In the upcoming months we, Kathi and Ramona, will post more about the interconnection of the urban, the society and the involved mediated processes which build up the urban. If you do not want to miss a post, click on following The Mediated Urban and you will receive an email as soon as our new post is online.
References:
- Brenner N., Schmidt C. (2015): Towards a new epistemology of the urban?, In: City 19/2-3, pp. 151-182
- Lefevbre H. (1970): La Revolution Urbaine. Gallimard. Paris
- Leitner J. (2015): Das Urbane wachsen sehen. Zum Verständnis von Urbanität innerhalb eines Gemeinschaftsgartenprojekts unter kritischer Analyse neoliberaler Stadtentwicklungsstrukturen. Masterarbeit. Wien
- Merrifield A. (2013): The urban Question under Planetary Urbanization. In: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Vol 37.3. pp. 909-22
- Ruddick S., Peake L., Tanyildiz G., Darren P. (2017): Planetary urbanization: An urban theory for our time?. In: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.
RF
The Mediated Urban 
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