Urbanism

This article is about the character of urban life. For other uses, see Urbanism (disambiguation).
Rendering of a modern large-scale urban development in Kazan, Russia

Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, a profession focusing on the design and management of urban areas, and urban sociology, an academic field which studies urban life.[1][2]

Many architects, planners, geographers, and sociologists investigate the way people live in densely populated urban areas. There is a wide variety of different theories and approaches to the study of urbanism.[3] However, in some contexts internationally, urbanism is synonymous with urban planning, and urbanist refers to an urban planner.

The term urbanism originated in the late nineteenth century with the Spanish civil engineer Ildefons Cerdà, whose intent was to create an autonomous activity focused on the spatial organization of the city.[4] Urbanism's emergence in the early 20th century was associated with the rise of centralized manufacturing, mixed-use neighborhoods, social organizations and networks, and what has been described as "the convergence between political, social and economic citizenship".[5]

Urbanism can be understood as placemaking and the creation of place identity at a citywide level, however as early as 1938 Louis Wirth wrote that it is necessary to stop 'identify[ing] urbanism with the physical entity of the city', go 'beyond an arbitrary boundary line' and consider how 'technological developments in transportation and communication have enormously extended the urban mode of living beyond the confines of the city itself.' [6]

  1. ^ Wirth, Louis (1938). "Urbanism as a Way of Life" (PDF). American Journal of Sociology.
  2. ^ "Urbanism". obo. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  3. ^ Barnett, Jonathan (April 2011). "A Short Guide to 60 of the Newest Urbanisms". Planning. 77 (4): 19–21. ISSN 0001-2610. OCLC 1762461.
  4. ^ Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 734. ISBN 978-0415862875.
  5. ^ Blokland-Potters, Talja, and Savage, Mike (2008). Networked Urbanism: Social Capital in the City. Ashgate Publishing.
  6. ^ Wirth, Louis (1938). "Urbanism as a Way of Life" (PDF). American Journal of Sociology. 44 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1086/217913. ISSN 0002-9602. S2CID 145174761.