Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

s and cities, interact with the

built environment The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human ac ...

. It is a direct component of disciplines such as

urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

, a profession focusing on the design and management of urban areas, and urban sociology, an academic field which studies urban life. Many

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s, planners,

geographers A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" ...

, and

sociologists This list of sociologists includes people who have made notable contributions to sociological theory or to research in one or more areas of sociology. A * Peter Abell, British sociologist * Andrew Abbott, American sociologist * Margaret ...

investigate the way people live in densely populated

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

s. There is a wide variety of different theories and approaches to the study of urbanism. However, in some contexts internationally, ''urbanism'' is synonymous with

, and ''urbanist'' refers to an

urban planner An urban planner (also known as town planner) is a professional who practices in the field of town planning, urban planning or city planning. An urban planner may focus on a specific area of practice and have a title such as city planner, tow ...

. The term ''urbanism'' originated in the late nineteenth century with the Spanish

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

Ildefons Cerdà, whose intent was to create an autonomous activity focused on the spatial organization of the city. Urbanism's emergence in the early 20th century was associated with the rise of centralized

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

, mixed-use neighborhoods,

social organization In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, struc ...

s and networks, and what has been described as "the convergence between political, social and economic

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

". 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 ngurbanism with the physical entity of the city', go 'beyond an arbitrary boundary line' and consider how 'technological developments in

transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

ation and

communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

have enormously extended the urban mode of living beyond the confines of the city itself.'

Concepts

Urbanism Theory Writers of the late 20th C

Network-based theories

Gabriel Dupuy applied

network theory In mathematics, computer science, and network science, network theory is a part of graph theory. It defines networks as Graph (discrete mathematics), graphs where the vertices or edges possess attributes. Network theory analyses these networks ...

to the field of urbanism and suggests that the single dominant characteristic of modern urbanism is its networked character, as opposed to segregated conceptions of space (i.e. zones, boundaries and edges). Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin argue that we are witnessing a post-urban environment where decentralized, loosely connected neighborhoods and zones of activity assume the former organizing role played by urban spaces. Their theory of ''splintering urbanism'' involves the "fragmentation of the social and material fabric of cities" into "cellular clusters of globally connected high-service enclaves and network ghettos" driven by electronic networks that segregate as much as they connect. Dominique Lorrain argues that the process of splintering urbanism began towards the end of the 20th century with the emergence of the gigacity, a new form of a networked city characterised by three-dimensional size, network density and the blurring of city boundaries. Manuel Castells suggested that within a network society, "premium" infrastructure networks (high-speed

telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

s, "smart" highways, global airline networks) selectively connect together the most favored users and places and bypass the less favored. Graham and Marvin argue that attention to infrastructure networks is reactive to crises or collapse, rather than sustained and systematic, because of a failure to understand the links between urban life and urban infrastructure networks.

Other modern theorists

Douglas Kelbaugh identifies three

paradigm In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...

s within urbanism:

New Urbanism New Urbanism is an urban design movement that promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating Walkability, walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has ...

, Everyday Urbanism, and Post-Urbanism.Kelbaugh, Douglas (2009), Three Urbanisms and the Public Realm Paul L. Knox refers to one of many trends in contemporary urbanism as the " aestheticization of

everyday life Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, or Normality (behavior), normal. Human diurna ...

". Alex Krieger states that

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes based on geographical location. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, city, ...

is less a technical discipline than a mind-set based on a commitment to cities. Other contemporary urbanists such as Edward Soja and Liz Ogbu focus on urbanism as a field for applying principles of community building and spatial justice.

Endnotes

External links

International Forum on Urbanism
{{Authority control Urban planning 2010s fads and trends 2020s fads and trends

Concepts

Network-based theories

Other modern theorists

See also

Endnotes

External links