ABSTRACT
When the distinguished American urbanist Lewis Mumford asked what is a city? – his focus was on the great renewal of urban society in Europe and the Western World from the tenth century onwards and, especially, the massive expansion in the number and size of cities since the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. Since Mumford posed that question just before the Second World War only London and New York had populations approaching eight million. At the start of the twenty-first century there were 22 ‘megalopolises’ with eight-figure populations, while the rate of urbanisation has been so considerable in the last fifty years that the majority of the world’s population now live in cities. But in all this time have we come any closer to under-
Mumford’s supplementary questions on the nature of the relationship between politics and the city, the factors that have led to the development of certain urban forms, and the role that the city plays in relation to its wider region and, indeed, to the wider world (Mumford, 1938: 10-11)?
