ABSTRACT
European cities and their inherent urbanity have been crucial to the process of modernization. These cities were the sociological seedbeds for modernity, yet they, in turn, changed under the impact of modernization. It stands to reason that a more detailed discussion of this curious and rather complex interaction between modernization and urbanization, between urbanity and modernity is in order. Often, modernization is employed as a kind of umbrella concept that covers several processes such as secularization, urbanization, industrialization, democratization, and the increasing dominance of science, technology, and bureaucracy. The development of urbanity ran parallel to these processes of modernization; it even influenced them heavily. In an intensive and extensive welfare state, services which formerly had been the prerogative of private, urban initiatives, have been adopted by public authorities, adding to the rift between public and private, and thereby acerbating the weakness of the lack of urbanity.
