Epilogue: On the City as World

In ‘The Stranger’ of 1908, the sociologist Georg Simmel describes the stranger as a particular type or figure belonging to the city, or more particularly, to the modern city. ¹ The locus of the stranger is the modern metropolis, his raison d’être the anonymity of the urban crowds, and his modus operandi that of the estranged individual. The stranger, therefore, only belongs insofar as he is placed in a situation of not belonging: it is this situation that defines what can be called the ‘sociological form of relation’ of the stranger, according to Simmel, as typical of the modern city. ² From Simmel’s early twentieth century perspective, the experience of the large scale of modern cities and the accompanying overload of stimuli only emphasises this point. ³ The alienating feeling of being anonymous in the city, the sensation Kierkegaard speaks of as being alone in the crowd is thus regarded by Simmel as a by-product of modern urban culture. It is one which should be separated off from the experience of the stranger in cities in previous times, such as the travelling tradesman. This understanding of the position of the stranger in modern, urbanised, society points to the general negative reception of the idea of being among strangers in the city, an orientation that has characterised much of the academic and cultural debate on modern urban life. ⁴ Here, the urban realm is often portrayed negatively as strange, and the individual as an estranged and isolated figure lost in the crowds of the city. It is important to emphasise, however, that in this argument aspects of what constitute the collective dimensions of urban life are in fact used as arguments for its opposite: To all intents and purposes, cities have always been places for the gathering and cohabitation of people who might not necessarily have any personal knowledge of one another.