Introduction

In cities, different, contradictory and conflictual actors, practices and agendas co-exist. Richard Sennett claims that while there probably are as many ways to define ‘city’ as there are cities, a simple definition stating that ‘city is a human settlement in which strangers are likely to meet’ is quite powerful (Sennett 1974: 39). Hartmut Häussermann detects the normative essence of cities’ urban character in ‘confrontation with diversity, the un-expected, the non-planned and the resistant moment’ (Häussermann 1995, quoted in Groth and Corijn 2005: 513). These ideas suggest that to be urban in a true sense, cities should cater for diversity and alterity, allowing for articulation and integration of the Other. Conflicts are no exception but rather a constitutive part of cities’ ‘urbanness’ (Rajanti 1999).