ABSTRACT
The dynamics of the urban, whether historical or contemporary, are perennially fascinating, and contested. Variations of the term ‘urban’ – ‘urbanism’ and ‘urbanization’ – all have inflexions of meanings that complicate comparative analysis, and are the more problematical at a transnational level given linguistic subtleties as revealed, for example, in L’aventure des mots de la ville. 1 The words ville, ciudad, polis, stadt and citta appeared on each of the book jackets in the Historical Urban Studies series and were a deliberate acknowledgement of the cultural and temporal variations to the meanings of town and city. 2
