ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the city as sentient being in three different modes. It looks at historical cities as they have come to life and then passed away, replicating the course of a biological lifetime as they do so. The chapter also examines the city as a physiological, biological being, an entity imbued with life just as its inhabitants are imbued with life. It pays special attention to the ways in which the city undergoes transformation, through processes ranging from infrastructural change to the inscription of the city through graffiti. The chapter provides a few selections of fiction which have used the urban milieu as essential, transforming the city into a living canvas upon which and through which the characters of these novels manifest their lives. The chapter concludes by connecting the sentience of the city to other instrumentalities: the mobile city, the relational city, and the efficient city.
