De gefragmenteerde stad

Samenvatting

The Fragmented City. In the last decades, cities in the Western world have shown both a dark and a bright side. On the one hand, cities are places of unemployment, crime, poverty, and ethnic conflict. On the other, cities have become more popular as cultural centers, places of residence for the new middle classes, and destinations for tourists. Both in urban policies and social science, there is a tendency to relate those different urban features to each other. In urban development plans, local and national authorities try to use the growing popularity of cities to combat different forms of social exclusion. In urban theory, it is often suggested that these two aspects of the city reinforce each other. Both visions are based on the assumption that the city is an integrated whole and forms a meaningful unity. This paper shows that cities have been subject to a process of fragmentation, and that it is more difficult than ever to define what a city is. It is argued that, instead of looking at cities as static categories, it is more fruitful to focus on urbanization: the more intensive and more multifunctional use of geographic space. As an example of the heuristic value of this emphasis on urbanization, the geographic location and social integration of migrants are discussed. 53 References. Adapted from the source document.