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Beyond city limits

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  • Mark Davidson
  • Kurt Iveson

Abstract

With the publication of their piece 'Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban?' in City 19 (2-3), Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid hoped to ignite a debate about the adequacy of existing epistemologies for understanding urban life today. Brenner and Schmid's desire to set urban research on a new course is premised on a wide-ranging critique of 'city-centrism' that they believe is holding back both mainstream and critical urban research. In this paper, we challenge Brenner and Schmid's call for urban theory to shift from a concern with cities as 'things' to a concern with processes of concentrated, extended and differentiated urbanization. In their justified desire to critique 'urban age' ideologies that treat 'the city' as a fixed, bounded and replicable spatial unit, Brenner and Schmid risk robbing critical urban theory of a concept and an orientation that is crucial to both its conceptual clarity and its political efficacy. We offer in its place a conceptual and political defense of 'the city' as an anchor for a critical urban studies that can contribute to emancipatory politics. This is absolutely not a call for a return of bounded, universal concepts of 'the city' that have rightly been the target of critique. Rather, it is a call for an epistemology of the urban that is founded on an engagement with the political practices of subordinated peoples across a diverse range of cities. For many millions of people across the planet, the particularities of city life continue to be the context from which urbanization processes are experienced, understood, and potentially transformed.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Davidson & Kurt Iveson, 2015. "Beyond city limits," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 646-664, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:19:y:2015:i:5:p:646-664
    DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2015.1078603
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Paul Mason, 2013. "Why it's STILL Kicking Off Everywhere," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 808-809, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Robert Priessman Fenton, 2021. "Cacao Capitalism and Extended Urbanization: On the Contradictory Origins of Bounded Urbanism in Nineteenth‐century Coastal Ecuador," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 5-20, January.
    2. Hillary Angelo & Kian Goh, 2021. "OUT IN SPACE: Difference and Abstraction in Planetary Urbanization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 732-744, July.
    3. Lauren Rickards & Brendan Gleeson & Mark Boyle & Cian O’Callaghan, 2016. "Urban studies after the age of the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(8), pages 1523-1541, June.
    4. Kristian Saguin, 2017. "Producing an urban hazardscape beyond the city," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(9), pages 1968-1985, September.
    5. Mark Davidson, 2016. "Planning for Planet or City?," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(1), pages 20-23.
    6. Vanesa Castán Broto, 2020. "Beyond tabulated utopias: Action and contradiction in urban environments," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(11), pages 2371-2379, August.
    7. Allen J. Scott, 2022. "The constitution of the city and the critique of critical urban theory," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(6), pages 1105-1129, May.
    8. Nik Janos, 2020. "Urbanising territory: The contradictions of eco-cityism at the industrial margins, Duwamish River, Seattle," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(11), pages 2282-2299, August.

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