From urban form to urban relations: in search for a new kind of reflexive and critical knowledge in urban geography and city monitoring

Abstract

The paper explores what unites the social environment the material environment. both the material form, and, jointly, the sensibility that echoes it. .It argues that urban geographers need to develop a research model drawing on urban geography, on urbanism and on land management and capable of integrating the thoughts, the emotions, the affects and the valu-es of city dwellers and citizens and therefore knowledge situated at a micro-social level. However, such research still would need to lead to truly regulatory knowledge. Its translati-on into practical measures needs to be democratically approved, especially by actors who know how to think and act both locally and globally, in relation to multiple and complex territories of affiliation and intervention. This implies a huge effort of the imagination and of construction, both at the theoretical level and at the level of the operational tools needed. Indeed, the concept of “ urban project ”, which has been frequently encountered since the end of the ‘70s and which is supposed finally to supersede functionalist urbanism, cannot be conceived of without taking into consideration the population’s capability to participate and embrace projects or, on the contrary, to oppose them.