In the tracks of Comparative Urbanism: Difference, Urban Modernity and the Primitive

Abstract

In a globalizing world, the importance of appreciating the wide range of different kinds of cities around the world is becoming increasingly apparent to urban scholars. However, this paper argues that if urban studies is to engage with this diversity of cities, some of the core assumptions which frame urban theory need to be challenged. The concept of urban modernity, for example, has assumed a privileged link between modernity and certain kinds of cities, and relegated other people and places to the category of the "primitive" or the nonmodern. Instead, this paper argues that we could re-activate some resources in the tracks of comparative urbanism, prominent in the middle decades of the 20th century, to provoke a more cosmopolitan account of urban modernity which can learn from the diverse tactics of urban living around the world, and which is more appropriate for contemporary analysis of cities in a globalizing and interconnected world.