On ‘the urbanism of nothing’

Abstract

The following informal discussion by e‐mail arose in the process of discussing the issue title for 15.1. It began from a sense, frequently explored in City, that urbanism, at the same time as ‘the urban revolution’ or ‘The Age of Cities’ is being uncritically asserted, is on the edge of a possibly terminal crisis and that some(not all) manifestations described as ‘rurban’ are a sign of this. Maros Krivy's exploratory paper in that issue on ‘Speculative redevelopment and conservation…’ suggested, particularly in the illustration that he labelled ‘“Nothing” at the place of the former Guman factory’, a possible intersection, no more than that, between the two lines of thought. The ensuing discussion is presented here, very lightly edited. The topic of moving beyond a condition of ‘nothingness’ announced in the original issue title and taken up in that editorial is touched on here by Anna Richter and taken up again in the editorial to this issue. Bob Catterall