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Retro Modern or Revolutionary: Scale Shifts and Political Reaction in Twenty–First Century Urbanism
Author(s) -
Smith Neil
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
city and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1548-744X
pISSN - 0893-0465
DOI - 10.1525/ciso.1997.9.1.35
Subject(s) - urbanism , capitalism , modernism (music) , politics , theme (computing) , scale (ratio) , social change , political economy , urban planning , sociology , political science , economic geography , history , aesthetics , geography , architecture , art , cartography , law , civil engineering , archaeology , engineering , computer science , operating system
This paper Speculates about some trends in the shape and development of twenty–first century cities. The central shift involved in new urban development concerns the altered functions and scale at which cities are constituted with the fruition of global capitalism. Stylistically the next generation of urban development will revisit modernism, and this theme is explored via a critical discussion of new urbanism and of contemporary reconstruction in Berlin. Yet the capitalist revolution that will mark the first years of the twenty‐first century may itself be vulnerable, and the possibility exists for revolutionary change in the social relations that give rise to specific patterns and processes of urban development and therefore to equally revolutionary urban forms. [Scale, modernism, revolution, Berlin, revanchism, new urbanism]