Which City? Grounding Contemporary Urban Theory

Abstract

It remains common for the city to be treated as an undifferentiated unit in urban theory. This review of literature reveals that extant urban theory has been or can be inflected with a greater sense of intra- and interurban difference registering in implications for planning policy and practice pertaining to different substantive concerns and at different geographical scales. The article argues that we need to continue to pay attention to the spatially differentiated character of the urban if we are to advance urban planning thought and practice under contemporary conditions of extended urbanization.