Imaginative Structure of the CityIn The Imaginative Structure of the City Alan Blum explores the symbolic and imaginative nature of the city as a vital part of everyday life in modern civilization. He introduces the city as a community that must struggle to maintain its collective identity against typical problems – problems that threaten to fragment the city's sense of itself. Blum's distinctive form of theoretical inquiry pushes the reader to move beyond conventional ways of thinking about familiar urban issues in answering such fundamental questions as, How does a city exist? How do its inhabitants define their relationship to it? Who is entitled to speak for it? What is its symbolic nature? In what way does the city function as a focus of attempts to resolve social problems such as alienation, participation, and community? In what ways do night and nighttime affect our relationship to it? How is it possible to speak of a city as both exciting and alienating? |
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action actors Air Canada Centre anonymity appears Bataille begin Berlin bourgeoisie Braudel bring to view capacity capital Celtic Tiger centre character Chicago civilization cliché collective purpose collectivization common situation conception contested contrast cosmopolitanism culture dialectic difference discourse distinction diversity Dublin economic engaged environment ethical collisions everyday example experience external fate flâneur force function fundamental ambiguity gentrification Glaucon global global cities Goffman Hegel identity imaginative structure indeterminacy influences insomnia integral interpretation Ledrut linked living locus London mark material means ment modern Naples night nightlife notion object of desire occasion opportunity oriented persistence Plato practices present problem problem-solving productiv productivity question reflected relation relationship renewal representation risk scene sense shape Simmel simply skepticism social Socrates space spectacle street struggle suggests tension theorizing Thrasymachus tion treat tween typically University Press urban vertigo virtue voice worm's eye view York