Cities: A Window into Larger and Smaller Worlds

Cities are complex systems. But they are incomplete systems. In this incompleteness lies the possibility of making — making the urban, the political, the civic, a history. The urban is not alone in having these characteristics, but these characteristics are a necessary part of the DNA of the urban. Every city is distinct and so is every discipline that studies it. And yet, if it is to be a study of the urban it will have to deal with these key features — incompleteness, complexity, and the possibility of making. This then also makes cities strategic sites for the exploration of many major subjects confronting society. But cities are not always a heuristic space — a space capable of producing knowledge about some of the major transformations of an epoch. Today, as we have entered a global era, the city is once again emerging as a strategic site for understanding some of the major new trends reconfiguring the social order. Each of those trends has its own specific contents and consequences. The urban moment is but one moment in their often complex multi-sited trajectories.