Urban imaginaries

In this article I consider the significance of the urban imaginary as a distinctive kind of cultural and political formation. I take the notion of the imaginary from an implicit singularity towards a more variegated and pluriversal conceptual field, extending to diverse kinds of ecological, techno-futurist, and speculative formulations. I argue that the discursive terrain of the urban imaginary is not reducible to that of culture or ideology and is better conceived as a useful yet somewhat underexplored dimension to a series of disparate and often contradictory aspects to modernity and the conceptualization of alternative futures.