What is this thing called “the urban” and how might we critique it?

Abstract

In recent years, the growing interest in new patterns of urbanization that seem to contradict conventional conceptions of the city has increasingly brought the question “What is urban?” to the surface. The neolefebvrian focus on “complete urbanization” visibly directed attention to a broader range of spaces, such as “operational landscapes” and other kinds of “extractive frontiers” that are closely linked to global urbanism. At the same time, the idea of “the city” as a characteristic form of dense urban agglomeration remains, despite everything, an important cultural and material marker.