Imagining the City. Introduction to the Theory of Conceptualization

Within the established language of description used by modern urbanists and sociologists, certain models of thought about the city - in other words, conceptualizations - have formed. Today, the concepts that make up their foundation, along with the models of thought themselves, are experiencing a period of semantic "inflation" and are in urgent need of serious reflection. This book is about such conceptualizations: about the history of their emergence and opposition, about the philosophical foundations and attempts to implement them in practice. In his research, Viktor Vakshtein shows how the ideas of "local community," "urban everyday life," "territorial control," "public space," and "social segregation" became entrenched in the language of sociologists, architects, and planners, transforming from categories of knowledge into tools of management. The theory of conceptualization reveals in the chaotic diversity of modern megacities traces of utopian cities created by the research imagination - from Bourdieupolis to Ciudad Delanda.