The comparative future of a canonical city

This essay revisits the Chicago School's enduring place in urban studies to argue for its renewed relevance through comparative urbanism. A century after Park, Burgess and Wirth formulated their foundational texts, students and scholars alike remain drawn to their big, accessible questions about why cities grow, how people inhabit space, and how urban life is structured. At the same time, these texts have been thoroughly critiqued by Marxist, postcolonial, race and planetary urbanisation scholars for their naturalistic explanations of urban growth. Rather than defending or discarding the canon, I suggest a different strategy: setting Chicago free by bringing the city itself – not just the texts – into comparative conversation. Chicago's canonical weight has often positioned it as exceptional, studied in isolation from other urban contexts. Yet its racial segregation, neighbourhood politics and fragmented governance structures are neither unique nor universal. By situating Chicago alongside other cities, we can transform it into a relational site for theorising urban change. This approach echoes Park's late-career vision of applying insights from Chicago globally. Repositioning and ‘freeing’ Chicago from its exceptional status allows us to retain the analytical power of the Chicago School's intellectual legacy while loosening its hold on the canon.