The Fight for the City as a Concept

This chapter addresses the significance of examining and establishing a conception of the city. While there are many ways to do so, alternative views steer us away from the necessary framing that can facilitate creating future cities in ways that will serve to benefit stakeholders ethically while providing them with ways to determine what that means. This is why we must accept cities as they are, resisting attempts to rebrand them as ecosystems, machines, living beings, or cyborgs. Although these topics can be entertaining, cities offer numerous elements that contribute to the good life. In turn, we must think about them as cities conceptually, and fighting for this conception is about much more than a philosophical or language issue. The fight for the city as a concept captures the spirit of what it means to be a citizen.