The city as co-existence's physical organization

Abstract

The paper speaks of there being everywhere a sharp rise in talks and seminaries on the subject of the habitability of the city and discusses the reasons for this phenomenon, venturing that it might be that 80% of Europe's population live in such places and then going on to wonder if, after decades of denigration for urban civilization as the root of every kind of evil, many have not now woken up to the threat of its disappearance. It argues that attacks made on cities such as Beirut and Sarajevo could now be understood to be aimed against the very heart of a society and then that city pollution not only threatens to-days people and their constructs but likewise those of the past and the future. The paper however sees all this new interest as heartening after so many years of vituperation on the part of moralizers, urbanists and architects, heartening and a cause for optimism given that the city from times remote is that which has made man democratic, that has withstood the tides of History and made away with kingdoms and empires, is that which has given rise to fewer accidental deaths than traffic on the highways. Quite contrary to the opinions of those architects, planners and social reformers that have advocated a flight from the city, the paper urges an attempt to develop a project for it grounded upon what its history can suggest, on sociology and such a continuing democratic political debate as will establish its future.