WEEK 1: WHAT IS A CITY

Powerpoint Lecture
What is a City?
❖ Every city has a unique flavor and quality
❖ There are also ‘types’ of cities: some cities are new and contemporary, such as
Shanghai or Dubai; some are Roman or Medieval in origin, such as London and Paris
❖ Cities vary according to climate, region, socio-economic status, first-, second-, and
third-world designations

Where Does the Noun ‘City’ Come From?

❖ Civitas/Civis = City/Citizen
➢ (Latin)
❖ Cite/Citeain = City/Citizen
➢ (Old French)
❖ City/Citizen
➢ (Middle English)
❖ A ‘citizen’ is a legally recognized subject of a country or state
❖ ‘Citizen’ is also the inhabitant of a city
➢ E.g. the citizens of Los Angeles
❖ The concept of the ‘citizen’ has been linguistically tied to that of the ‘city’ from
Classical times
❖ E.g. Athens was a ‘city-state’ (city and country all in one)
❖ The concept of the ‘city’, as a space of political, social and economic belonging,
produced the concept of the ‘citizen’
❖ Related terms:
❖ ‘Civic’ (Latin: civis) = relating to duties and activities of people in relation to their
city or town
❖ ‘Civilization’ (Latin: civilis) = the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area
❖ The idea of the ‘city’ is closely connected to the idea of ‘civilization’, of human
endeavor, achievement and progress

What Criteria do we use to Define Cities?

❖ Population
1) a large number of people living closely together (population density)
2) a big town (cities can start at 100,000 people)
❖ London, ON, is a city (pop. 380,000)
❖ Modernity
➢ Cities are often associated with progress, futurity, invention
➢ Today, the most ‘modern’ cities include:
■ Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong, London, New York
❖ Wealth
➢ Cities are associated with making money, capitalism, banking, stock exchange
 ❖ What is the current wealthiest city in the world?
➢ New York City
➢ 65 billionaires
➢ 380,000 millionaires (which is the population of London, ON)
➢
❖ Poverty
➢ Cities can also be associated with extreme poverty, slums, social and
economic inequity
➢ The majority of cities have areas that are considered unsafe, largely due to
issues of poverty
➢ Yet some cities have slums that have existed for so long that they become
their own ‘cities’ with their own social structures
❖ History
➢ Cities are also associated with the past; old buildings, famous figures from
the past, historical memory
➢ In Europe, a city could only be designated as such if it had a cathedral
➢ Early European cities were defined through Christian influence and power
❖ Human-made Beauty
➢ Cities are often tied to idea of human artistic achievement; painting,
sculpture, architecture, urban space
❖ What is considered to be the most beautiful city in the world?
➢ Paris!

Two Models for Defining a City

❖ Social Science Model (objective)
➢ Demographics, city planning, population, class, etc
❖ Arts and Humanities model (subjective)
➢ What it feels like to live in a city
➢ What constitutes urban experience
➢ How cities are represented through novels, poetry, painting, architecture, etc
➢ The subjective approach considers how it feels as a body to experience the
city

Architecture
❖ Above all, a city like Paris is internationally recognized for its buildings and
architecture
❖ Notre-Dame Cathedral (13th century)
❖ The Louvre Palace (16th century)
❖ The Arc de Triomphe (early 19th century)
❖ The Eiffel Tower (late 19th century)
❖ The Centre Pompidou (20th century)
❖ What does this collection of buildings tell us about the city?
➢ Cities evolve through time
➢ Cities are constructed through architectural layers
 ➢ Cities are temporal palimpsests (something reused or altered but still
bearing visible traces of its earlier form)
➢ Some buildings are knocked down; some change their use (the Louvre used
to be a royal palace, then became a museum); some maintain their original
status (Notre- Dame cathedral is still a place of Christian worship)
➢ Because of their architecture, cities embrace the past, the present and the
future
➢ In any given arrondissement (name of Paris neighborhoods), the three
timelines will coexist in one location
➢ Cities become a way of mapping human time
➢ Cities make us aware of time through their use of space

Cities and Public Space

❖ Cities are defined by the concept of ‘public space’
❖ Public spaces can take many forms:
➢ Public parks or gardens
➢ Spacious streets, known as ‘boulevards’
➢ Public squares (in Medieval times often used for public executions as well as
markets)
❖ What do ‘public spaces’ create?
➢ The coming together of people
➢ The mixing of populations from different walks of life (workers, students,
bankers, tradespeople, homeless people, etc)
➢ The mixing of social classes (rich and poor, upper-class, middle-class,
working-class)

Urban Aboveground and Urban Underground

❖ Since the 19th century, cities exist in two layers, the urban underground and the
urban aboveground
❖ David Pike calls this the vertical city, manifested in the subway, the cemetery, and
the sewer
❖ The underground city plays a key role in the mythology of the city itself
❖ “Contemporary Western culture seems obsessed by all things underground. The
sewers and catacombs are among the most visited attractions in Paris. London’s
biggest draw is the disused railway arches that house the shopping arcades of the
counterculture-themed Camden Town; close behind on the list are the Tower and
the London Dungeon.” (Pike, Subterranean Cities 2018)

Cities and Anonymity

❖ One of the biggest differences between a village or small town and a city is its
anonymity
❖ Villages are defined by kinship ties (immediate family, extended family, multiple
generations within a given family)
 ❖ Villages are founded on people knowing one another (name of the local butcher,
baker, post office clerk, bank clerk, etc)
❖ Cities, in contrast, are founded on not knowing who people are
❖ Of course, cities have neighborhoods, and can break down into village-like
communities
❖ But in downtown spaces, anonymity is the norm
❖ Anonymity can lead to different kinds of human behavior and interactions
❖ What are possible benefits of anonymity?
➢ Sense of freedom, autonomy, reinvention of the self, new beginnings
➢ New way of forging ties, not through kinship but through friendships, chosen
ties, chance encounters
➢ People often come to cities to escape their families
■ For example, this is why LGBTQ communities are often started in
cities
➢ Village structures demand a certain conformity, having to fit in
➢ Cities allow the freedom of not fitting in, of being who you want to be, of
being different, unique, or odd, and of finding others like you
❖ What are possible disadvantages of anonymity?
➢ Isolation, loneliness, not being known, lack of support systems
➢ Sense of alienation, of non-belonging
➢ Greater risk of certain kinds of violence (muggings, theft)
➢ Many people are afraid of the space of the city for these reasons
➢ Urban spaces are often seen as dangerous, predatory, violent
➢ However, we know there can be incidents of, for example, domestic violence
in smaller communities, such as villages and rural communities

Cities: Seeing and Being Seen

❖ Anonymity enables a certain kind of gaze
❖ Cities are known for people watching
❖ In this sense, cities are theatrical spaces
❖ People in public spaces both like to watch, and to be watched
❖ This is why fashion trends develop in urban spaces
❖ At the Paris Opera House in the 19th century, high society went as much to be seen
as to see the opera being performed
❖ Artists often painted people watching and being watched at the Opera

Cities and Consumerism

❖ Cities are also about money and wealth
❖ They are where the stock exchange is located (in an echo of the medieval cathedral,
the stock exchange is the temple of capitalism)
 ❖ The first cities were essentially market spaces, where merchants met to exchange
goods
❖ Cities have always been defined in part through the exchange of people and goods
(merchandise, money, prostitution, etc)
❖ Cities also invented shopping, and Paris was one of the first to do so
❖ Shopping is a relatively modern concept (looking for goods and choosing what to
purchase)
❖ Before shops in the modern sense, people exchanged the goods they needed
❖ Paris was one of the first cities where people began to window shop (in French,
lèche-vitrine, literally to lick the windows)
❖ Shop displays became as important as the items themselves
❖ This formed part of the culture of seeing and observing
❖ The idea of consumption, whether through the gaze or the actual spending of
money, has become a defining aspect of city living

Paris and the Problem of Over-representation

❖ Paris is one of the most over-represented cities in the world
❖ How do we navigate the relationship between Paris as myth, as cliché, as symbol,
and Paris as a lived, quotidian, dynamic urban space?
❖ “How can one be present in Paris, a tourist city, so often painted and written that it
no longer seems to quite be there?” (V. Paris, 2018)
❖ Paris can at times appear as a simulacrum of itself, as imitating the idea of what it is
supposed to be

Orienting Oneself in Paris

❖ Cities are spatial constructs that also contain sedimented layers of time
❖ They are simultaneously old and new, ancient and modern, looking backwards and
forwards
❖ Orienting oneself in a city like Paris can often feel overwhelming

Paris’s Population and Size

❖ In terms of size, Paris has a small surface area
❖ While London, UK, is 600 square miles (1554 km2), Paris is only 40 square miles
(103 km2) (London, Ontario is 420 km2)
❖ The City of Paris houses 2.2 million citizens
❖ However, the Greater Paris region houses 12.1 million citizens, which makes it one
of the most populated cities in the world (18% of France’s population over 2% of
France’s surface area)
Parisian Arrondissements
❖ Contemporary Paris is made up of 20 arrondissements (neighborhoods)
❖ These are administrative districts, each with their own number, name and mayor
❖ The arrondissements are laid out in a clockwise spiral, like a snail shell
 ❖ The 1st arrondissement is in the center of the city, on the Right Bank, and includes
the Louvre Museum and the Tuileries Palace
❖ Parisians locate themselves through the number of their arrondissement e.g. She
lives in the 7th, the 14th, etc

The Left and Right Banks

❖ The River Seine divides Paris into the Left (South) and Right (North) Banks
❖ This also divides the city culturally
❖ The Left Bank is the student area, with the Sorbonne, Paris’s oldest university
campus
❖ This is also known as the Latin Quarter, as in Medieval times students spoke Latin
❖ The Left Bank includes:
➢ The Boulevard Saint-Germain (known as the Boul’Mich), full of bookstores
and cafés
➢ The Panthéon, a mausoleum for distinguished French citizens
➢ The Eiffel Tower
❖ The Right Bank is associated with royalty and later with the wealthy bourgeoisie
❖ It includes:
➢ The Marais district, a wealthy residential area
➢ The Elysée Palace, the seat of the French government
➢ The Champs É lysées and the Arc of Triumph
➢ The Boulevard Haussmann
➢ The Palais Garnier (Paris’s first opera house)
➢ The Louvre Museum and the Tuileries Palace

Paris’s Two Islands

❖ The Seine River contains two islands in the center of Paris
❖ L’Île de la Cité
➢ This is the location of the original Medieval city of Paris
➢ It also houses Notre-Dame Cathedral (12th--13th century)
❖ L’Île Saint-Louis
➢ This island contains elegant residences built in the 17th century under Louis
XIII
➢ Apartments cost up to $5 million, and it is one of the most affluent
neighborhoods in Paris (along with the Marais)
➢ The Île Saint-Louis is connected to the mainland by 4 bridges, and to the Île
de la Cité by the Pont Saint-Louis

Walking in Paris
❖ One of the unique characteristics of cities, and Paris, in particular, is how we
experience them as bodies
 ❖ Cities are largely defined by their public spaces, boulevards, parks, etc
❖ All these urban spaces encourage a particular activity: walking
❖ Cities are built over time around the figure of the pedestrian
❖ Walking through city spaces is the best way to experience urban life
❖ What can walking through a city offer?
➢ Awareness of architecture of urban spaces
➢ Sense of belonging in a crowd
➢ People-watching
➢ Sense of immersion in a human-made landscape
➢ Act of walking makes one part of the city
➢ “Walking is mapping with your feet. It helps you piece a city together,
connecting up neighborhoods that might otherwise have remained discrete
entities, different planets bound to each other, sustained yet remote …
Walking makes me feel at home.” (Elkin, 21)

The Flâneur
❖ ‘Flâ neur’ (French = stroller, idler, lounger)
❖ ‘Flâ nerie’ = act of strolling
❖ ‘Flâ neur (from Old Norse, ‘flana’ = to wander with no purpose)
❖ ‘Boulevardier’ = figure of urban wealth who can afford to wander aimlessly and
observe society
❖ The flâ neur is a quintessentially 19th-century Parisian figure, but the concept has
been taken up in North American urban planning
❖ The flâ neur is inherently paradoxical
❖ He is usually from the well-educated, bourgeois class, and wealthy
❖ However, he rejects the bourgeois values of family, hard work, capitalist
accumulation, progress
❖ These were the defining values of French 19th-century society
❖ The flâ neur is a leisurely rebel, which makes him political in his very refusal to
engage in the norms of his time
❖ He privileges wasting time and anti-productivity; he is often plagued by a feeling of
ennui (boredom, pointlessness)
❖ However, he is also an acute urban observer, and captures the zeitgeist of city living
❖ The most famous flâ neur was the French poet, Charles Baudelaire, who wrote a
series of poems about Paris and the urban experience
❖ The 20th-century philosopher, Walter Benjamin, described the flâ neur as an
“amateur detective” observing the city
❖ The flâ neur also embodies the alienation of the modern city
❖ He is aloof, solitary, distanced from his peers, observing them in a fascinated way
❖ The flâ neur is both immersed and detached; he depends on the urban experience of
anonymity
❖ The flâ neur embodies the alienation of modern capitalist consumer culture
❖ "Empathy is the nature of the intoxication to which the flâ neur abandons himself in
the crowd. He . . . enjoys the incomparable privilege of being himself and someone
 else as he sees fit. Like a roving soul in search of a body, he enters another person
whenever he wishes." (Walter Benjamin, Baudelaire 55).

Baudelaire and the Flâneur

❖ “The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion
and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâ neur,
for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the
multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the
infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see
the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world
—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a
prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.” (Baudelaire, Le Figaro 1863)

The Modern Flâneur

❖ For Susan Sontag, the photographer is the modern flâ neur (but not the one who
takes selfies!)
❖ “The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering,
stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city
as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of
empathy, the flâ neur finds the world ‘picturesque.’” (Sontag, On Photography, 55)

The Flâneuse
❖ Lauren Elkin has examined why the flâ neur is a male concept
❖ Developed in the 19th century, only men could walk the streets anonymously
❖ Women who walked the streets of the city were assumed to be sex workers
❖ However, with the advent of the 20th century came women’s access to street life
❖ “As cinema and other leisure activities became popular in the early twentieth
century, and taken with the large-scale entrance of women into the workforce
during the First World War, women’s presence in the streets was confirmed.” (Elkin,
15)
❖ For Elkin, walking in the city is the only way to truly experience it
❖ “And it’s the center of cities where women have been empowered, by plunging into
the heart of them, and walking where they’re not meant to.” (Elkin, 20)
❖ “Once I began to look for the flâ neuse, I spotted her everywhere.” (Elkin, 22)
❖ “The flâ neuse does exist, whenever we have deviated from the paths laid out for us,
lighting out for our own territories.” (Elkin, 23)

Michel de Certeau, “Walking in the City” (1984)

 ❖ In this essay, de Certeau argues that while city planners organize space in a certain
way, walking through cities always redefines that experience
❖ The act of walking turns the city into an ‘urban text’, a transformation of the
‘objective’ city into the ‘subjective’ experience of the pedestrian
❖ “The paths that correspond in this intertwining, unrecognized poem in which each
body is an element signed by many others, elude legibility.” (de Certeau, 153)
❖ De Certeau claims there is “a rhetoric of walking” (158)
❖ Walkers have a particular “style” or way of walking through cities
❖ Names and numbers of streets in cities affect walkers in unconscious ways
❖ “Numbered streets and street numbers … orient the magnetic field of trajectories
just as they can haunt dreams.” (158)
❖ Street names change their original meaning and signify differently, subjectively
❖ Street names “slowly lose, like worn coins, the value engraved on them, but their
ability to signify outlives its first definition.” (158)
❖ Some names are so famous they act like ‘stars’ or ‘constellations’
❖ “Place de l’É toile, Concorde, Poissonnière … These constellations of names provide
traffic patterns: they are stars directing itineraries.” (159)
❖ Names and streets in cities therefore acquire a new meaning on top of the official,
designated meaning intended by urban planners
❖ “They become liberated spaces that can be occupied. A rich indetermination gives
them, by means of a semantic rarefaction, the function of articulating a second,
poetic geography on top of the geography of the literal, forbidden or permitted
meaning.” (159)
❖ Cities also acquire layers of ‘legends’ and ‘stories’ through time, like the buildings
themselves
❖ It is their ‘hidden’ stories and meanings that make them ‘habitable’
❖ “It is through the opportunity they offer to store up rich silences and wordless
stories, or rather through their capacity to create cellars and garrets everywhere,
that local legends permit exits, ways of going out and coming back in, and thus
habitable spaces.” (160)

Readings
Course Pack
Michel de Certeau, "Walking in the City" in The Cultural Studies Reader (1993) 158-160

Lauren Elkin, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
(2016) 3-23

Other
Charles Bukowski, "Paris": https://www.poeticous.com/charles-bukowski/paris