The City as Social Agitation: A Geographer's Cry for Help to Social Sciences Colleagues

Abstract

The current influence of scientific rationalism on the disciplines of morpho-functional tradition and postmodernism in the social sciences precludes a comprehensive view of the complexity of contemporary cities. As an alternative, we suggest the adoption of a cultural city view based on the following tetralogy: cognitive approach (background reference), urbanism of everyday life (analytical focus), creative city (idea mobilizing for change) and deliberative democracy (collective source of decision and action). This cultural view of the city underlines the impact of cognitive and behavioural factors and the importance of various cultural resources (physical and intangible) in the expansion of cities and in the evolution of urban development processes.