What is a city? - Lorena Carcelén

What is a city?

We know what’s not a city but it’s difficult to give an accurate definition of what a city is. In terms of perception, each inhabitant of a city would have a different concept of it from other inhabitant, so there are as many concepts of what is a city as people in the world.

To give a very general definition of a city I would say that it’s an urban combination made up of a large number of buildings and complex road systems, usually with a large and dense population, whose main economic activities are associated with industry and services.

But to go deeper it is necessary to talk about livability, which is an equitable distribution of housing, jobs, health care, education and respect. This distribution creates a net of connections between dwellings, green spaces, leisure places, working offices… And this net of connections is what we perceive as a city. They need to be connected with each other to work correctly by roads, railways, bicycle ways or walkable paths.

Each city has different needs according to culture, politics, the topography and the amount of leaving there. But as each city should to attend to certain requirements, it can be also a weapon to change the society by changing the way we live.

A city is also a place where there is social cohesion which keeps a group able to function as a unit that is the city in this case, and there should be place for everyone regardless of its economic power.

From my point of view a city is a dynamic place due to it is continuously changing and developing according to the society and the technology advances. It’s something that adapts to the present but also something that can change the future.

Lorena Carcelén García

07-03-2020