1. What is a city — and whose city is

2. The city in its complete sense, then, is a
geographic plexus, an economic
organization, an institutional process, a
theater of social action, and an aesthetic
symbol of collective unity. The city fosters
art and is art; the city creates the theater
and is the theater. It is in the city, the city as
theater, that man’s more purposive
activities are focused, and work
out, through conflicting and cooperating
personalities, events, groups, into more
significant culminations.
Lewis Mumford, ―What’s a City?‖
What is a city — and whose city is

3. The city in its complete sense, then, is a
geographic plexus, an economic
organization, an institutional process, a
theater of social action, and an aesthetic
symbol of collective unity. The city
fosters art and is art; the city creates the
theater and is the theater. It is in the
city, the city as theater, that man’s more
purposive activities are focused, and work
out, through conflicting and cooperating
personalities, events, groups, into more
significant culminations.
Lewis Mumford, ―What’s a City?‖
What is a city — and whose city is

4. For Sharon Zukin (author of The Cultures of
Cities), the city is an aesthetic symbol of
collective unity and collective
division, difference, ambiguity, conflict.
What is a city — and whose city is

5. Cultural activities are supposed to lift [city
dwellers] out of the mire of our everyday
lives and into the sacred spaces of
ritualized pleasures. Yet culture is also a
powerful means of controlling cities. As a
source of images and memories, it
symbolizes ―who belongs‖ in specific
places.
Sharon Zukin, ―What City? Whose City?‖
What is a city — and whose city is

6. In recent years, culture has also become a
more explicit site of conflicts over social
differences and urban fears. Large
numbers of new immigrants and ethnic
minories have put pressure on public
institutions . . . to deal with their individual
demands. . . . By creating policies and
ideologies of ―multiculturalism,‖ they have
forced public institutions to change.
Sharon Zukin, ―What City? Whose City?‖
What is a city — and whose city is

7. [C]ity boosters increasingly compete for
tourist dollars and financial investments by
bolstering the city’s image as a center of
cultural innovation, including
restaurants, avant garde
performances, and architectural design.
These cultural strategies of redevelopment.
. . . often pit the self-interest of real estate
developers, politicians, and expansion-
minded cultural institutions against
grassroots pressure from local
communities.
Sharon Zukin, ―What City? Whose City?‖
What is a city — and whose city is

8. Building a city depends on how people
combine the traditional economic factors of
land, labor, and capital. But it also depends
on how they manipulate symbolic
languages of exclusion and entitlement.
The look and feel of cities reflect decisions
about what – and who – should be visible
and what should not, on concepts of order
and disorder, and on uses of aesthetic
power.
Sharon Zukin, ―What City? Whose City?‖
What is a city — and whose city is

9. Questions to Ask • Who sponsors this space? With what
purpose(s)?
• How is that/those purpose/s embodied
symbolically by the space?
• Who is included in the space and who is
excluded by it? How can you tell?
• Specifically who uses this space? For
what purpose(s)? Are there conflicts
between different users’ purposes? Are
there conflicts between users’ purposes
and sponsors’ purposes?
• In sum, what ―Denver‖ (or ―Denvers‖) is
written into this space? And whose?
What is a city — and whose city is