SPATIAL FORMS AND THE ROLES PLAYED BY CITIES

THE NEW QUALITIES OF THE CITY AND THE URBAN

Abstract

This paper examines the relations between spatial forms and the roles played by cities, considering the difference between the city and “the urban”. The author emphasizes the contemporary determinations of the urbanization process which redefine the forms of the territorial expansion of cities and the socialspatial contents and practices regarding the urban space. The articulations and differences between three pairs of qualities of the urbanization process as well as of the cities constitute the framework of the analysis: transition and transitory, extension and intensity, mobility and immobility.