The Identity of the City

Abstract

In the age of globalisation, urban populations have been concerned by the intensification of urban change, being overwhelmed by the pace and scale of change imposed on localities from the outside, eroding local identities at the expense of alien ideas and forces. The sense of identity across time and space is a social process drawing on the relations of similarity and difference, developed as narratives told from a perspective. Identity processes pose particular anxieties and challenges: whether and how a place can remain the same through time while going through necessary change; how a place can remain unique while also belonging to a group of similar places under the pressure for homogenisation. The way to manage these pressures and develop a secure sense of identity, the chapter argues, is through democratic management of change, which should facilitate democratic control over the substance, pace and representations of change, made possible through ‘dynamic multiplicity’, which is purposeful involvement of many voices over time.