Introduction

Abstract

Consider one view of why the experience of the modern city is so fascinating and compelling:

the great buildings of civilisation; the meeting places, the libraries and theatres, the towers and domes; and often more moving than these, the houses, the streets, the press and excitement of so many people, with so many purposes. I have stood in many cities and felt this pulse: in the physical differences of Stockholm and Florence, Paris and Milan: this identifiable and moving quality: the centre, the activity, the light. Like everyone else I have also felt the chaos of the metro and the traffic jam: the monotony of the ranks of houses, the aching press of strange crowds … this sense of possibility, of meeting and of movement, is a permanent element of my sense of cities …

(Williams, 1973, pp. 14–15)