The City as a Place of Opportunity

Abstract

What do people expect when they move to a city? As diverse as their motives may be, they always have one element in common: access. Access to jobs, a livelihood, and perhaps even affluence,—market access; access to the necessities of life, such as water, food, housing, and health care services; access to infrastructures: to electricity, heating, sanitary facilities, waste disposal systems, etc.; access to information, knowledge, technological advances, and—with a lot of luck—education; access to other people, to a social, cultural, or religious life, to special groups or like-minded people and communities, or to anonymity; access to a place where people have rights and obligations controlled by institutions and defended by courts, if necessary; a place that offers a certain degree of security, stability, and predictability, including protection against threats such as natural or man-made disasters.