10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [28/12/2022].

See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Ordinary Cities In reconstructing the characteristics of this
way of observing the urban phenomenon,
ROBERTA GEMMITI Amin and Graham identified three recurring
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy elements in the literature, which made it pos-
sible to better understand the contemporary
CITY AS SOMETHING approach to urban dimensions and func-
EXTRAORDINARY tions (Amin and Graham 1997, 413–415).
These can be specified as: the progressive
The concept of “ordinary city” was origi- rediscovery of the importance of urban cen-
nally proposed by Ash Amin and Stephen trality; the emphasis on cities as economic
Graham in a paper written in 1997. In this motors of national development; the idea of
work, the authors severely criticized the view cities as nodes of creativity and the urban
of the city created by poststructuralist and environment as a driver of innovation.
postmodern transdisciplinary urban studies With respect to the first feature, during
from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s. In the 1990s, a good deal of the literature was
the previous period (the 1960s and 1970s), convinced that post-Fordist cities played new,
the literature had described the city as a phe- alternative roles, in that they were places
nomenon in deep crisis, since developments where the most competitive sectors of the
in transport systems and communications economy and production found face-to-face
appeared to weaken the advantages of spatial contacts and the right amount of high-level
agglomeration and, therefore, the economic infrastructure and services needed in the
role of urban sites. Urbanization was not globalization era. In light of these factors,
a main field of study, and research tended the literature declared cities as agglomeration
to focus on the decline of the city in con- nodes for the coordination of globalized
nection with employment and from a social systems of production, information, and
perspective. Then, in the early 1980s, a post- technological innovation, and viewed the
modern turnaround unexpectedly brought world as dominated by a network of key
the urban phenomenon to the fore, especially command-and-control centers (so-called
in Anglo-Saxon literature, making it one world or global cities).
of the most interesting topics in sociology, The second feature of this new city pro-
geography, regional science, cultural studies, file reconsidered the city’s role in national
and humanities. development. In urban theory, and especially
With the onset of globalization, trans- in the political language of the 1990s, cities
disciplinary literature began to increasingly were represented as networks of Marshallian
consider the city as a key protagonist of the nodes, able to provide the intangible and
new era. Urban systems started to regain relational factors at the basis of productive,
their traditional role as principal centers of social, and cultural innovation.
attraction for people and resources, as the A final constitutive aspect of the new
main drivers of economic, social, and cultural vision of the city in urban theory was the
transformations, especially in terms of the creative city, a densely packed and visionary
locus of innovation and identity change. place, flowing with the pulse of cultural and

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. Edited by Anthony Orum.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228
 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [28/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2 OR DI NARY CI TI ES

social innovation, entertainment, sports, and In fact, the “ordinary city” concept offered
everything else to be found especially in spe- an alternative approach and view of the city
cific districts within the city, which are full of as a “multiplex,” that is, an unhomogeneous
vitality, innovation, progress, and integration. entity, a complex space consisting of con-
verging nodes and global relation networks,
as well as a place of contradictions coexist-
A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW: CITY
ing with all the problems related to great
AS SOMETHING ORDINARY
diversity. In order to consider the city in
According to Amin and Graham’s critical this perspective and to avoid oversimplifi-
paper, the representation of cities as creative cations and overgeneralizations, the authors
and cultural nodes and as economic power underlined four aspects hitherto neglected in
theorizing about the city. The first concerns
hubs stemmed from generalizations based on
the different flows and networks that coexist
a very small number of urban experiences,
in a city. It is necessary to stress that urban
more specifically on the selective analysis of a
areas provide an opportunity for face-to-face
few inner city areas in which the key actors of
contact for professional sectors and workers
the world economy, and key decision-makers
but, at the same time, they are also nodes
and innovators, are supposed to live, work,
for fast and independent flows from greater
and meet. This narrow perspective led to
distances, which travel along transport and
the formulation of a theory built on a global
communication systems. In this way, cities act
hierarchy of cities governed like businesses,
as connecting points allowing different spaces
on the logic of competitiveness and global
to coexist: some of these spaces are essential
capitalism.
for the relations of proximity, such as finan-
What is more, the authors believed that cial and cultural districts, while others are
the global city metaphor had been tacitly too distant to be easily rooted in the city and
put forward as a model to be imitated, a therefore have difficulty in establishing rela-
“synecdoche” whereby a partial analysis of tions with the city and local actors. To ignore
either one city or a few world cities gave rise the multiplicity of space–time dimensions is
to universal policies, models, and planning to ignore the need to seek a balance between
guidelines. As a result, many cities endeav- integration and fragmentation, between
ored, over time, to acquire these assets and competitiveness and social cohesion.
trigger processes considered fundamental in Second, since cities are not only eco-
the literature. nomic valuable spaces, it is important to
In their 1997 paper, Amin and Graham decide what kind of relationship to estab-
offered a different image of the city, proposing lish between the most competitive places
a new category of urban analysis in which (densely packed areas, creative nodes and
the city is perceived as “ordinary.” They districts) and the rest of the urban area, and
claimed that only by considering all cities how to govern these separate parts. If they
as normal would it be possible to take into are planned as areas that are geographically
account the great complexity of the urban and socially isolated, there is the risk of
phenomenon, the diversity, variety, contem- creating internal imbalances and of hinder-
poraneity, and amplitude of urban sites; only ing cross-fertilization, which is an essential
through the idea of ordinary could these ingredient of creativity.
aspects be recognized and appreciated, rather A third, more general, aspect is the fact that
than ignored and neglected. the separation of social, political, cultural, and
 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [28/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
OR DI NARY CI TI ES 3

economic factors can reduce the potential representation of that system of global and
for development, which is not linked to world cities which are categorized hierarchi-
homogeneity but to the heterogeneity and cally according to their functions and global
hybridity of the contemporary city (as shown links (as has been proposed since 1998 by
in time-geography studies and through the the think tank of Globalization and World
concept of space and place in relation to the Cities – GaWC).
development of actor-network analysis). In fact, although urban phenomena were
The fourth factor concerns the institu- increasingly relevant in the cities of the
tional dimension, namely the problem of how Southern hemisphere, at the beginning of
social complexity should be governed; the the twenty-first century urban theory almost
components of institutions and governance exclusively focused on understanding the
are normally ignored in the literature on the changes in European/American cities.
global city. Robinson (2002; 2006) explains this selec-
Thus, by looking at the city in this origi- tive approach through what she describes
nal perspective, Amin and Graham produced as the dual nature of urban studies: on the
a set of assets which is deeply different from one hand there is the urban theory which
those found in the global cities literature. In focuses on Western urban experiences, gen-
fact, if the city is seen in the light of its ordi- eralizes results, and constructs theories which
nariness and multiplicity, the most important are then universally proposed for all cities;
assets become those connected with the fair on the other hand, there are development
city project, based on the values of inclusion, studies which analyze the mechanism of eco-
cohesion, solidarity, democracy, and citizen- nomic growth and the difficulties of lagging
regions. It is mainly in this latter context that
ship, rather than on global hierarchy compet-
the non-Western cities, or so-called Third
itiveness and rankings.
World cities, are traditionally defined and
studied.
ORDINARY CITIES IN THE This phenomenon of the Western domi-
POSTCOLONIAL FRAMEWORK nation of urban theory emerged thanks to
the expansion of two fundamental concepts:
The concept of ordinary city, at the cutting urban modernity and urban development
edge of a theoretical and political proposal (Robinson 2006). The former highlights cul-
which offered an alternative to the urban tural experience and the innovative capacity
studies dominant in the 1990s, was reap- of (Western) urban life. Within this frame-
praised and expanded several years later by work, scholars commonly limit their analysis
the geographer Jennifer Robinson. The term and rank different cultures and places using
then became a well-established metaphor indicators of novelty, innovation, and new
within the framework of postcolonial urban trends. Such a frame of reference does not
literature, a strand of critical urban stud- appear to be an effective way of perceiving
ies strongly committed to epistemological modernity, nor does it seem right to contrast
reflexivity. modernity and tradition, whereas the concept
In this context, ordinary cities turned of urban development aims to improve the
into a symbol of the strong demand for a conditions of all cities (especially poor ones)
more global and cosmopolitan urban the- through policy guidelines that follow the
ory, one that reincorporates all cities in same path taken by Western cities. In other
scientific considerations, overcoming the words, the process of narrowing the field of
 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [28/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
4 OR DI NARY CI TI ES

theory and planning (Roy 2009) may pro- Through the ordinary city metaphor,
duce the risk of fostering the reproduction of scholars have been able to emphasize the
imperial and neocolonial power relationships need for a theory that takes into account a
(so-called “developmentalism”). city’s individuality and concrete urban reality;
In the ordinary cities planning perspective, one that does not just see the city as a space on
cities must be considered as all different, which to project higher order dynamics, built
and institutions are endorsed to follow a on the idea of a few chosen cities; one that
city-wide strategy of social and economic encompasses the idea that the city is not only
development, rather than the restricted aim a node of business agglomeration economies,
of only competitiveness and growth of pro- but a complex place which should first of all
ductive clusters (Robinson 2008). What is guarantee the well-being of its present and
proposed, as a result, is the construction of future inhabitants. In sum, the metaphor of
a more cosmopolitan concept of city-ness, a ordinary city can be credited with calling for
new approach that sees every city as a unique a different vision of the city, and also with
assemblage of diverse processes and rela- asking for a greater degree of justice and
tionships in specific locations, as a creative, democracy in knowledge acquisition.
modern, and various entity. After the term ordinary city opened up
This perspective is bound to be essentially a full debate in urban theory, today it is no
idiographic, in light of the fact that total com- longer the object of specific research. In fact,
prehension of all phenomena is impossible probably the last paper openly dedicated
(Robinson 2006). This theoretical proposal is to the concept is the one by Richard Smith
closely tied to assemblage urbanism, in which (2013) in which the author explicitly argues
against ordinary cities and firmly disagrees
cities are seen as unique and unrepeatable. It
with the idea, accusing researchers in the
advocates comparative urbanism as a research
postcolonial urban field of misrepresenting
method for the formulation of theories
the neo-Marxist categories of world and
(Robinson 2006; 2011; McFarlane and Robin-
global cities concepts. According to Smith,
son 2012), comparing different experiences in
these two concepts have become void of
terms of their analytical relationships, allow-
any actual meaning, having been reread in a
ing the research technique to be fine-tuned
logic which condemned the scientific efforts
and critically continuously improved.
made at categorizing urban phenomena,
the study of hierarchies, and the analysis of
FURTHER PERSPECTIVES FOR THE uneven geographies in interurban relation-
ORDINARY CITY ships, leaving no room for retrieval of the
original concept. This way of representing
The ordinary city concept has helped bring to the limits of urban theory allows space for
the fore the flaws in an urban theory that has few other prospects, if not the idiographic
often been too narrow, economic, and ethno- approach, which is specific and localistic,
centric, from the early ideas of the Chicago synthesized by the author as the “Ordinary
School of urban sociology, to the Los Angeles City Trap.”
School of urban geography and to the per- Thanks to the metaphor, the relation-
spectives centered on global and world cities ship between idiographic and nomothetic is
and city-regions considered as the building part of a theoretical debate between urban
blocks of the global economy and models for theorists which today is more alive than ever.
all the cities in the world (Roy 2009). Many questions need to be answered, the
 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [28/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
OR DI NARY CI TI ES 5

main one being whether an awareness of could particularly benefit from greater dia-
the ultimate uniqueness of time and place logue with the urban political economy and
absolves us from the responsibilities and with at least two of the internal currents
opportunities of generalization (Dear 2005). of thought: neoliberal capitalism and space
Other urgent issues are involved such as: transformations where urban formations are
if the aim is to improve the level of wealth seen in relation to dominant global economic
for all people then it is important to iden- processes; and neo-Lefebvrian planetary
tify the most profitable approach to urban urbanism, which has abandoned the division
analysis; if one theory is enough to explain
of the world into categories of North and
the variety of urban experiences, then it is
South, urban and rural, center and periph-
necessary to consider how far this theory
ery, for a more complex idea of cities and
can be pushed without the risk of excessive
urbanization.
particularism and fragmentation; if the city is
a real entity of study, a well-bounded place, or The fact that in the urban political econ-
an unbounded convergence of transnational omy there is a recent move away from the
relations and just an ideological construction, classical bounded city and urban sites per-
then the unifying factors (e.g., economies of spective makes this approach suitable for
agglomeration; Scott and Storper 2015) in the overcoming the feature of “particularism,”
urbanization process are difficult to pinpoint, typical of the comparative method, com-
and therefore it may be better to concen- bining the analysis of the local case with a
trate on specific, unique urban realities and relational view, strongly linked to pan-urban
concrete issues. patterns and processes (Peck 2015).
One of the weak points of postcolonial Undeniably, the contribution of studies
(and postmodern) urban studies lies in the engendered in the ordinary city literature
proposal of comparative gesture as the best still plays a significant role in building a
possible solution in terms of epistemology, new epistemology of urbanization. However,
theory, and method for a more pluralistic greater advancements can be made with
culture, one that can take into account the the development of a transcalar perspec-
voices coming from the “off the map” con- tive on spatial configurations, and if the
texts in urban theory (Robinson 2002; Dear
issue of what has been called the “context
2005).
of the context” becomes integrated within
With respect to comparative urbanism,
these theories. This would allow theorists to
criticism still persists in the scientific geo-
rethink the traditional conceptions which
graphical community. Indeed, it is not an
easy path to take, given the idiographic and categorize the city, megacities, peri-urban
strongly localist perspective and the idea zones, and metropolitan regions, allowing a
that all urban places must be seen as hybrid, more in-depth analysis of how patterns of
unique, and eccentric. neoliberal capitalistic urbanization evolve
As recently pointed out by Jamie Peck and overcome the North–South urban divide
(2015), the comparative research proposed (Brenner and Schmid 2015).
by postcolonial urban researchers needs
to be theoretically embedded, in order to SEE ALSO: Cities in Developing Countries;
shed light on the several empirical contrasts Conundrums in Comparative Urbanism;
between Northern and Southern world cities Global City; Just City; New Urbanism; Urban
shown by the literature. Current research Assemblage; World City
 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0228 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [28/12/2022]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
6 OR DI NARY CI TI ES

REFERENCES Johannesburg.” Environment and Planning A,

Amin, A., and S. Graham. 1997. “Ordinary 40: 74–87. DOI: 10.1068/a39127.
City.” Transactions of the Institute of British Robinson, J. 2011. “Cities in a World of Cities: The
Geographers, 22(4): 411–429. DOI: 10.1111/j. Comparative Gesture.” International Journal of
0020-2754.1997.00411.x. Urban and Regional Research, 35(1): 1–23. DOI:
Brenner, N., and C. Schmid. 2015. “Toward 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00982.x.
a New Epistemology of the Urban?” City, Roy, A. 2009. “The 21st-Century Metropolis: New
19(2–3): 151–182. DOI: 10.1080/13604813. Geographies of Theory.” Regional Studies, 43(6):
2015.1014712. 819–830. DOI: 10.1080/00343400701809665.
Dear M. 2005. “Comparative Urbanism.” Urban Scott, A. J., and M. Storper. 2015. “The Nature of
Geography, 26(3): 247–251. DOI: 102747/ Cities: The Scopes and Limits of Urban Theory.”
0272-3638.26.3.247. International Journal of Urban and Regional
McFarlane, C., and J. Robinson. 2012. “Intro- Research, 39(1): 1–15. DOI: 10.1111/1468-
duction: Experiments in Comparative Urban- 2427.12134.
ism.” Urban Geography, 33(6): 765–773. DOI: Smith, R. G. 2013. “The Ordinary City Trap.” Envi-
10.2747/’272-3638.33.6.765. ronment and Planning A, 45: 2290–2304. DOI:
Peck, J. 2015. “Cities beyond Compare?” Regional 10.1068/a45516.
Studies, 49(1): 160–182. DOI: 10.1080/
00343404.2014.980801. FURTHER READING
Robinson, J. 2002. “Global and World Cities: A Amin, A., and N. Thrift. 2002. Cities: Reimagining
View from off the Map.” International Journal the Urban. Cambridge: Polity Press.
of Urban and Regional Research, 26(3): 531–554. Parnell, S., and S. Oldfield. 2014. The Routledge
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.00397. Handbook on Cities of the Global South. New
Robinson, J. 2006. Ordinary Cities: Between York, NY: Routledge.
Modernity and Development. London: Sassen, S. 1991. The Global City: New York, Lon-
Routledge. don, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Robinson, J. 2008. “Developing Ordinary Cities: Press.
City Visioning Processes in Durban and