![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In ‘‘The City,’’ Weber characterizes the medieval western city – in modern language, western European city – as having the following features: a fortification, a market, and a specifically urban economy of consumption, exchange, and production a court of law and the ability to ordain a set of rules and laws rules relating to landed property (since cities were not subject to the taxes and constraints of feudalism) and a structure based on associations (of guilds) and – at least partial – political autonomy, expressed in particular through the existence of an administrative body and the participation of the burghers in local government. We must take into account the existence of a complex diplomatic regime based on different overlapping levels-the urban and the state.The European city concept derives from Max Weber and historians of the Middle Ages. To understand current sociopolitical dynamics on a planetary level, we need to have two mental maps in mind: the state-centered map and the nonstate centered map. Cities do what “municipalities” used to do many centuries ago: they cooperate but also enter into intense competitive dynamics. These increasingly international cities develop twinning networks and projects, share information, sign cooperation agreements, contribute to the drafting of national and international policies, provide development aid, promote assistance to refugees, and do territorial marketing through decentralized city-city or district-district cooperation. They are the meeting points between different cultures, religions, and identities. Knowledge production, big data collection, and tech innovation all spur from intense interaction in cities. They are sources of global pollution as well as of environmental transformations such as urban gardening. Criminal activities, terrorist actions, counterinsurgency, missile attacks (indeed, atomic bombs), and wars are centered in big cities. ![]() Political reforms, social innovation, and protests and revolutions generate in cities. Economic growth and fiscal experiments all occur in urban contexts. While the view that only states act as global actors is conventional, significant diplomatic and cross-cultural activity is taking place in cities today. ![]()
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