STADT
BEFREIT

Urbanization from the 19th to the 21st Century

What constitutes a city was solely defined during the period of “foundational cities” by contemporaries’ usage. This becomes apparent particularly in Ducal Bavaria with its many “market towns”, for city and market do not differ in legal terms – a city was whatever was called a city.

What a city ought to look like, where houses are built and where streets run, how the ratio of public to private space ought to be established, where government, industry, housing and recreation ought to be situated has been the subject of ongoing debate ever since. The medieval city was modeled after the biblical ideal of the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. Renaissance urban development, however, already followed entirely different principles derived from pagan antiquity. To this day, urban planning is not only the outcome of practical considerations but also the manifestation of various worldviews, ideologies and utopias.

Although life in the city has always differed from life in the country, whether city and country have not become two fully distinct cultural worlds has been the subject of intense debate since the early 21st century. The city’s economic, structural and cultural dominance over the country is increasingly being seen as a political issue – in Bavaria as well as in the rest of the world.

The following audio files are available in German only.