Author: Susanne Rau

Urbanity is a practice and strategy transforming material and social arrangements into something “urban” amalgamates ideas, narratives and symbols of the urban, including media practices and spatially anchored urban behaviors. It also covers institutions and agents that seek to ensure an urban character. Propelled by these, long-term processes occur which can be summarized as urbanization, the expansion of urban spaces, or as an increasing network of settlements qualified as “cities”.

Unlike the other terms in the glossary, the place-space distinction is not a theoretical or analytical concept. Rather, it is a sensitising strategy for spatial terminology in one’s own as well as in historical texts or urban settings. Some social science spatial theorists have recognised the fruitfulness of the place-space distinction and have suggested how space/place can be distinguished in relation to each other. Interestingly, this conceptual pair can be understood quite differently.