GoingToMeet

For 10,000 years cities have shaped the affairs of mankind. Now, more than half of the world's population is urban, dwelling in settlements that we identify as 'city' or 'town', some of them so extensive and so complex that they seem to transcend traditional notions of urban organisation and form.

The conference will deal with cities throughout the world, with papers examining the networks of cities and their role in cultural formation, the relations between cities, territories and larger political units, the ideologies and cosmologies of the city and what distinguishes the city or town from other forms of settlement or ways of life.

Many of these topics are touched on in general writing on cities, but it is remarkable how rarely they are subject to serious historical analysis. This raises questions for our understanding of cities now, when so much of their past as invoked in relation to the present is misunderstood. As so many of us mass together in cities, are we at a turning point in our identity as humans? Or does past experience of cities offer some clues for the future, whether one of hope or of disaster?