The double meaning of the City, or Urban construction as Logic and Rhetoric

Abstract

In this article, I deal with two contrary, sometimes complementary perspectives on the city. A city may be regarded as a physical stage in which human actions (lives) "take place". A city may also be regarded as a system comprising the life events of a local community, one of the most important of wich is building up a scenario in which that life is to be played out. I refer yo the first as a structural perspective, or a geometrical planning paradigm, the second is an action perspective, or a historical paradigm, which can be traced in the etymology itself (Greek polis is translated to Latin civitas, which is then transformed to city). I show the practical consequences of this change with regard to the ideal of what urban planning is. In the geometrical paradigm, planning is dominated by the logical scientific approach, and expert rhetoric. In the historical paradigm, the city is a result of a dialogue based on health rhetoric to which attention must be paid if we truly aspire to unite planning and democracy.