Saskia Sassen, acclaimed sociologist and professor at New York’s Columbia University, explains why the notion of ‘cityness’ should be used as a barometer of urban progress

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Cityness and notions of smartness

Instead of relying on technology as a barometer of urban progress, Sassen proposes “the notion of cityness” to mark something more encompassing and complex than urbanity. “Cityness” is one way of opening up the category and allowing for more variability in what constitutes urbanity. This generates a whole field for research and interpretation, and invites us to reposition Western notions of what cities should look like and to explore a far broader range of building technologies and urban spaces, she says.

For Sassen, “The city is not just materiality, there are people, practices, subcultures, a conglomerate of things.” Essentially, “cityness” interprets the urban space “as a complex space that thrives on diversities and tends to triage conflicts into a strengthened civicness. Such capabilities get constituted as hybrids—mixes of the material and social physics of a city,” she says. In other words, “cityness” captures the ways in which an urban space expresses its civic intelligence, manifests its unique characteristics and negotiates threats and conflicts.

“Cityness” is expressed by urban spaces that “talk back;” spaces that possess their own “ecologies”, argues Sassen, suggesting a notion of urban intelligence that is derived from the intersection of people, places, activities and resources, not merely the presence of cutting-edge technology.

- https://cgt.columbia.edu/news/sassen-redefining-notions-urba...