To live in cities that are not afraid of their own diversity

Abstract

There comes a moment in the life of every city when its inhabitants cease to recognize it. Not because the streets have changed their layout overnight, nor because the buildings have shifted from their foundations, but because something more subtle and deeper has shifted: its meaning. The city is still there, but it no longer means the same thing to those who live there. This disconnect between the built form and the life that unfolds within it is, perhaps, the central problem addressed in this 22nd issue of our journal, and also the central problem of our discipline in this turbulent time that we have had to study and, above all, live through.