The Spirit of Cities

Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age

Daniel A. Bell, Avner de-Shalit

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780691159690
  9780691151441
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400848263
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Urbanisme et développement urbain

A lively and personal book that returns the city to political thought

Cities shape the lives and outlooks of billions of people, yet they have been overshadowed in contemporary political thought by nation-states, identity groups, and concepts like justice and freedom. The Spirit of Cities revives the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In the ancient world, Athens was synonymous with democracy and Sparta represented military discipline. In this original and engaging book, Daniel Bell and Avner de-Shalit explore how this classical idea can be applied to today's cities, and they explain why philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit of cities.

Bell and de-Shalit look at nine modern cities and the prevailing ethos that distinguishes each one. The cities are Jerusalem (religion), Montreal (language), Singapore (nation building), Hong Kong (materialism), Beijing (political power), Oxford (learning), Berlin (tolerance and intolerance), Paris (romance), and New York (ambition). Bell and de-Shalit draw upon the richly varied histories of each city, as well as novels, poems, biographies, tourist guides, architectural landmarks, and the authors' own personal reflections and insights. They show how the ethos of each city is expressed in political, cultural, and economic life, and also how pride in a city's ethos can oppose the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and curb the excesses of nationalism.

The Spirit of Cities is unreservedly impressionistic. Combining strolling and storytelling with cutting-edge theory, the book encourages debate and opens up new avenues of inquiry in philosophy and the social sciences. It is a must-read for lovers of cities everywhere. In a new preface, Bell and de-Shalit further develop their idea of "civicism," the pride city dwellers feel for their city and its ethos over that of others.

INDEX

Note: Illustrations are indicated by page numbers in italic type.

Abbas, Ackbar, 137

Abd al-Malik, Caliph, 22–23

Abelard, Peter, 224

Academy of Arts, Berlin, 201, 207, 220, 221

African Americans, in New York, 267–68

AIG, 119, 121

Alexander, Albert, 189–90

Allen, Woody, 320n74

Allenby, Edmund, 28

ambition: community vs., 261–71; costs of, 264; as New York’s ethos, 16, 249–77

Amichai, Yehuda, 19, 36

Andreu, Paul, National Center for the Performing Arts, Beijing, 151, 152 Anglophones, 58–77

Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 281n24

Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, 35, 48, 283n6

Arafat, Yasser, 35

architecture: in Beijing, 151–52; in Berlin, 199–202, 207–8; glass, 182; in Hong Kong, 114, 119, 120, 133, 137; influence of, 3, 279n8; in Jerusalem, 23–24, 31; in New York, 251, 255, 263–64; in Oxford, 170, 182; in Paris, 226–28, 247–48; psychological effects of, 200, 207; Soviet, 203

Aristomedus, 154

Aristotle, 1, 95, 173

art and culture: in Berlin, 217; in New York, 249, 260; in Paris, 231–40

Ash, Timothy Garton, 215–16

Asia Insurance Building, Singapore, 107, 107

associations, 108

Athens, 1, 279n1

Atzba, Yehuda, 46

Auden, W. H., 180

Avineri, Shlomo, 216

Avlon, John P., 276

AWARE (feminist NGO), 108

Bacall, Lauren, 275–76

Ba-Gad, Yona, 46

Balfour, Lawrie, 193

Balladur, Edouard, 236

Bank of China, 122

Bank of China building, Hong Kong, 119

Baoding, 6

Bar-El, Yair, 47–48

Barisan Socialis (BS), 84

Barlow, Julie, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong, 246

Bashir, Bashir, 193–94, 199

Bate, Philip, 177–78

...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface to the Paperback Edition: The City and Identity
• Introduction: Civicism
• Jerusalem: The City of Religion
• Montreal: The City of Language(s)
• Singapore: The City of Nation Building
• Hong Kong: The City of Materialism
• Beijing: The City of Political Power
• Oxford: The City of Learning
• Berlin: The City of (In)Tolerance
• Paris: The City of Romance
• New York: The City of Ambition
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index