Lieux et non-lieux de la ville

Abstract

This paper will try to grasp and elucidate the main developments and tendencies characterizing the contemporary global city by employing the concepts of place and non-place. I will start from the assumption that the interaction of lieu and non-lieu may work as a heuristic tool suitable for sociological analysis. In the first part of the paper, the notions of place and non-place will be discussed from a theoretical point of view, while highlighting, at the same time, their spatial, temporal and symbolic dimension. Then, several characteristics of the contemporary city will be addressed: from spatial differentiation and social segregation to the Disneyfication of places, from the global homogenization of downtowns to the sub-urbanization of the city’s surroundings. I will show how the ongoing tendencies in global economy, urbanism, and planning are filling the cities with non-places. Nonetheless, new forms of geographical and social imaginative outlets are springing up in the interstices of contemporary cities, in the common attempt to rebuild places of social exchange and mutual recognition.