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A Theory of Urbanity: The Economic and Civic Culture of Cities, by Anton C. Zijderveld. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishing, 1998, 197 pp., $32.95 cloth.
A Theory of Urbanity: The Economic and Civic Culture of Cities presents a straightforward yet ambitious objective: "the construction of a sociological theory of urbanity" (p. 19, emphasis his). Anton Zijderveld details the elements of this theory, including insights on urban evolution, modern and postmodern perspectives on the city, and policy suggestions for the enhancement of urban life. While variously defining urbanity as urban energy and urban spirit, Zijderveld emphasizes two elements of urban life: economic culture and civic culture. Zijderveld's approach is institutional and, although oriented toward the sociological, Urbanity provides insights on urban economic and political institutional reform that readers of this journal may find useful.
Economic and Civic Culture: An Institutional Approach to Urbanology
Culture, the unspoken "meanings, values, and norms . . . the patterns of doing, thinking and feeling . . . a shared sense of identity" (pp. 22-23), is central to the concept of urbanity. Culture provides a collectivity, a sense of togetherness. The norms Durkheim [1895/1938] identified, later defined by Veblen [1909] and Commons [1934] as institutions, contribute to the successful resolution of economic and political transactions [Alchian and Demsetz, 1973]. The interchangeability between the concepts of culture and institutions positions Urbanity within the renewed scholarship aimed at the role of institutions for understanding public policy processes and outcomes. In addition to elevating institutions as units of analysis, Zijderveld incorporates an institutional methodology [Hodgson, 1998; Atkinson and Oleson, 1996] by detailing the history of the development of the city. Those who fault institutionalism for its atheoretic approach to phenomena will be intrigued by Zijderveld's attempt to build theory from historic analysis. To the extent that urbanity is really urban institutions in disguise, it is questionable whether Urbanity presents a novel theory or a novel application of the institutionalist perspective to the urban setting.
Notwithstanding this objection, Zijderveld's analysis of urban life focuses on two types of culture: economic and civic (political). Economic culture may be discussed along three dimensions. First, cities display urban culture when their markets are woven into the fabric of the city. Zijderveld repeatedly illustrates this point by contrasting some...