The city was the crossroads of commerce, culture, and people and it was enclosed either literally or symbolically. What do cities tell us about the challenges we face today? The earliest hieroglyphic symbol of a city was a circle with a cross in it.
And the globalization of people, communications, and transportation has created a world that is, in many ways, a city. Not just New York and London, but Minneapolis and Leeds are today’s world-cities. Today there are a multitude of cities that are, symbolically, the world with all its diversity. Cities are the very places where we see the effects of global migration and face the questions of identity in a complex multicultural society. However in the decades since he wrote, the energies of cities have been fueled by an increasingly diverse population with increasingly diverse cultures. Indeed, the city of old was the anchor of the surrounding culture and synonymous with it. Lewis Mumford in introducing his now-classic study The City in History wrote, “This book opens with a city that was, symbolically, a world: it closes with a world that has become, in many practical aspects, a city.” 1 He saw among the chief functions of the city the conversion of energy into culture.
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