The identities of cities

What's the ethos of Columbia? Charleston? Greenville?

 

The idea that different cities represent or embody different aspects of life goes back, they point out, to the ancient world. Back then, Athens "represented democracy and faith in the judgment of ordinary people"; Sparta offered a "more disciplined" vision of life, holding up the ideal of the "citizen-soldier." Jerusalem embodied the religious aspects of life. In China, cities pursued different approaches to development and governance -- commercial, militaristic, and scholastic. It seemed natural and obvious that different cities would develop different cultures and ways of living -- that was just part of the point of living in a city.

The same, they think, is true today: Just as Athens and Sparta differed, so do Beijing and Shanghai, or Berlin and Paris. A modern city can possess an ethos which is just as distinct and interesting as any ancient city's. They even break down the ingredients necessary for a truly meaningful urban ethos. First of all, you have to have a relatively integrated population, without unbridgeable socioeconomic or ethnic gaps -- that way, everyone in your city can share in a single way of life. Once that's in place, it helps to have a healthy rivalry with another city. Your ethos will be even more defined if, in some way, your city has to struggle to maintain its way of life (think of people in Montreal, fighting to keep their French-speaking heritage); it also helps to have a strong central executive in charge, like New York mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, along with strong-willed city planners. Finally, your ethos really takes shape when you have a powerful public-relations campaign, either an official one (like "I Love New York") or a more diffuse cultural agreement, like the sense that Paris is for lovers.

Once these conditions are met, Bell and de-Shalit argue, the stage is set for your city to become truly distinctive. All cities, of course, have their own character -- but it's surprising, they argue, just how deeply a city's ethos can penetrate into its culture and architecture. Using a combination of statistics, history, interviews, social theory, and their own personal experiences as city residents, Bell and de-Shalit chart the ways in which an ethos can manifest itself in different, ramifying, self-reinforcing ways. Take New York, which early on established itself as a city of strivers. Everything about the city speaks to its ambition-centered ethos, from its public schools, which use competitive admissions tests, to its flashy fashion culture. Even its grid-based street layout, they show, arose from the sense that New Yorkers were ambitious regular folks: It allowed for quick, cheap building and fast expansion, which made building lucrative, and it created pedestrian-friendly streets perfect for people too poor to avoid their own horses and carriages. (Conversely, think of the way that houses in upper-crust Boston neighborhoods like Back Bay and Beacon Hill have back entrances and alleyways for servants.)