DEGENERATED CITY? REFLECTIONS ON ITS DEGRADED NATURE AND THE (IN)APPROPRIATENESS OF REGENERATION - DOI 10.5216/bgg.v36i3.44554

Abstract

In this article, we intend to bring out the discussion about the nature of modern metropolises, seen as essentially degenerated. As such, we turn to authors of different theoretical affiliations, particularly in the areas of Philosophy, Social and Human Sciences and Social Theory, and make use of some examples that have
become “modular” both for the discussion of the city, and for urban interventions that marked the turn of the 19th/20th century, and more recently, from the 20th century on. Thus, we put into question the adequacy of prescriptions and regenerative measures that, over more than a century, have made the big cities to become stages not always very successful, due to the “original burden” cities have to carry.
Keywords: City, modernization, degeneration, urban regeneration.