Governing the City: Regulation, State Formation and· the Coming of Modernity

The city and the experience of urban existence are important components of shifts which mark a profound change in the forms of social life. Bearing in mind my earlier concern to avoid any suggestion of a totalizing notion of ‘Modernity’, it is nevertheless important to insist that the term ‘modernity’ is a useful shorthand for designating what was novel and distinctive about the city. Yet it does not follow that the city is quintessentially modern. Rather it can be said that some of the most distinctive developments in the forms of social life occurred in an urban environment. And it is possible to push this a stage further by saying that these developments probably could only have occurred within cities.. The classic formulation of the connection between modernity and urbanization was voiced by Ernst Troeltsch who viewed the emergence of large numbers of towns from the twelfth century onwards ‘as a preparation and foundation for the modern world’ (Troeltsch 1931: I: 255).