Urbanity as a City's Heritage

Abstract Urbanity has been a key concept to describe western cities since the beginning of the 20th century. But the importance of urbanity is no longer self-evident in global cities since the pivotal moment of 1980/90, when we witnessed the acceleration of flux, the emergence of megacities and the transformation of capitalism. At the same time, urban heritage became of greater interest. Then, as urbanity weakened, it began to be defended by public policies, local commitments and activists in a new way: as collective memories and palimpsest traces. In this article, I consider two examples in the French city of Saint-Etienne to illustrate the heritagization of urbanity: an exhibition about the memory of Algerian miners, and the dramatic demolition of a high-rise building that created a great stir because of its local symbolic significance. These two examples show that urbanity keeps a great place in the imaginary of urban dwellers, including the elites. From a general point of view, we try to preserve the values that we attach to cities, perhaps more than trying to preserve the cities themselves.