At the onset of the 21st century, cities are larger, more complex, and less easily designed than ever before. After many modernist proposals to remake the city in the guise of some rational system, postmodern architects, planners, and thinkers have begun to accept (and in some cases, even celebrate) the city for its unreadable and uncontrollable aspects. This paper proposes a discursive approach to the contemporary city. Instead of analysing existing arguments and proposals and then coming up with a new comprehensive and exclusive reading of the city, why not engage the city through the plural and conflictive debates of our era? In what follows, four such urban movements-traditional, marketplace, social, and conceptual-are examined, contrasted, and then juxtaposed with the aim of theorizing a city of difference.
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