Potpourri
Harvey's concept describing cities that compete for investors, tourists, and wealthy residents rather than providing services to existing residents.
The Entrepreneurial City
Whyte found this to be the single most important predictor of plaza use, more than sunlight, location, or aesthetics.
Sittability (amount and quality of seating)
A city shaped by past violence and trauma is described with this metaphor.
The wounded city
This process describes wealthier groups moving into neighborhoods and displacing others.
gentrification
Slanted benches, armrests placed in the middle of seats, and spikes embedded in flat surfaces are all examples of this urban design approach — intended to discourage unhoused people from resting in public space.
Hostile architecture
This term describes how a street performer, fountain, or interesting display catalyzes interaction between strangers by giving them a shared third focus.
Triangulation
This neighborhood in Kingston, Jamaica, birthplace of reggae, still bears the physical scars of 1970s political violence, including abandoned streets and burned-out buildings
Trench Town
Global cities produce this pattern: elite professionals + low-wage service workers, shrinking middle.
class polarization
Street vendors, unlicensed repair shops, and day laborers operating outside government regulation are all part of this — a parallel economic system that Keith Hart argued was not a failure state but had its own logic and structure.
The informal economy
People tend to choose spaces that are already occupied—this principle explains why.
people follow people
When conflict forces long-term residents out of their neighborhoods, urban anthropologists call this process what?
Displacement
Bourdieu called this (money, property, and financial assets) the most obvious but not the only form of wealth that reproduces class
Economic capital
In urban ethnography, this short-form writing technique captures a single scene, moment, or encounter in rich sensory detail, bringing a person, place, or interaction to life rather than summarizing it abstractly
Vignette
Graffiti can function as this in urban conflict.
territorial marking / spatial communication / Counter narrative
Galtung's violence triangle identifies this form of violence - which is embedded in social institutions, policies, and systems like redlining or unequal healthcare access, that harms people without a single identifiable perpetrator.
Structural violence
Bourdieu argued that class is reproduced not just through money, but through this form of capital — the networks, connections, and relationships that vouch for you and open doors.
Social capital
Henri Lefebvre coined this phrase to capture the idea that all urban residents — not just property owners or investors — should have a say in how cities are shaped and who they serve
The Right to the City
Urban anthropologists use this term to describe the informal public spaces - like parks, libraries, and cafes- where community life happens outside of home and work.
Third places
Galtung's violence triangle identifies three forms of violence: direct, structural, and this third type — the norms, ideologies, and everyday assumptions that make violence seem natural or acceptable.
Cultural violence
Bourdieu argued that this form of capital is about the knowledge, credentials, tastes, and skills embodied in how you speak, dress, and what you know.
Cultural capital