Rather than Community

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of urban sociability by first examining the various uses of term ‘community’ and explaining why community in urban context could be the nebulous and vague concept. The term community often does imply social practices and ties which are anti-urban in such. Sometimes, however, urban community is defined in a way that suggests its utopian character. This inconvenient flexibility of urban community concept might be a chance to introduce another concept of urban sociability as the reason and quality of cityness. If we defined urban sociability from the Georg Simmel point of view, we would have a definition that largely agrees with most of the observations and experiences in urban space. The areas of the urban sociability I call urban salons. By comparing a few of Chicago salons, I show how urban sociability concept compets with a community theory tradition.