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Introduction to Special Series: Challenges to the City Transformation in East Asia

Nowadays, over half of the world’s population is living in cities. Two hundred years ago the figure was only about 3 per cent (http://www. 192021.org). Back in history, cities were not understood merely as a group of architectural shelters. Instead, they were vehicles of civilization development with long-lasting meaning. One of the classic ideas came from Leo Strauss, who believed that Jerusalem and Athens symbolized the two traditional models of Western civilization (Strauss, 1995). Athens represented trust in ordinary people’s judgement, reason and the virtue of democratic rule. Jerusalem represented scepticism towards the secular accomplishment of the Athenian model. Some cities did express or choose a set of values, which were generally believed and accepted by citizens. This might be called the spirit or ethos of the city. The way that the ethos of a city was moulded can be observed through different forms. They can be found from the grand projects such as the architecture and the transport system, or in the institution that sets the law and order or the immigration policy, to smaller things such as street names or the varieties of restaurants in a district. With all of these as the foundation, the city ethos affects the way people interact, how they judge or evaluate city life, and their particular identity. Daniel A. Bell and Avner De-Shalit call it “civicism” (Bell & De-Shalit, 2011). Today, when globalization and homogenization are taken for granted or treated as a norm, civicism should have become increasingly important in the eyes of urban researchers. A lot of people would like to experience and maintain the uniqueness of their own culture and value. Without these, the way and quality of collective