The City in the Mind

A common precept of the 21^st century is the interpretation of cities as living and breathing structures. That is, to say, that cities are viewed with life and seen as evolving in structure and creation. Diane Favro and Michel De Certeau make claims about the construction and recollection of a “city” whether in viewing in contemporary sense or historical accuracy. How do these concepts align to our own human nature? The works of Favro and Certeau serve as an analysis more of recollection and perception than just a creation of the physical structure but rather, a mental reconstruction.

Diane Favro views the perception of the city as a parade as the pathway through the city (Favro, 152). In other words, it becomes a collective recollection of the minds. The community creates a recall of structure and creation. This is a concept that highly relies on memory. It’s a mental construction isn’t an exact recreation of the actual city but instead more of a memorial to the truth. To Favro, it becomes a romanticized idea of representation. For Certeau, the city alone is not important for recall. It is the introduction of the cultural tradition that brings the structural to life (Certeau, 1346). Certeau doesn’t see the benefit of Favro’s claim to highlighting this memorial reconstruction of the city. The human experience and the cultural implications add what Certeau calls New Historicism. He emphasizes that the description of history and culture is infused with, “the myths and power relations described, and that all historiography should take the writer's subject position into account" (Certeau 1342). It isn’t enough just to visit the experience with the structural. The citizen’s lives must be added for accurate portrayal.

Certeau uses the example of the World Trade Center in regards to the cultural perception of the city (Certeau, 1345). Certeau explains that the building, in a way, continues to exsist even though it is no longer there. Favro views this as a construction of monument or statue (Favro, 158). Favro uses a similar example but in the context of the city of Rome. Through the construction of monuments, Roman structures become a reflection of the population. Favro believes that viewing of the structures is enough to derive life within a specific time period.

With these theories in mind, it is evident to see how it is actually the mental construction that takes precedent in both the ideas presented by Certeau and Favro. While they both take their own positions on the historical implications of “the city”, they both seek a reconstruction of sorts of the city. Certeau notes that the construction of “space” is a compromise of the physical and the mental (Certeau, 1345). He is saying that the subject in question is open to its interpretation dependent on the experience of the individual. Favro takes a similar idea but chalks up mental construction to historical interpretation (Favro, 146). This is, to say, that the memorial reconstruction appears from mental biases and understanding. Both Certeau and Favro rely on mental recall for their determination of structure and construction of the city.

The opinions of Certeau and Favro are both rooted in an interesting way in the communal and inividual’s ability to construct and recall events. These individual accounts relate in a way to the ongoing debate of true agency. Certeau notes that the cultural and human experience is necessary for the accounting of the city. The cultural agency that charges the agent shapes this. The city viewed as living arises from some of these implications and terms associated with the city. This is how New York becomes the, “City that Never Sleeps.” The charge of the agent creates a mental construction of the city.

-Kiernan Doyle