The city and its development in the social-spatial context

The text deals with the issue of a city as a basic settlement type and as a basic settlement community. It also investigates the shaping of its position within the context of the development of urban and civilisation connections. It starts from the assumption that it is necessary to look at the phenomenon of city from the overall perspective of the general development of social changes in the modern society or the whole industrial civilisation to understand why the modern industrial city has come into a crisis. The first part of the text explains the development problems of a city as a type of human settlement, the development of ideas of what a city is considered to be, as well as the critical reflection of this concept in the sociology. The text presents the position of a contemporary city as a social-cultural, but also a living environment of modern society. It presents some current social, cultural, social-spatial and ecological problems of a city, and puts the stress on the need to humanise cities and to increase the quality of life in urban environment. In the second part of the text, the author focuses on a more detailed description of the character of the industrial city crisis, and on searching for ways to humanise this environment where almost 50% of all human population live their lives. The author points to the selected social relations of the end of the period of rapid urban growth and describes the development of new spatial forms and spatial structures of cities. He also deals with the preconditions for forming a new position of cities in the transformation of modern society. Author discusses the influence of globalisation on the new typology of cities and on the polarisation of its capacities related to their ability. Sociologia 2002 Vol 34 (No. 4: 305-326).