Imagining the Settler-Colonial City: Introducing Urban Indigeneities and the Settler-Colonial City, a Special Issue of the Urban History Review

Abstract

This article introduces the essays collected in this special issue of the Urban History Review and sketches the urban imagination of settler-colonial political traditions. It focuses on the way settler cities are imagined, argues that the settler-colonial city may be seen as distinct from other urban formations, and suggests that the urban form is a constitutive component of settler-colonial formations and their imaginaries. Settlers, the founders of political orders in distant locales, have cities on their minds precisely because they are heading in the opposite direction. They focus on the city they will build and on the cities they are escaping. They are especially concerned with the ways in which the former is going to differ from the latter. This imagination should be considered when appraising the settler colonial city, an endeavour to which this special issue contributes.