To Approach Urban Modernity And Its Essence

The process of urban modernization is exacerbating traditional distribution problems and creating new risks of uncertainty in an extreme way.This situation has led scholars to explore the impact of modernity on cities to reveal city’s inherent logic.In order to promote the sustainable development of urban society,article explores urban modernity and its essence from subjectivity-based perspective,and proposes that modernity is not only the object composition of city but also the subject consciousness of city.Further,through the empirical study of medieval urban history,article testify that Urban modernity has Duality of Subject and Object.Based on critical analysis of theoretical logic and historical evolution of urban theory,article finds that the traditional urban theory lacks the study of the independent consciousness of city,which is,the subjectivity of city.Despite all school of thoughts are involved in the integration movement of rebuild,and eliminate binary opposition,they still have not been able to get rid of the effect of Human determinism,which means that they endow city with life,but refuse to admit city has life-giving consciousness.However,from the study of urban history,it is easy to see that city is not empty vessel,in contrast,it demonstrates violent subject consciousness and relevant behavior.Hence,article proposes that urban modernity has the character of duality of subject and object.Research points out that city is the consequence of instrumental rationality,especially the rational of production.As outcome of modernity,city not only rely on modernistic productive relations to build its physical entity,but also rely on modernity as its independent subject consciousness to continuous construct its productive relations through self-compulsion and reflective monitoring.Through further research on history of medieval cities in Europe,the article proves the duality of urban modernity,and points out that although the subjectivity of city originated from human beings,but it has become an objective spirit after its formation.As the result,it enforces the access rules and the productivity law of labor substitution on city,and accomplished selfdevelopment mode of city.