Epilogue. Remake Us from Ruins, Collective Memories and Dreams

Abstract

This epilogue reviews how social groups have imagined better urban futures and other cities in the face of catastrophic situations. The city is a social and historical product built by generations of people so that human beings can live better in society. This is why most of humanity lives in “cities”. However, various fundamentally economic and political processes are leading to the material and symbolic death of the city. Therefore, the city no longer unites, integrates and relates people. Recognizing and understanding the causes of this destruction is essential to build and defend the city and to dispute the future of the public city against market forces. The epilogue recognizes people’s capacity for resistance and recovery in adverse conditions. For this reason, utopias as well as futuristic visions of science fiction, architecture and urban planning are reviewed, and the history of urban destruction and the reconstruction of cities is learned, since this is part of the recovery of identities and collective memories, mourning and social reconciliation. If the end of the city is drawing near, as various pieces of evidence support, many social groups and scholars recognize that another end of the city is possible.