“The transgressive city: Comparative perspectives on governance and the possibilities of everyday life in the emerging global city”
Transgression has long been associated to urban life, as a way to challenge authority. Urban anonymity can provide opportunities for transgressing moral and social norms. Urban complexity can challenge pretentions of rational calculation and thus stimulate modes of action that follow transgressive forms of rationality. Urban continuous transformation challenges means of state control. Many scholars have linked emancipation and rebellion with cities. But beyond political mobilization, the city is seen as transgressive because it concentrates violence, riots, extreme polarization, and informality.
