Reflections on Democracy and Urban Form

Leading scholars explore the connections between democracy and justice, architecture and urban design, the growth of cities, cosmopolitanism, inclusion, and free speech.

This book builds on conversations that took place in the Fall of 2024 at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design marking the release of the book Democracy and Urban Form, a co-publication by Harvard Design Press and Sternberg Press. The original book showcased a series of six lectures that the sociologist Richard Sennett gave under the same name at the GSD in the fall of 1981. The original lectures, which happened more than forty years ago, addressed a much different political climate. Even so, Richard’s core insights into the connections between democracy and justice, matters of architecture and urban design, the growth of cities, cosmopolitanism, inclusion, free speech, and other related matters remain just as relevant today.