Conclusion: What next? Future Directions for Aesthetics and the City

Drawing upon the preceding chapters, this chapter proposes new directions for aesthetic thought on the city within urban studies. It highlights how the various approaches to aesthetics adopted within the book might allow scholars to critically consider what the city means whilst avoiding the alleged traps of epistemological city-centrism. It makes the argument that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to aesthetics, but rather, that the diversity of approaches, their neighbouring concepts, and various underpinning theoretical persuasions, enables a fruitful and critically reflexive discussion of the city and how we make sense of it within urban studies. In doing so, we argue that aesthetics, as a concept, can unite otherwise disparate, and occasionally oppositional, parts of urban scholarship around the city. The chapter closes the book by considering possible future directions for aesthetics and the city.