MONU #25 - Independent Urbanism
Mindaugas Reklaitis

[All images courtesy of Bernd Upmeyer/MONU]

Sociologist Wendy Griswold wrote in her book Cultures and Societies in a Changing World that "the social world always changes first, with culture lagging behind." This phrase highly impressed me and I started to collect pieces of evidence to prove or reject this idea personally. And while I was reading MONU's most recent issue, #25 on Independent Urbanism, Wendy?s insight was following me in every single page, treating urban environment as an expression of collective culture.

Independent Urbanism focuses on countries that recently established or regained their independence, and analyses what consequences this huge social transformation brought to their cities and urban environment. In the wide geography of the case studies, starting with the Baltic countries, former Yugoslavia region and finishing with Taiwan, you can find many particular and unique examples of urban euphoria, challenges, difficulties, successes and failures influenced by independence. The majority of articles in Independent Urbanism are highly related with the historical perspective, which describes the fresh cultural path to the present urban reality of newly developed countries. Each story is interesting, unique, and opens different urban horizons in specific social, cultural and geographical contexts.
But on the other hand it is possible to perceive the historical similarities: us...