Central European University Press

The growth of cities and urban life is at the heart of the modern experience in Europe. So far, the main actors in this story have been the big western European cities, London, Paris and Berlin. Yet, beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, numerous towns in the Romanov and Habsburg empires, as well as in the Balkans grew into cities and metropolitan areas. Though starting mostly later than in Western Europe, the pace of their growth and development was often even more breathtaking. This process radically changed the Eastern part of the continent but also forms an essential part of the modern urban history of Europe.
Races to Modernity addresses the importance of the Western model as well as the influence of international experts on city planning. But it presents an alternative perspective that aims to understand the genesis of Eastern European cities with a metropolitan character or metropolitan aspirations as a process sui generis. Looking at examples from Helsinki to Athens, from Warsaw to Moscow this volume shows how the logic of catching up, of aligning regional aspirations with the project of modernity in a highly competitive race towards a better future, makes the urban history of Eastern Europe a fascinating case of the history of the continent in the late 29th and early 20th century.