Synekism is a concept in

urban studies Urban studies is based on the study of the urban development of cities. This includes studying the history of city development from an architectural point of view, to the impact of urban design on community development efforts. The core theoretica ...

coined by

Edward Soja Edward William Soja (; 1940–2015) was a self-described urbanist, a noted postmodern political geographer and urban theorist on the planning faculty at UCLA, where he was Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, and the London School of E ...

. It refers to the dynamic formation of the polis state — the union of several small urban settlements under the rule of a "capital" city (or so-called

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

or urban system). Soja's definition of synekism, mentioned in ''Writing the city spatially'', is "the stimulus of urban agglomeration."

Social science

From the

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...

' view, it is also a "nucleated and hierarchically nested process of political governance, economic development, social order, and cultural identity" Soja.''Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000, p.13-14. In densely settled urban places, a

critical mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fiss ...

provides potential for innovation that is not typically available in rural environments, therefore synekism can be thought of as the geographical relationships that create and give importance to cities.

Social science

Notes

Further reading