What is "urbicide"

Urbicide is a term which literally translates (Latin: urbs: city + Latin: caedere to cut, kill) as "violence against the city." The term was first coined by the author Michael Moorcock in 1963 and later used by critics of 1960s urban restructuring in the US. Both Ada Louise Huxtable in 1972 and Marshall Berman in 1996, write about urban restructuring (and destruction) in areas like the Bronx, and highlight the impacts of aggressive redevelopment on the urban social experience. The term has come into being in an age of rapid globalization and urbanization. This rapid globalization trend has led to the focus of violence and destruction in the context of the city rather than its surroundings. Especially after the events at Sarajevo, recognition has begun to be given to the cases of violence specifically directed to the destruction of an urban area. The exact constraints and definition of this term continue to be debated because the limits of this emerging concept make it extremely difficult to categorize events under the heading of urbicide. The question of intent also arises when discussing the limits of urbicide. This is just one example of the many constraints that the term urbicide presents. The ability of term to cross a variety of fields such as international politics, anthropology, and sociology makes it particularly difficult to set a finite definition of urbicide which satisfies all these fields.