The discussion about the contradictions that trouble our cities always must to be updated. More when the reality of these contradictions looks and express with obstacles that make unable a rational use of the urban space, as well as we can use it, as a patrimonial, collective property. The town planning discussion, in this way, must to proceed without stop, because, like history, the city don´t stop in its development and material construction. We should look to this aspect , not like an heavy weight, or with the obsession of these phenomena that always happen, but with the intention to think that dialectical analysis are necessary. For this reason the discussion about the city will always be scientifically current.

The journal "Ciudades" wants to be only one place more to develop this discussion, looking, decidedly, to one precise way to approach the knowledge of the urban facts, but not thinking that this is the only, or the most strict way. Not because we don´t believe in science, but because we don´t think that only one explanation for the events exists, we are convinced that beside each reason exist one component that fix the limits of the knowledge which come near to the reality of the facts. "Ciudades" only gives one of these limits. Reading its pages will make known, and will express, the content of this limited area.

Alfonso Alvarez Mora
DIRECTOR DEL INSTITUTO