Athens, an American City by the Mediterranean Sea

Athens: three million people in the conurbation area, four million in the greater city area, 40% of Greece’s population, and 50% of its annual GDP. Beyond asymmetries, development process, morphology, functionality, and sociability are distinctive features. Athens is a successful nineteenth-century Brasilia. When the place becomes a capital in 1833, it is a half-ruined Ottoman village. One has to wait for three quarters of a century for the city to reach 200,000 people, then another half-century to attain one million, and three more decades only (1950–1980) for its population to double. Everywhere, urban landscapes appear to be modern, uninteresting, constantly rebuilt on their own ashes. The city has long been the sole productive and decision-making center on a national basis, nourished with backcountry losses. However, landscapes reveal varied urban cultures. Athens is Mediterranean by its way of living, European by persistent social imbalances inherited from the nineteenth century, American over the last three decades by the motorization of younger generations, stretching space and achieving decentralization. It still remains Greek by its urban fabric. These processes enabled a wide dissemination of property speculation practices generating economic wealth.