What is Urban Theory? How can it be used to understand our urban experiences? Experiences typically defined by enormous inequalities, not just between cities but within cities, in an increasingly interconnected and globalised world. This book explains: * Relations between urban theory and modernity - the foundational concept in urban studies -- in key ideas of the Chicago School, in spatial analysis, humanistic urban geography, and 'radical' approaches like Marxism * Cities and the transition from industrial to informational economies, globalization, the importnace of urban growth machine and urban regime theory, the city as an "actor" * Spatial expressions of inequality - understood horizontally and vertically - and key ideas like segregation, ghettoization, suburbanization, gentrification, and "neighbourhood effects" * Socio-cultural spatial expressions of difference and key concepts like gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, age, public space; "culturalist" perspectives on identity, lifestyle, subculture * How cities should be understood as intersections of horizontal and vertical -- of coinciding resources, positions, locations; of different constellations of race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and age, influencing how we make and understand urban experiences. Critical, interdisciplinary and pedagogically informed - with opening summaries, boxes, questions for discussion and guided further reading - 'Urban theory : a critical introduction to power, cities and urbanism in the 21st century' provides the tools for any student of the city to understand, even to change, our own urban experiences