Conclusions

Abstract

This conclusion combines insights from the analysed of urban conflicts over peace(s) to answer the principal research question. The subsequent argument is that the postwar city reinforces rather than transcends its continuities of war into peace because urban conflicts over peace(s) attack its transcending potential and enhance its destructive potential while the city itself—untouched by postwar contestation—is destructive towards war-to-peace transitions. Yet the chapter also focuses on complementary explanations such as the routinisation of division and the impossibility to combine certain peace(s). It additionally presents an alternative picture of the postwar city by demonstrating that it also transcends its continuities of war in peace. The wider conclusions drawn from this ambiguity is that the postwar city is inherently Janus-faced, that it has a significant transcending potential, that there are no easy solutions to its problems, and that its unique situation necessitates cooperation between peace research and urban studies.