urbicidal

English

Etymology

Latin urb(s) (“city”) + English -icidal (literally, “city-killing”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɜːbɪˈsaɪdəl/

Adjective

urbicidal (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to or having the nature of urbicide, that being the deliberate “killing” of a city by the razing of distinctive physical manifestations of its urban identity, stifling of the social activity therein, and its general destruction as an edifice of civilisation.
   • 1998, Nickie Charles, Helen M. Hintjens, Gender, Ethnicity and Political Ideologies, Routledge, →ISBN, page 68, →ISBN:

     Hence the ‘urbicidal’ aspect of the war, destruction of the cities as places of mixing and of centuries-old civilisation, places of openness and of tolerance, destruction of bridges as witnesses of historical exchange and physical bonds between groups presently at war and which the warring élites try to present as historicaly, traditionally enemies.

   • 2002, Joan Ockman of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Out of Ground Zero: Case Studies in Urban Reinvention, page 141:

     The urbicidal acts included the attempted “murder” of the city virtually and symbolically; its physical destruction by random bombing, shelling, grenading, and the like; its strangling through denial of food, water, and energy; its terrorizing through sniper fire from surrounding hills and bombing of public places;…

   • 2004, Stephen Graham, Cities, War, and Terrorism, Blackwell Publishing, →ISBN, page 138, →ISBN:

     ^{1} In contrast to Martin Shaw, he stresses that urbicidal acts were a distinct feature of that war.
     ^{2} In contrast to Shaw, therefore, Coward argues that urbicidal warfare deserves stronger consideration in legal definitions of war crimes.

2. Inimical to the vitality of a city.
   • 1967: Urban America (Organization), City — volumes 3–4, page 17 (Urban America)

     The urbicidal effect of the staggering local property tax rates is aggravated by the large amount of property that, for one reason or another, is tax exempt…

   • 1981, Lawrence Wodehouse, Ada Louise Huxtable, an Annotated Bibliography, Garland Pub., →ISBN, page 67, →ISBN:

     The method of this urbicidal ignorance is described step by step.

   • 2006, Marshall Berman, On the Town: One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square, Random House, →ISBN, page xxxiv, →ISBN:

     This man knows the void; he shows how urban emptiness can be an active, malevolent, urbicidal force.