The city, which has existed for thousands of years, was created and conceptualized, always conceptualized and always remade anew. But this process has acquired particular intensity in the last hundred and fifty years, when cities began to swell with the leaps of industrialization. This year, for the first time in human history, the world's urban population has become equal to the number of rural residents. In European countries, including Russia, the share of the urban population exceeds three quarters and continues to grow. The exodus of the population from cities, where living conditions are becoming increasingly difficult, to the suburbs, where, however, these conditions are also rapidly becoming more difficult, is also growing. The author of the book made an attempt to concisely present the experience of successes and failures in various approaches to urban development strategy, accumulated over a century and a half. The book, free of academic complexity, is addressed to everyone who wants to know what happened and is happening with the cities in which we we live, and what can be expected from the near future in the organization of city life.