Urban theory in anti-theoretical times

This commentary engages with Robert W. Lake's cautionary piece ‘on resisting the seductions of theory’. It highlights points of agreement with Lake's argument, particularly on the place of theory within urban analysis, before outlining two broader concerns the piece raises. The first has to do with where and by whom theory is ‘done’; the second with how Lake's argument sits in a crudely anti-theoretical moment in which the risks of taking certain theoretical positions are more serious than the danger of going out of intellectual style.