Ed. by Jan C. Behrends, Martin Kohlrausch

The comparative presentation of the birth of metropolises like St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Kiev, Belgrade, or Athens tends to confirm the importance of the Western model as well as the influence of international experts on city planning at the periphery of Europe. This transformation has in fact long been interpreted as an attempt to overcome the economic and cultural backwardness of the region and to catch up to Western Europe. Races to Modernity. Metropolitan Aspirations in Eastern Europe, 1890–1940 presents an alternative perspective that aims to understand the genesis of Eastern European cities with a metropolitan character or metropolitan aspirations as a process sui generis. The rapid expansion of metropolitan cities such as London and Paris began in the 17th and 18th centuries. Large parts of Central and Eastern Europe underwent urbanization and industrialization with considerable delay. Nevertheless beginning in the second half of the 19th century, the towns in the Romanov and Habsburg empires as well as in the Balkans grew into cities and metropolitan areas. They changed at an astonishing pace.