Athenian democracy and the political foundation of space

The birth of democracy in classical Athens was driven by the aim of balancing opposed social forces engaged in bitter infighting. The solution found by the statesman Cleisthenes was a fresh constitutional framework, based on a strong relationship between spatial control and citizenship. As a consequence of the framework, the source of political power no longer resides in bloodline and fortune, but has moved to the land itself. Athenian space is therefore political in nature. Such an archetypal connection between place and governance is worthy of attention, since the political outcome of spatial control is one of planning's major concerns