Digital and mobile media are changing the way urban life is shaped and how we experience our built environment. This seems primarily a practical matter: thanks to these technologies, we can organize our lives more conveniently. But the rise of these "urban media" also poses an important philosophical question: what do they mean for the way the city functions as a community? Using examples of new media use as well as historical case studies, Martijn de Waal shows how new technologies initially contribute to further individualization and liberalization of urban society. However, there is also an alternative future scenario. In it, digital media give substance to urban publicness in a new way. In doing so, they also breathe new life into the classic republican ideal of the city as an open democratic "community of strangers.