The assertion of Asia – and the Asian city – has largely been a social-political project: to build independence from its colonial dependence through the constructs of nation-states and national identities; it comes with all the intellectual anxieties and practical difficulties associated with this project. This chapter seeks a different kind of opportunity in the virtue of diversity of urban ideas and realities, which is crucially important, like in an ecosystem, to the long-term viability of city making. Have we been thrown off balance by the ever-increasing forces of monoculture today? Quite possibly; we pursue more or less similar goals worldwide with intense competition for the same finite resources. Crucially, we change our environment with cities, which, in the last instances, are imagined with intellectual conceptions, even though these conceptions are often obscured by the bustling appearances of commerce and entertainment, and by the immediate environmental and humanitarian crises taking place in them. What makes Hong Kong and Florence look and feel so different is not only the commodities or cultural performances that both cities house (today they have much in common), but also the real and material differences that result from intellectually formulated design and organizational decisions: Who has the final say in the use of land? Should we partition the city? How open or closed should a city be? What is a beautiful city? In each case, answers can be very different, leading to different physical outcomes. Articulating these differences would only make sense if they have potential to offer alternatives to our current intellectual predicament over the future of the environment.