The significance of cities as concentrations of political and economic power can hardly beoverstated. Cities project power on the global stage and are recognized as powerful actorsby others: anchoring revolutions and giving their names to historical epochs and intellectualtraditions (Chicago or Frankfurt) and even phases of economic development. The power of thecity on the historical and global stages makes it even more important to study and grasp theway urban power is conceived, constructed, contested and exercised within and between cities.The premise of the chapter is that cities, urban arenas and urbanization dynamics remaincrucial sources of power and governing resources today, though the perspectives we discussdiverge radically in their claims, and the significance they impart to urban governance.Urban Studies has become a truly global interdisciplinary field, through which perspectiveson power and urban governance have multiplied and diversified. The chapter introduces keytraditions, exploring three distinct and internally differentiated bodies of thought: Marxism,neo-institutionalism and post-colonialism. It begins by discussing prominent traditions withinor related to urban Marxism: state theory, planetary urbanism and horizontalist approaches. Itthen discusses recent institutionalist perspectives, finally considering the growing influence ofpost-colonial perspectives questioning dominant ‘northern’ accounts of the city and urbanity.The chapter concludes by suggesting pathways for future research.