The metropolitan Cities of Moscow and Chicago stood in many ways for their nations’ path to modernity. They were places of hope and despair, of reform and revolution, of violence and civility. This comparative study traces the growing focus on urban issues in Russia and the United States and explores them in comparative perspective: How were the social and political problems in these cities described? Which notions of reform developed in local contexts? Who supported them? How did they fit into the international debate on urban reform? How was urban modernity perceived in Moscow and in Chicago? The study will explore how urban modernity was dealt with in two different cultural contexts that were confronted with often similar problems.