The review gives an overview of the conference "Social Anthropology of the City" (St. Petersburg, March 22-23, 2108) and a collection of its materials, edited by the initiator and coordinator of the conference E.A. Okladnikova. The reports and articles represent the diversity of modern research projects and programs implemented by academic, university and independent researchers of the city as an integral social organism, for the first time since the 70's of the last century. Complex interdisciplinary studies of the history and modern development of cities in Russia and other countries integrate geographic and demographic, biosocial, socio-psychological and sociocultural, architectural and construction, historical and cultural, scientific-historical and other approaches and methodologies, in accordance with the research problems. The accumulated at the conference and in the collection experience and results can form the basis for a modern breakthrough in the development of national urban studies.