The impacts of neoliberalization and the global extension of urbanization processes demand a reappraisal of the urban university for the 21^st century. The history of the modern urban university, and current calls for universities to assume proactive roles as economic drivers and civic leaders, disclose problematic tendencies, including: normalizing local/global binaries; focusing on a narrow set of university-city connections; and constructing the university and the city as monolithic rational agents. In response, this paper draws on Lefebvre’s theory of urban society to mobilize mediation, centrality, and difference as a mode of critique and strategic orientation for a ‘new urban university’.