Best of
Urban-Studies

2005

The Works: Anatomy of a City


Kate Ascher - 2005
    When you flick on your light switch the light goes on--how? When you put out your garbage, where does it go? When you flush your toilet, what happens to the waste? How does water get from a reservoir in the mountains to your city faucet? How do flowers get to your corner store from Holland, or bananas get there from Ecuador? Who is operating the traffic lights all over the city? And what in the world is that steam coming out from underneath the potholes on the street? Across the city lies a series of extraordinarily complex and interconnected systems. Often invisible, and wholly taken for granted, these are the systems that make urban life possible. The Works: Anatomy of a City offers a cross section of this hidden infrastructure, using beautiful, innovative graphic images combined with short, clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city. It describes the technologies that keep the city functioning, as well as the people who support them-the pilots that bring the ships in over the Narrows sandbar, the sandhogs who are currently digging the third water tunnel under Manhattan, the television engineer who scales the Empire State Building's antenna for routine maintenance, the electrical wizards who maintain the century-old system that delivers power to subways. Did you know that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is so long, and its towers are so high, that the builders had to take the curvature of the earth's surface into account when designing it? Did you know that the George Washington Bridge takes in approximately $1 million per day in tolls? Did you know that retired subway cars travel by barge to the mid-Atlantic, where they are dumped overboard to form natural reefs for fish? Or that if the telecom cables under New York were strung end to end, they would reach from the earth to the sun? While the book uses New York as its example, it has relevance well beyond that city's boundaries as the systems that make New York a functioning metropolis are similar to those that keep the bright lights burning in big cities everywhere. The Works is for anyone who has ever stopped midcrosswalk, looked at the rapidly moving metropolis around them, and wondered, how does this all work?

The Age Of Sinan: Architectural Culture In The Ottoman Empire


Gülru Necipoğlu - 2005
    His distinctive architectural idiom left its imprint over a vast empire extending from the Danube to the Tigris, and he became the most celebrated of all Ottoman architects.In this lavishly illustrated, major new assessment of Sinan's oeuvre, Gulru Necipoglu challenges standard views of Sinan as a "Turkish Michelangelo" driven solely by an insatiable urge for artistic experimentation. Her innovative analysis shows that Sinan's rich variety of mosque designs sprang from a process of negotiation between the architect and his elite patrons, both men and women. Defined though they were by social and territorial hierarchies and associated notions of identity, memory, and decorum, Sinan's mosques simultaneously shaped these conceptions. "The Age of Sinan" draws on a wealth of primary sources to reveal the chief architect's monuments as bearers of previously unrecognized dimensions of meaning. A sophisticated study of the cultural and social history of Ottoman architecture, interpreting the oeuvre of a seminal figure in the early modern eastern Mediterranean world, it is must reading for scholars and students of art history and other fields with an interest in the Ottoman Empire."

For Space


Doreen Massey - 2005
    the idea that space is not something static and neutral, a frozen entity, but is something intertwined with time and thus ever changing - also when we are not occupying it. Doreen's descriptions of her journey through England for example are clear and precise accounts of this idea, and she very sharply characterizes the attempts not to recognize this idea as utopian and nostalgic." - Olafur EliassonIn this book, Doreen Massey makes an impassioned argument for revitalising our imagination of space. She takes on some well-established assumptions from philosophy, and some familiar ways of characterising the twenty-first century world, and shows how they restrain our understanding of both the challenge and the potential of space.The way we think about space matters. It inflects our understandings of the world, our attitudes to others, our politics. It affects, for instance, the way we understand globalisation, the way we approach cities, the way we develop, and practice, a sense of place. If time is the dimension of change then space is the dimension of the social: the contemporaneous co-existence of others. That is its challenge, and one that has been persistently evaded. For Space pursues its argument through philosophical and theoretical engagement, and through telling personal and political reflection. Doreen Massey asks questions such as how best to characterise these so-called spatial times, how it is that implicit spatial assumptions inflect our politics, and how we might develop a responsibility for place beyond place.This book is "for space" in that it argues for a reinvigoration of the spatiality of our implicit cosmologies. For Space is essential reading for anyone interested in space and the spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities. Serious, and sometimes irreverent, it is a compelling manifesto: for re-imagining spaces for these times and facing up to their challenge.

Fuzz One: A Bronx Childhood


Vincent Fedorchak - 2005
    Through Vincent Fedorchak's hilarious deadpan narration of a wild existence wrought with adolescent braggadocio, we are taken on a rough journey through a deteriorating Bronx jungle-wonderland where property value was plummeting and kids ruled the streets. Whether executing a bizarre graffiti mission in another borough with all the insanity of a special ops soldier, fearlessly tracking down Satan-worshippers camped out in the old castles in Van Cortlandt Park, or being the first white boy inducted into the infamous Ebony Dukes street gang, Fedorchak never flinches. Filled with hundreds of never-before-published photos of graffiti art and Bronx cityscapes, as well as first-hand accounts of the exploits of legendary graffiti artists such as DONDI, BLADE, COMET, NOC 167, BOOTS 119, and others, Fuzz One is a guided tour of a heretofore uncharted Bronx underworld. This epic tale of youth gone awry fully captures an important era of cultural upheaval in New York City's history. It is set apart from other memoirs via the inclusion of more than 300 images, nearly all in color, that give the volume strong historical, anthropological and cultural appeal.

White City, Black City: Architecture and War in Tel Aviv and Jaffa


Sharon Rotbard - 2005
    Today, the Hebrew city of Tel Aviv glitters white, its Bauhaus-influenced modernist architecture betraying few traces of the city which once stood where it now stands: the Arab city of Jaffa. In this book, Sharon Rotbard blows apart this palimpsest in a clear, fluent and challenging style, which promises to force the reality of what so many have praised as 'progress' into the mainstream discourse. A book that works on many levels, White City, Black City is, all at once, an angry uncovering of a vanished history, a book mourning the loss of an architectural heritage, a careful study in urban design and a beautifully written narrative history. It is in all senses a political book, but one that expands beyond the typical. This book promises to become the central text on Tel Aviv - its publication in Hebrew was hailed as 'path-breaking' and a 'masterpiece'.

The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation - How Corrupt Economic Development Brings Us Layoffs, Outsourcing, Overcrowded Schools, Runaway Sprawl and Higher Taxes


Greg LeRoy - 2005
    Under the guise of "economic development," big companies have gotten extraordinary tax breaks, from property tax abatements to land write-downs. Promises of job creation in exchange for these tax breaks have proven hollow, with companies continuing to downsize and outsource at record levels. Government officials are no help - they're well compensated major players in this troubling drama. This timely book explores these abuses in depth, but also offers hope with a series of commonsense reforms that would give taxpayers powerful new tools to reverse this situation - and redirect monies in ways that will really pay off. By popularizing these grassroots reforms - which are already taking hold - this book is taking a movement that is percolating in the states and putting it on the national stage.

Landscape and Images


John R. Stilgoe - 2005
    This is more difficult than it sounds, particularly in our mediated age, when advances in both theory and technology too often seek to replace the visual evidence before our own eyes rather than complement it. We are surrounded by landscapes charged with our past, and yet from our earliest schooldays we are instructed not to stare out the window. Someone who stops to look isn't only a rarity; he or she is suspect.Landscape and Images records a lifetime spent observing America's constructed landscapes. Stilgoe's essays follow the eclectic trains of thought that have resulted from his observation, from the postcard preference for sunsets over sunrises to the concept of "teen geography" to the unwillingness of Americans to walk up and down stairs. In Stilgoe's hands, the subject of jack o' lanterns becomes an occasion to explore centuries-old concepts of boundaries and trespassing, and to examine why this originally pagan symbol has persisted into our own age. Even something as mundane as putting the cat out before going to bed is traced back to fears of unwatched animals and an untended frontier fireplace. Stilgoe ponders the forgotten connections between politics and painted landscapes and asks why a country whose vast majority lives less than a hundred miles from a coast nonetheless looks to the rural Midwest for the classic image of itself.At times breathtaking in their erudition, the essays collected here are as meticulously researched as they are elegantly written. Stilgoe's observations speak to specialists--whether they be artists, historians, or environmental designers--as well as to the common reader. Our landscapes constitute a fascinating history of accident and intent. The proof, says Stilgoe, is all around us.

Philippine Heritage Architecture before 1521 to the 1970's


Maria Cristina Valera-Turalba - 2005
    "Philippine Heritage Architecture before 1521 to the 1970's is a survey that seeks to provide students, built-enviornment professionals and aficionados of both art history and architecture with the breadth and scope of distinctly Philippine architecture from various periods covering more than 500 years."

Strangers in a Strange Land: Humans in an Urbanizing World


Douglas S. Massey - 2005
    Despite this, most humans live in dense urban environments. "As biological organisms," Massey writes, "we are indeed strangers in a strange land."Strangers in a Strange Land is part of the Contemporary Societies series.

Space, the City and Social Theory: Social Relations and Urban Forms


Fran Tonkiss - 2005
    Space, the City and Social Theory offers a clear and critical account of key approaches to cities and urban space within social theory and analysis.

Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space


Wu Hung - 2005
    But when Chairman Mao rejected the proposal to build a new capital for the People's Republic of China and decided to stay in the ancient city, he initiated a long struggle to transform Beijing into a shining beacon of socialism. So began the remaking of the city into a modern metropolis rife with monuments, public squares, exhibition halls, and government offices.Wu Hung grew up in Beijing and experienced much of the city's makeover firsthand. In this lavishly illustrated work, he offers a vivid, often personal account of the struggle over Beijing's reinvention, drawing particular attention to Tiananmen Square—the most sacred space in the People's Republic of China. Remaking Beijing considers the square's transformation from a restricted imperial domain into a public arena for political expression, from an epic symbol of socialism into a holy relic of the Maoist regime, and from an official and monumental complex into a site for unofficial and antigovernment demonstrations.Wu Hung also explores how Tiananmen Square has become a touchstone for official art in modern China—as the site for Mao's monumental portrait, as the location of museums narrating revolutionary history, and as the grounds for extravagant National Day parades celebrating the revolutionary masses. He then shows how in recent years the square has inspired artists working without state sponsorship to create paintings, photographs, and even performances that reflect the spirit of the 1989 uprisings and pose a forceful challenge to official artworks and the sociopolitical system that supports them.Remaking Beijing will reward anyone interested in modern Chinese history, society, and art, or, more generally, in how urban renewal becomes intertwined with cultural and national politics.

Chicagoland: City and Suburbs in the Railroad Age


Ann Durkin Keating - 2005
    Farmers used trains to transport produce into the city daily; businessmen rode the rails home to their commuter suburbs; and families took vacations mere miles outside the Loop. Historian and coeditor of the acclaimed Encyclopedia of Chicago, Ann Durkin Keating resurrects for us here the bustling network that defined greater Chicagoland. Taking a new approach to the history of the city, Keating shifts the focus to the landscapes and built environments of the metropolitan region. Organized by four categories of settlements-farm centers, industrial towns, commuter suburbs, and recreational and institutional centers-that framed the city, Chicagoland offers the collective history of 230 neighborhoods and communities, the people who built them, and the structures they left behind that still stand today. Keating reanimates nineteenth-century Chicagoland with more than a hundred photographs and maps; we find here the taverns, depots, and way stations that were the hubs of the region's vibrant, mobile life. Keating also includes an appendix of driving tours so readers can see this history for themselves. Chicagoland takes us into the buildings and sites that are still part of our landscape and repopulates them with the stories and characters behind their creation. The result is a wide-angle historical view of Chicago, an entirely new way to understand the region.

Urban Sprawl: A Comprehensive Reference Guide


David C. Soule - 2005
    It is not only an issue of land use, but also a legal, political, and social concern. It affects our schools, the environment, and race relations. Comprehensive enough for high school students and also appropriate for undergraduate students, this book delves into the challenges of urban sprawl by looking to some of America's top thinkers on the matter, including Robert Yaro, the President of the Regional Plan Association. Other cutting-edge articles include a preface about the emergence of sprawl by nationally syndicated columnist Neal Peirce, views about race and class by former mayor of Albuquerque David Rusk, and views from Curtis Johnson, president of the Citistates Group, about transportation dynamics. After reading a detailed definition of urban sprawl, students will then explore the dynamics, negative impact, analysis, other cross-cutting issues, and the agenda to deal with sprawl. Complete with a glossary, resources, and contact information for smart growth alliances, this book is extremely user-friendly even for students.Soule offers an unbiased viewpoint of this national event, while still keeping the information accessible to students as well as those who have little background in the matter.

Ancient Middle Niger: Urbanism and the Self-Organizing Landscape


Roderick J. McIntosh - 2005
    They present the archaeologist with a novelty; a non-nucleated, clustered city-plan with no centralized, state-focused power. This book explores the emergence of these cities in the first millennium B.C. and the evolution of their hinterlands from the perspective of the self-organized landscape. Cities appeared in a series of profound transforms to the human-land relations and this book illustrates how each transform marked a leap in complexity.

Quest for Hope in the Slum Community: A Global Urban Reader


Scott Bessenecker - 2005
    As the number of slum communities and those living in them continue to rise at an alarming rate, Christians need to examine their role in sharing the hope, joy, healing, and servanthood of Christ to those in despair. Quest for Hope in the Slum Community is a collection of the diverse dialog that exists in the area of urban transformation. Everything from housing to street children along with a healthy collection of articles around a theology of urban poverty is addressed. This material is designed to stimulate the imagination of those exploring the question of how to address with compassion and conviction the stark realities of urban poverty.

Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir


Leon M. Despres - 2005
    His demand to cut out the corrupt sale of city driveway permits made him enemies from the very beginning. Over the years his crusades to ban discrimination, preserve Chicago landmark buildings, and gain equality for African-Americans-when Daley-beholden African-American council members refused to help-threw wrench after wrench into the Machine. And, not incidentally, changed the city. But Challenging the Daley Machine is more than a memoir. It's a historical portrait of the way things were done under the Boss, when changing times and a changing city forced the Machine to confront the problems Despres championed. His battles against the seemingly monolithic Machine are also an inspiration to anyone who is facing long odds, but is convinced he/she is on the side of right.

Time-based Architecture


Rene Heijne - 2005
    The late 1960s in particular were marked by research into techniques that would allow buildings to be adapted to suit the requirements of the day. 'Form follows function' is giving way to concepts like polyvalence and semi-permanence. New spatial and constructional structures generate freedom, taking time as their departure-point. Alongside theoretical reflections on such time-based architecture, this book illustrates countless projects involving the time factor, ranging from Shigeru Ban's Naked House, an apartment building in Malmö by Gert WingÃÂ¥rdh to Kas Oosterhuis's Emotive House.

Laurel Line: An Anthracite Region Railway


James N. J. Henwood - 2005
    These enterprises were natural offshoots of the original, short urban trolley lines that quickly replaced the horse car in the 1890s.Most trolley lines lived in relative obscurity and enjoyed a few years of prosperity, followed by decline and abandonment in the face of bus and automotive competition. A relative handful managed to survive until the post-World War II years and thus have attracted greater attention.Among them was the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad. The Laurel Line, as it was most commonly known, was unusual in several respects: It was built to higher-than-normal standards for electric short line railroads; it operated mostly with a third rail power system; it ran exclusively on private rights-of-way; and it served a geographically narrow region whose economy was heavily dependent on one industry - coal.The Laurel Line's corporate records survived, and authors Henwood and Muncie made the most of this historical treasure. In the book, the railroad emerges in human terms of strife, struggle, victory and defeat. The reader learns not only what happened, but why, and who made it happen.All railroads are interesting if properly researched - the Laurel Line as portrayed in this work is profoundly fascinating. Life in Pennsylvania's anthracite region is detailed when the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad was fighting the good fight.

The Global Cities Reader


Neil Brenner - 2005
    Providing the first comprehensive survey of new interdisciplinary scholarship on globalized urbanization, this important volume contains fifty selections from classic writings by authors such as John Friedmann, Michael Peter Smith, Saskia Sassen, Peter Taylor, Manuel Castells and Anthony King, as well as major contributions by other international scholars of global city formation.Classic and contemporary case studies of globalizing cities serve to illuminate global city theory within Europe, North America and East Asia, whilst contributing authors explore key topics including:the histories and geographies of globalized urbanization the social and economic order of globalizing cities pathways of globalized urbanization in the older industrialized world, the developing world and on the 'margins' of the world economy state restructuring, urban governance and socio-political contestation in globalizing cities culture, identity and representation in globalizing cities emerging issues and debates in contemporary research on globalized urbanization.Containing wide-ranging discussions on major theories, methods, themes and debates, and a combination of theoretical and methodological contributions, comparative analyses and detailed case studies, this key textbook will appeal to a broad interdisciplinary readership at undergraduate and graduate levels in urban, globalization, development, cultural, and environmental studies.