If we develop them wisely in the future, our cities can be the force leading us into a new era of progressive and prosperous stewardship of our nation. In compelling chapters, Chakrabarti brings us a wealth of information about cities, suburbs and exurbs, looking at how they developed across the 50 states and their roles in prosperity and globalization, sustainability and resilience, and heath and joy. Counter to what you might think, American cities today are growing faster than their suburban counterparts for the first time since the 1920s. If we can intelligently increase the density of our cities as they grow and build the transit systems, schools, parks and other infrastructure to support them, Chakrabarti shows us how both job opportunities and an improved, sustainable environment are truly within our means. In this call for an urban America, he illustrates his argument with numerous infographics illustrating provocative statistics on issues as disparate as rising childhood obesity rates, ever-lengthening automobile commutes and government subsidies that favor highways over mass transit. The book closes with an eloquent manifesto that rallies us to build "a Country of Cities," to turn a country of highways, houses and hedges into a country of trains, towers and trees.Vishaan Chakrabarti is the director of Columbia University's Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE). In March 2012, Chakrabarti became a partner at SHoP Architects, where he will be working on such projects as the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. An architect and planner, Chakrabarti has worked in both the public and private sectors: as a top executive at Related Companies; a director at the New York City Planning Commission; an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; a transportation planner for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

    It includes a wealth of material that has emerged from a sequence of six conferences held by influential figures in the field of urban development and its related disciplines, and examines the requisite tools for creating a thriving modern city. The book has been edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic in collaboration with one of the most important educational institutions in this field, the London School of Economics, which assures that the information and data provided is reliable, accurate and informed. Taking 6 key cities as its focal point: New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg and Berlin, The Endless City discusses in depth not only the infrastructure and architectural expansion necessary for continuous urban growth, but also the social and economic factors that are critical to urban development in the 21st century. Clearly organised into separate sections for each city, the book will have a strong visual impact and make detailed scholarly research straightforward and manageable. Images of each city will complement the discussions and enrich the discussion presented in the text.With contributions by experts in urban development, this book will appeal to architects, city planners, economists, students, politicians and anyone with an interest in the future of our cities.

    What distinguishes Sassen's theoretical framework is the emphasis on the formation of cross-border dynamics through which these cities and the growing number of other global cities begin to form strategic transnational networks. All the core data in this new edition have been updated, while the preface and epilogue discuss the relevant trends in globalization since the book originally came out in 1991.

    He argues that the accepted ideal of order generates patterns of behavior among the urban middle classes that are stultifying, narrow, and violence-prone. And he proposes a functioning city that can incorporate anarchy, diversity, and creative disorder to bring into being adults who can openly respond to and deal with the challenges of life.

    Parisians know that to really see the city you must descend into the metro. In this revelatory book, Marc Auge takes readers below Paris in a work that is both an ethnography of the city and a personal narrative. Guiding us through history, memory, and physical space, Auge juxtaposes the romance of the metro with the reality of multiethnic urban France. His work is part autobiography, with impressions from a lifetime riding the trains; part meditation on self and memory reflected in the people and places underneath Paris; part analysis of a place where the third world and the first world meet, where remnants of cultures move and press together; and part a reflection on anthropology in an era of globalization and urban development.Although he is a pillar of French thought, In the Metro is Auge's first major critical and creative work translated into English. It shows him to be firmly rooted in a tradition of literary ethnography that reaches back to Claude Levi-Strauss and Michel de Certeau, but also engaged in current theoretical debates in literary and cultural studies. In Auge's idiosyncratic and innovative approach, the act of observing the quotidian is elevated to an art. The writer and his history become part of the field he observes, and anthropology interacts with a site -- urban life -- usually reserved for sociology and cultural studies. Throughout, Auge reveals a passion for his milieu, seeing the metro as a place rich with history and literature -- an eclectic egalitarian society.

    We are promised that apps, algorithms, and artificial intelligence will relieve congestion, restore democracy, prevent crime, and improve public services. In The Smart Enough City, Ben Green warns against seeing the city only through the lens of technology; taking an exclusively technical view of urban life will lead to cities that appear smart but under the surface are rife with injustice and inequality. He proposes instead that cities strive to be "smart enough" to embrace technology as a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other forms of social change--but not to value technology as an end in itself.In a technology-centric smart city, self-driving cars have the run of downtown and force out pedestrians, civic engagement is limited to requesting services through an app, police use algorithms to justify and perpetuate racist practices, and governments and private companies surveil public space to control behavior. Green describes smart city efforts gone wrong but also smart enough alternatives, attainable with the help of technology but not reducible to technology: a livable city, a democratic city, a just city, a responsible city, and an innovative city. By recognizing the complexity of urban life rather than merely seeing the city as something to optimize, these Smart Enough Cities successfully incorporate technology into a holistic vision of justice and equity.

    prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called “the biggest prison building project in the history of the world.” Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the “three strikes” law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.

    "Bienville's Dilemma" presents sixty-eight articles on the historical geography of New Orleans, covering the formation and foundation of the city, its urbanization and population, its "humanization" into a place of distinction, the manipulation of its environment, its devastation by Hurricane Katrina, and its ongoing recovery.

    By recounting actual events in San Francisco's effort to keep the city's cable cars running, this classic story illustrates how the voice of the people can be heard in the true spirit of democracy.

    It discusses the Garden Cities movement and the suburban developments it generated, the German-Russian architectural experiments of the 1920s, the place of the avant-garde in the plastic arts, and the uses and pitfalls of seismological approaches to architecture, and assesses the prospects of socialist alternatives.

    These transitional spaces are where the next great economic and cultural boom will be born, or where the great explosion of violence will occur. The difference depends on our ability to notice.The twenty-first century is going to be remembered for the great, and final, shift of human populations out of rural, agricultural life into cities. The movement engages an unprecedented number of people, perhaps a third of the world's population, and will affect almost everyone in tangible ways. The last human movement of this size and scope, and the changes it will bring to family life, from large agrarian families to small urban ones, will put an end to the major theme of human history: continuous population growth.Arrival City offers a detailed tour of the key places of the "final migration" and explores the possibilities and pitfalls inherent in the developing new world order. From villages in China, India, Bangladesh and Poland to the international cities of the world, Doug Saunders portrays a diverse group of people as they struggle to make the transition, and in telling the story of their journeys — and the history of their often multi-generational families enmeshed in the struggle of transition — gives an often surprising sense of what factors aid in the creation of a stable, productive community.

    His construct of "four ecologies" examined the ways Angelenos relate to the beach, the freeways, the flatlands, and the foothills. Banham delighted in this mobile city and identified it as an exemplar of the posturban future.

    But for the people whose homes and districts were bulldozed, the urban renewal projects that swept America starting in 1949 were nothing short of assault. Vibrant city blocks—places rich in history—were reduced to garbage-strewn vacant lots. When a neighborhood is destroyed its inhabitants suffer “root shock”: a traumatic stress reaction related to the destruction of one’s emotional ecosystem. The ripple effects of root shock have an impact on entire communities that can last for decades. In this groundbreaking and ultimately hopeful book, Dr. Mindy Fullilove examines root shock through the story of urban renewal and its effect on the African American community. Between 1949 and 1973 this federal program, spearheaded by business and real estate interests, destroyed 1,600 African American neighborhoods in cities across the United States. But urban renewal didn’t just disrupt the black community. The anger it caused led to riots that sent whites fleeing for the suburbs, stripping them of their own sense of place. And it left big gashes in the centers of U.S. cities that are only now slowly being repaired. Focusing on three very different urban settings—the Hill District of Pittsburgh, the Central Ward in Newark, and the small Virginia city of Roanoke—Dr. Fullilove argues powerfully that the twenty-first century will be one of displacement and of continual demolition and reconstruction. Acknowledging the damage caused by root shock is crucial to coping with its human toll and building a road to recovery.Astonishing in its revelations, unsparing in its conclusions, Root Shock should be read by anyone who cares about the quality of life in American cities—and the dignity of those who reside there.From the Hardcover edition.

    If you lived in the mountains of southern Spain, your bedroom might be carved out of a mountain. If you lived in a village in South Africa, the outside of your house might tell the story of your family. And if you lived in a floating green house in the Netherlands, you could rotate your house to watch both the sunrise and sunset. With intricate bas-relief collages, Giles Laroche uncovers the reason each home was constructed the way it was, then lets us imagine what it would be like to live in homes so different from our own. Showing the tremendous variety of dwellings worldwide—log cabins, houses on stilts, cave dwellings, boathouses, and yurts—this book addresses why each house is built the way it is. Reasons—such as blending into the landscape, confusing invaders, being able to travel with one's home, using whatever materials are at hand—are as varied as the homes themselves.

    In this authoritative and engagingly written account, the acclaimed urbanist and bestselling author examines the evolution of urban life over the millennia and, in doing so, attempts to answer the age-old question: What makes a city great?Despite their infinite variety, all cities essentially serve three purposes: spiritual, political, and economic. Kotkin follows the progression of the city from the early religious centers of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China to the imperial centers of the Classical era, through the rise of the Islamic city and the European commercial capitals, ending with today's post-industrial suburban metropolis.Despite widespread optimistic claims that cities are "back in style," Kotkin warns that whatever their form, cities can thrive only if they remain sacred, safe, and busy-and this is true for both the increasingly urbanized developing world and the often self-possessed "global cities" of the West and East Asia.Looking at cities in the twenty-first century, Kotkin discusses the effects of developments such as shifting demographics and emerging technologies. He also considers the effects of terrorism-how the religious and cultural struggles of the present pose the greatest challenge to the urban future.Truly global in scope, The City is a timely narrative that will place Kotkin in the company of Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and other preeminent urban scholars.