Comments on: Urban Studies Texts

Question: Urban Studies Texts

pinto — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 14:52:30 -0800

Cities and Urban Studies: I'm looking for well-researched books which provide insight into the ever-evolving project of the city and its function(s). Aside from the few classics I'm familiar with--Jane Jacobs' and Ken Jackson's books--can you recommend any exemplary texts? I'm particularly interested in studies of the (post)modern city: issues of future planning, class & diversity, municipal economies, and the role of private vs. public resources.

By: claxton6

claxton6 — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 15:17:05 -0800

I just read The Seduction of Place, and liked it a lot. More architecturally focused, but with a lot to say about how the role of architects within cities has changed over time, within a context of how cities function. He's big on cities as being largely defined by the public aspects, I think. (I actually had a tough time with it; he's covers an enormous range of specific plans and places, so it's easy to get lost in the details, but I think it's worthwhile.) Also, Bourgeois Utopias, or anything else, by Robert Fishman.

By: rmhsinc

rmhsinc — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 16:43:46 -0800

All by James Howard Kunstler--He is very readable, very smart and a wicked sense of humor:
His most recent is on Peak Oil "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century "

"The City in Mind": Notes on the Urban Condition
An anthology for reading pleasure. Louis-Napoleon's renovation of Paris; the fiascos of contemporary Atlanta and Las Vegas; Berlin's travails in the 20th century; Cortes Versus the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan; In search of the classical in Rome; and more. Published January 2002.

"Home from Nowhere": Home From Nowhere explores the growing movement across America to restore the physical dwelling place of our civilization. It offers real hope for a nation yearning to live in authentic places worth caring about.

"The Geography of Nowhere": In The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler, gave voice to the feelings of countless Americans unhappy with "the tragic sprawlscape of cartoon architecture, junked cities, and ravaged countryside" where we live and work. Kunstler argued that the mess we've made of our everyday environment was not merely the symptom of a troubled culture, but one of the primary causes of our troubles. "We created a landscape of scary places, and we became a nation of scary people."

By: MLIS

MLIS — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 19:08:08 -0800

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

By: realcountrymusic

realcountrymusic — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 19:11:46 -0800

here's a few classics

Mike Davis - City of Quartz
Joel Garreau - Edge City
David Harvey -- The Urbanization of Capital (1985) and Consciousness and the Urban Experience (1985)
Edward Soja -- Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions.
Saskia Sassen -- The Global City: New York London Tokyo. orig 1991. 2d ed. 2001
Geogre Yudice - The Expediency of Culture (2003)

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 19:48:55 -0800

If you just want to ask Urban Planning kinds of questions, Cyburbia is an urban planning site with a pretty good forum section.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 20:47:56 -0800

Definitely Mike Davis--all his work deals with cities. i've linked to his essays here before

there's also great stuff all over on "urban spaces" (google for it) and how they were set up, and/or evolved to regulate everything from sexuality to commerce to aspirations, etc.

By: scody

scody — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 21:23:47 -0800

Another vote for Mike Davis. Marshall Berman's All That Is Solid Melts Into Air also touches on some fascinating related topics about the history of public spaces under modernity/capitalism.

By: box

box — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 22:15:18 -0800

Mike Davis, Mike Davis, Mike Davis!

By: rob511

rob511 — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 01:38:15 -0800

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's Learning from Las Vegas

By: Framer

Framer — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 04:13:18 -0800

And don't forget Lewis Mumford's classics: "The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects", "The Culture of Cities," etc.

By: MattD

MattD — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 06:55:34 -0800

For some alternative perspectives from Mike Davis ax-grinding, you might consider City Journal or the writings of James Q. Wilson. City Journal is the periodical of the Manhattan Institute, which is probably the leading center of conservative / libertarian thinking on urban issues, although it has of late broadened its focus a bit, with a resulting broadening of the editorial scope of the magazine. Among many other accomplishments, JQ Wilson popularized the "broken windows" theory of urban disorder and its remedies. This theory was perhaps the single most important theoretical basis for the new policing strategies which some believed produce the big drop in crime in New York and other major cities.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 07:32:26 -0800

Spiro Kostof, The City Shaped and The City Assembled
Murray Bookchin, The Limits of the City (apparently out of print; some excerpts here)
Robert Fitch, The Assassination of New York
Michael Kenny and David Kertzer, Urban Life in Mediterranean Europe

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 08:27:54 -0800

As you can tell from this thread, the city is a canvas upon which we project our politics. Although I am a big fan of Davis and Jacobs, I find stuff that makes empirical claims a little more interesting than work which makes ideological suggestions for what *should* be done (even though I agree, for the most part, with those recommendations).

By: chrominance

chrominance — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 09:58:15 -0800

I'd bookmark this thread if I were at home. Great suggestions.

Not quite what you're looking for, as it's not about the city so much, but Building Suburbia by Dolores Hayden was the last urban planning book I read, and it's a very good history of suburban development over the past two centuries. If nothing else, it gives you the ability to differentiate between the "nice suburbs" built before and between the world wars, and the "hellish traffic jam nightmares" built since. A bit academic and dry, though, for those who lean towards the Kunstler end of the readability spectrum.

By: pinto

pinto — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 10:24:58 -0800

Thank you all for these amazing suggestions. Looks like I have quite a bit of reading to do. I've read Kunstler's Long Emergency and while he grinds his axes and comes off as a bit of an alarmist, I find myself agreeing with most of what he has to say. I did just read a review taking him to task for lack of scientific research and a certain mean-spirited delight in his visions of suburban doom. And somehow he manages to justify the Iraq war and come off as ignorant on race in the process.

By: GrammarMoses

GrammarMoses — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:32:46 -0800

Can't believe nobody's recommended William H. Whyte yet.

Highlights:

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, Washington, D.C.: The Conservation Foundation, 1980.

The Last Landscape, Garden City: Doubleday, 1968.

The Exploding Metropolis (Classics in Urban History, Vol. 1), Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958.

By: Avogadro

Avogadro — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:43:59 -0800

William Whyte is indeed great. If you ever have to opportunity to watch the video version of The Social Life os Small Urban Spaces, you ought. Whyte's book is based largely on the film taken of people in the urban environment, and his commentary on the video is amusingly droll.

Pretty much anything by Witold Rybczynski will be good. I recommend City Life, but Home is also good, though it isn't so much about urban planning as it is about how home-building has changed with time and culture.

I have to disagree with rhmsinc; please don't read any Kunstler outside of Geography of Nowhere. If you read that, then you've got his (admittedly narrow) perspective without the excess bile and vitriol.

By: plemeljr

plemeljr — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:34:46 -0800

Richard Sennett's Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization, about how history of the State, Religion, and Science affect how we move in the modern city. A counterpoint to Kunstler's half-empty criticism, but be warned that it is quite phenomenologically based (which is ok, but Phenomenology is quite another topic which has its' own problems).