Description
Book SynopsisThis book develops a fresh and challenging perspective on the city. Drawing on a wide and diverse range of material and texts, it argues that too much contemporary urban theory is based on nostalgia for a humane, face-to-face and bounded city.
Trade Review‘A wonderfully incisive dissection of new configurations of "cities" in the contemporary world.'
John Urry, Lancaster University ‘A brilliant re-viewing of cities. Bursting with fresh insights, it demands that we see and hear urban life and the everyday workings of the metropolis in new ways, that we re-cognize urban complexities, that we resensitize ourselves to all the transitory conjunctures and disjunctures through which the urban is perpetually (re)constituted, that we reconceive the terrain of urban political possibility. In short, if there is one book to be read on contemporary urban phenomena, this is unquestionably it.' Allan Pred, University of California at Berkeley
"In this important and provocative book, Amin and Thrift set out the rudiments of what might be termed a 'post -urban sociology...The book is certainly an intellectual tour-de-force. It fizzes with ideas and brings a range of novel perspectives to bear...I will certainly be looking forward to reading the future works of these writers" Mike Savage, Sociology
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements.
Introduction.
1. The Legibility of the Everyday City:.
Introduction.
The New Urbanism in Context.
The Flâneur and Transitivity.
Rhythms and Rhythmanalysis.
Urban Footprints and Namings.
A Basic Ontology.
2. Propinquity and Flow in the City:.
Introduction.
The Nostalgic City.
Near and Far.
Distanciated Communities.
The Restless Site.
Conclusion.
3. Cities in a Distanciated Ecomony:.
Introduction.
The Urbanised Economy.
Cities as Sites.
Conclusion.
4. The Machinic City:.
Introduction.
Circulation.
The City of Passions.
The Engineering of Certainty.
5. Powerful Cities:.
Introduction.
Diagrams of Power.
Escape Attempts.
But!!!.
Conclusion.
6. The Democratic City:.
Introduction.
‘Creating a Democratic Public'.
Political City.
Rights to the City: A Politics of the Commons.
A Mobile Politics.
Afterword: Testing New Ground.
References.
Index.
