Description
Book SynopsisCities are raucous, cacophonous, and complex. Many dimensions of life play out and conflict across cities’ intricate landscapes, be they political, cultural, economic, or social. Urban policy makers and analysts often attempt to “cut through the noise” of urban disagreement by emphasizing a dominant lens for understanding the key, central logic of the city. How To Think About Cities sees this tendency to selective vision as misleading and ultimately unjust: cities are many things at once to different people and communities.
This book describes the various ways of seeing the functions and landscapes of the city as place frames, and the constant process of negotiating which place frames best explain the city as place-making. Martin and Pierce call for an explicitly hybrid perspective that shifts between many different frames for making sense of cities. This approach highlights how any given stance opens up some lines of inquiry and understanding while closing off others. Thinking of cities as sites of contested perspectives promotes a synthetic approach to urban analysis that emphasizes difference and political possibility.
This mosaic view of the city will be a welcome read for those within urban studies, geography, and social sciences exploring the many faces of urban life.
Trade Review“We need to embrace cities in all their diversity and complexity while realizing that we can never truly grasp the infinitely radical plurality of urbanism. This is the core of Martin and Pierce’s captivating methodological narrative of place-framing as an analytical and political strategy for the urban age. A delightful book!”
Elvin Wyly, University of British Columbia
“This book will change how you think about cities and the urban. Martin and Pierce advance place-framing as a deeply compelling approach to studying cities. They draw from classical texts and concepts in urban studies and allied fields to offer a new and highly accessible way to untangle the messiness of the city.”
Katherine Hankins, Georgia State University
“In How to Think About Cities, Martin and Pierce provide a valuable contribution in reorienting urban analysis in a promising and productive direction. The book should occupy a prominent place in the reading list of every urban scholar, whether novice or established.”
Robert W. Lake, Journal of Urban Affairs
Table of Contents1. Introduction: Cities are Places
2. City of London: A Machine for Living / The Seat of Wealth
3. Tehran: Islamic Developmentalism / Diverse Cosmopolitanism
4. Worcester: Local Economic Engine / Regional Forest Under Threat
5. Portland: Paradise of Environmentalism / Legacy of Exclusionary Racism
6. Chongqing: International Cyberpunk Marvel / National Policy Innovator
7. Jerusalem: Religious Tourist Destination / Ethno-National Citadel
8. Conclusion: The Impossibilities of Fully Knowing a City
