Description
Book SynopsisThis text aims to provide a contemporary, multi-disciplinary analysis of how the study of urban society is likely to develop during the next millennium. Topics and theories investigated include the widespread influence of political economy perspectives and other non-Marxist approaches.
Trade Review"Many anthologies on the city exist, but only a few contain both cutting-edge theoretical essays and rich empirical studies. The latter focus on cities outside the Western urban canon and will make
Understanding the City even more attractive to urban scholars."
Professor R. Beauregard, New School University Understanding the city is an engaging read for those grappling with new theoretical and conceptual questions about how cities function.....the essays in this book provide an excellent foundation for new levels of discourse on urban enviroments and city life." Area
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations viii
List of Tables ix
List of Contributors x
Series Editors’ Preface xv
Preface xvii
Part I: Introduction 1
1 Understanding the City 3
John Eade and Christopher Mele
Part II: A Middle Ground? Difference, Social Justice, and the City 25
2 Rescripting Cities with Difference 27
Ruth Fincher, Jane M. Jacobs, and Kay Anderson
3 The Public City 49
Sophie Watson
4 Social Justice and the South African City 66
David M. Smith
5 The Dangerous Others: Changing Views on Urban Risks and Violence in France and the United States 82
Sophie Body-Gendrot
Part III: The Global and Local, the Information Age, and American Metropolitan Development 107
6 Power in Place: Retheorizing the Local and the Global 109
Michael Peter Smith
7 Depoliticizing Globalization: From Neo-Marxism to the Network Society of Manuel Castells 131
Peter Marcuse
8 Urban Analysis as Merchandising: The “LA School” and the Understanding of Metropolitan Development 159
Mark Gottdiener
Part IV: Urban Research in Particular Regions of the Globe 181
9 State Socialism, Post-socialism, and their Urban Patterns: Theorizing the Central and Eastern European Experience 183
Chris Pickvance
10 The China Difference: City Studies Under Socialism and Beyond 204
Dorothy J. Solinger and Kam Wing Chan
11 Economic Miracles and Megacities: The Japanese Model and Urbanization in East and Southeast Asia 222
J. S. Eades
Part V: Urban Processes and City Contexts: India and the Middle East 245
12 Cities of the Past and Cities of the Future: Theorizing the Indian Metropolis of Bangalore 247
Smriti Srinivas
13 The Syntax of Jerusalem: Urban Morphology, Culture, and Power 278
Shlomo Hasson
14 Muslim Civil Society in Urban Public Spaces: Globalization, Discursive Shifts, and Social Movements 305
Paul M. Lubeck and Bryana Britts
Part VI: Urban Processes and City Contexts: The United States 337
15 The Bullriders of Silicon Alley: New Media Circuits of Innovation, Speculation, and Urban Development 339
Michael Indergaard
16 Fear and Lusting in Las Vegas and New York: Sex, Political Economy, and Public Space 363
Alexander J. Reichl
17 Efficacy or Legitimacy of Community Power? A Reassessment of Corporate Elites in Urban Studies 379
Leonard Nevarez
18 Dream Factory Redux: Mass Culture, Symbolic Sites, and Redevelopment in Hollywood 397
Jan Lin
Index 419
