Download or read book The Idea of the City written by Architectural Association (Great Britain) and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Stoic Idea of the City written by Malcolm Schofield and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-07 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This systematic analysis of the Stoic school concentrates on Zeno's Republic. Using textual evidence, the author examines the Stoic ideals that initiated the natural law tradition of western political thought.
Download or read book The Idea of a Town written by Joseph Rykwert and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roman towns and their history are generally regarded as being the preserve of the archaeologist or the economic historian. In this famous, unusual and radical book which touches on such disparate themes as psychology and urban architecture, Joseph Rykwert has considered them as works of art. His starting point is the mythical, historical and ritual texts in which their foundation is recounted rather than the excavated remains, such texts having parallels not merely in ancient Greece but also further afield Mesopotamia, India and China. To achieve his reading of the Roman town, he has invoked the comparative method of the anthropologists, and he examines first of all the 'Etruscan rite', a group of ceremonies by which all, or practically all, Roman towns were founded. The basic institutions of the town, its walls and gates, its central shrines and its forum are all of them part of a pattern to which the rituals and the myths that accompanied them provide clues. Like in other 'closed' societies, these rituals and myths served to create a secure home for the citizen of Rome and to make him feel part of his city and place it firmly in a knowable universe. 'It is refreshing to look at standard themes of the history of urban design from a nonrational point of view, to see surveyors as quasi priests and orthogonal planning as a sophisticated technique touched by divine mystery . . .. Rykwert's lasting worth will be to wrench us away from rationalist simplicities, and to make us face the fundamental disquietof the human spirit in its claim to a permanent place on the land.' Spiro Kostoff, Journal of the Society Architectural Historians
Download or read book The Idea of the City in the Age of Shakespeare written by Gail Kern Paster and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gail Kern Paster explores the role of the city in the works of William Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, and Ben Jonson. Paster moves beyond the usual presentation of the city-country dichotomy to reveal a series of oppositions that operate within the city's walls. These oppositions—city of God and city of man, Jerusalem and Rome, bride of the Lamb and whore of Babylon, ideal and real—together create a dual image of the city as a visionary ideal society and as a predatory trap, founded in fratricide, shadowed in guilt. In the theater, this duality affects the fate of early modern city dwellers, who exemplify even as they are controlled by this contradictory reality.
Download or read book The Heart of the City written by Leonardo Zuccaro Marchi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-06 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Heart of the City concept, which was introduced at CIAM 8 in 1951, has played an important role in architectural and urban debates. The Heart became the most important of the organic references used in the 1950s for defining a theory of urban form. This book focuses on both the historical and theoretical reinterpretation of this seminal concept. Divided into two main sections, both looking at differing ways in which the Heart has influenced more recent urban thinking, it illustrates the continuity and the complexities of the Heart of the City. In doing so, this book offers a new perspective on the significance of public space and shows how The Heart of the City still resonates closely with contemporary debates about centrality, identity and the design of public space. It would be of interest to architects, academics and students of urban design and planning.
Download or read book The Image of the City written by Kevin Lynch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1964-06-15 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic work on the evaluation of city form. What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.
Download or read book The Spirit of Cities written by Daniel A. Bell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-27 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively and personal book that returns the city to political thought Cities shape the lives and outlooks of billions of people, yet they have been overshadowed in contemporary political thought by nation-states, identity groups, and concepts like justice and freedom. The Spirit of Cities revives the classical idea that a city expresses its own distinctive ethos or values. In the ancient world, Athens was synonymous with democracy and Sparta represented military discipline. In this original and engaging book, Daniel Bell and Avner de-Shalit explore how this classical idea can be applied to today's cities, and they explain why philosophy and the social sciences need to rediscover the spirit of cities. Bell and de-Shalit look at nine modern cities and the prevailing ethos that distinguishes each one. The cities are Jerusalem (religion), Montreal (language), Singapore (nation building), Hong Kong (materialism), Beijing (political power), Oxford (learning), Berlin (tolerance and intolerance), Paris (romance), and New York (ambition). Bell and de-Shalit draw upon the richly varied histories of each city, as well as novels, poems, biographies, tourist guides, architectural landmarks, and the authors' own personal reflections and insights. They show how the ethos of each city is expressed in political, cultural, and economic life, and also how pride in a city's ethos can oppose the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and curb the excesses of nationalism. The Spirit of Cities is unreservedly impressionistic. Combining strolling and storytelling with cutting-edge theory, the book encourages debate and opens up new avenues of inquiry in philosophy and the social sciences. It is a must-read for lovers of cities everywhere. In a new preface, Bell and de-Shalit further develop their idea of "civicism," the pride city dwellers feel for their city and its ethos over that of others.
Download or read book One Idea Many Plans written by Sanjeev Vidyarthi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Planners tend to promote formal plans as the only game in town while diverse efforts of urban actors shape our cities. Tracking the development of American "neighborhood unit" concept in independent India’s planning practice and literature—from the national level policies to on-the-ground applications in the city of Jaipur—Vidyarthi explains how a host of actors including neighborhood residents, squatters, politicians and developers made different kinds of plans that assimilated the design concept in line with their practical concerns and cultural preferences creating unique variants of neighborhood urbanism over time. One Idea, Many Plans counters misguided characterization of these unforeseen efforts as ‘unauthorized’ by state authorities. It shows how the frequently informal and tacit plans were neither arbitrary actions nor aimless subversions but purposeful future-oriented efforts that shaped the envisaged sociality and spatiality of Indian cities in more meaningful ways than the official master plans promoting planned neighborhoods. Carefully illustrating the different kinds of plans local actors use to guide incremental adaptation, improvement and investment, Vidyarthi offers insights about how we might improve formal plan making. Scholars, students and professional practitioners interested in different regions of the global south would find these lessons useful as a new generation of city design ideas like sustainability and new urbanism gain traction in an increasingly globalized World.
Download or read book The City The City written by China Miéville and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE SEATTLE TIMES, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma. But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities. BONUS: This edition contains a The City & The City discussion guide and excerpts from China Miéville's Kraken and Embassytown.
Download or read book The Shame of the Cities written by Lincoln Steffens and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a hard look at the unprincipled lives of political bosses, police corruption, graft payments, and other political abuses of the time, the book set the style for future investigative reporting.
Download or read book Great American City written by Robert J. Sampson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 573 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In his magisterial Great American City, Robert J. Sampson puts social scientific data behind an argument that we all feel and experience everyday: the neighborhood you live in has a big effect on your life and the city you live in. Not only does your neighborhood determine where your nearest hospital is, what kind of schools your children can attend, or how many police officers you might encounter (and how they respond to you), it affects how you feel, how you think about the world and your place in it. Like many sociologists before him, Sampson looks to Chicago to make his insightful interventions, based on extensive data collected across the city's diverse neighborhoods. This edition includes a new afterword by Sampson reflecting on changes in Chicago and the country that have occurred since the book was initially published. He notes the increase in gun violence, both among civilians and police killings of civilians, as well as steady or growing rates of segregation despite an increase in diversity. With these changes have come new research, much of it a continuation or elaboration of the work in Great American City. He updates readers on the status of the research initiative that serves as the basis of Great American City, the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), and summarizes how scholars have taken up his work. Many of these scholars have new tools at their disposal with the rise of big data; Sampson remarks on these changes in the field"--
Download or read book Introduction to Urban Science written by Luis M. A. Bettencourt and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel, integrative approach to cities as complex adaptive systems, applicable to issues ranging from innovation to economic prosperity to settlement patterns. Human beings around the world increasingly live in urban environments. In Introduction to Urban Science, Luis Bettencourt takes a novel, integrative approach to understanding cities as complex adaptive systems, claiming that they require us to frame the field of urban science in a way that goes beyond existing theory in such traditional disciplines as sociology, geography, and economics. He explores the processes facilitated by and, in many cases, unleashed for the first time by urban life through the lenses of social heterogeneity, complex networks, scaling, circular causality, and information. Though the idea that cities are complex adaptive systems has become mainstream, until now those who study cities have lacked a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding cities and urbanization, for generating useful and falsifiable predictions, and for constructing a solid body of empirical evidence so that the discipline of urban science can continue to develop. Bettencourt applies his framework to such issues as innovation and development across scales, human reasoning and strategic decision-making, patterns of settlement and mobility and their influence on socioeconomic life and resource use, inequality and inequity, biodiversity, and the challenges of sustainable development in both high- and low-income nations. It is crucial, says Bettencourt, to realize that cities are not "zero-sum games" and that knowledge, human cooperation, and collective action can build a better future.
Download or read book Triumph of the City written by Edward Glaeser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Best Book of the Year Award in 2011 “A masterpiece.” —Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics “Bursting with insights.” —The New York Times Book Review A pioneering urban economist presents a myth-shattering look at the majesty and greatness of cities America is an urban nation, yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly . . . or are they? In this revelatory book, Edward Glaeser, a leading urban economist, declares that cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in both cultural and economic terms) places to live. He travels through history and around the globe to reveal the hidden workings of cities and how they bring out the best in humankind. Using intrepid reportage, keen analysis, and cogent argument, Glaeser makes an urgent, eloquent case for the city's importance and splendor, offering inspiring proof that the city is humanity's greatest creation and our best hope for the future.
Download or read book The Sexual Organization of the City written by Edward O. Laumann and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-08-01 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We think of the city as a place where anything goes. Take the sensational fantasies and lurid antics of single women on Sex in the City or young men on Queer as Folk, and you might imagine the city as some kind of sexual playground—a place where you can have any kind of sex you want, with whomever you like, anytime or anywhere you choose. But in The Sexual Organization of the City, Edward Laumann and company argue that this idea is a myth. Drawing on extensive surveys and interviews with Chicago adults, they show that the city is—to the contrary—a place where sexual choices and options are constrained. From Wicker Park and Boys Town to the South Side and Pilsen, they observe that sexual behavior and partnering are significantly limited by such factors as which neighborhood you live in, your ethnicity, what your sexual preference might be, or the circle of friends to which you belong. In other words, the social and institutional networks that city dwellers occupy potentially limit their sexual options by making different types of sexual activities, relationships, or meeting places less accessible. To explain this idea of sex in the city, the editors of this work develop a theory of sexual marketplaces—the places where people look for sexual partners. They then use this theory to consider a variety of questions about sexuality: Why do sexual partnerships rarely cross racial and ethnic lines, even in neighborhoods where relatively few same-ethnicity partners are available? Why do gay men and lesbians have few public meeting spots in some neighborhoods, but a wide variety in others? Why are African Americans less likely to marry than whites? Does having a lot of friends make you less likely to get a sexually transmitted disease? And why do public health campaigns promoting safe sex seem to change the behaviors of some, but not others? Considering vital questions such as these, and shedding new light on the city of Chicago, this work will profoundly recast our ideas about human sexual behavior.
Download or read book The Unfinished City written by Thomas Bender and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout American history, cities have been a powerful source of inspiration and energy, nourishing the spirit of invention and the world of intellect, and fueling movements for innovation and reform. In The Unfinished City, nationally renowned urban scholar Thomas Bender examines the source of Manhattan’s influence over American life. The Unfinished City traces the history of New York from its humble regional beginnings to its present global eminence. Bender contends that the city took shape not only according to the grand designs of urban planners and business tycoons, but also in response to a welter of artistic visions, intellectual projects, and everyday demands of the millions of people who made the city home. Bender’s story of urban development ranges from the streets of Times Square to the workshops of Thomas Edison, from the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. In a tour that spans neighborhoods and centuries, The Unfinished City makes a powerful case for the enduring importance of cities in American life. For anyone who loves New York or values the limitless possibilities intrinsic in all cities, this book is an unparalleled guide to Manhattan’s past and present.
Download or read book A City Is Not a Computer written by Shannon Mattern and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold reassessment of "smart cities" that reveals what is lost when we conceive of our urban spaces as computers Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city. A City Is Not a Computer reveals how cities encompass myriad forms of local and indigenous intelligences and knowledge institutions, arguing that these resources are a vital supplement and corrective to increasingly prevalent algorithmic models. Shannon Mattern begins by examining the ethical and ontological implications of urban technologies and computational models, discussing how they shape and in many cases profoundly limit our engagement with cities. She looks at the methods and underlying assumptions of data-driven urbanism, and demonstrates how the "city-as-computer" metaphor, which undergirds much of today's urban policy and design, reduces place-based knowledge to information processing. Mattern then imagines how we might sustain institutions and infrastructures that constitute more diverse, open, inclusive urban forms. She shows how the public library functions as a steward of urban intelligence, and describes the scales of upkeep needed to sustain a city's many moving parts, from spinning hard drives to bridge repairs. Incorporating insights from urban studies, data science, and media and information studies, A City Is Not a Computer offers a visionary new approach to urban planning and design.
Download or read book The Idea of the City in Nineteenth Century Britain written by B.I. Coleman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In nineteenth-century Britain, ahead of the rest of the world in economic development, many towns and cities grew to a size that only London had attained before. This volume focuses on the intellectual and controversial response of the period's leading men and women to the key issues of urbanization and its surrounding social problems. The extracts selected date from 1785 to 1909, and are drawn from the writings, reports and speeches of admirers of city life and its most passionate critics, optimists and alarmists, advocates of back-to-the-land panaceas, and reformers who aspired to control and reform cities. Contemporaries quoted include Dickens, Cobbett, Carlyle, Disraeli, Engels, Mrs Gaskell, Ruskin, Joseph Chamberlain, William Morris, Charles Booth, H.G. Wells and Seebohm Rowntree. In a valuable introduction the editor indicates the main preoccupations of the debate abotu the city, proposes a periodization for it, adn shows its connections with other controversies and issues, as Victorian Britain found itself entering an 'age of great cities'. This book was first published in 1973.
