ABSTRACT

The city has always been a locus of research and discussion within the debates of modernity and, more recently, postmodernity. This volume brings together some of the most recent and exciting work on the city from within sociology and cultural studies. The book is organised around the following major themes: the theoretical imagination; ethnic diversity and the politics of difference; memory and nostalgia; and the complex and complimentary narrative of the city ways.While these representations bring the past and the present together, the final section of the book elaborates the present and future in relation to the idea of the virtual city. Hence, the world of cyberspace not only recasts our imaginaries of space and communication, but has a profound effect on the sociological imagination itself.

chapter |15 pages

Imagining Cities

part I|52 pages

Theorising Cities

chapter 2|17 pages

Imagining the Real-Time City *

Telecommunications, urban paradigms and the future of cities

chapter 3|20 pages

Chaotic Places or Complex Places?

Cities in a post-industrial era

part II|53 pages

Racial/spatial Imaginaries

chapter 4|13 pages

Out of the Melting Pot into the Fire Next Time

Imagining the East End as city, body, text

chapter 5|18 pages

White Governmentality *

Urbanism, nationalism, racism

chapter 6|19 pages

Migrant Spaces and Settlers' Time

Forming and de-forming an inner city

part III|53 pages

Nostalgia/memory

chapter 7|12 pages

Looking Backward

Nostalgia and the city

chapter 8|11 pages

Authenticity and Suburbia *

chapter 9|27 pages

‘proper Little Mesters'

Nostalgia and protest masculinity in de-industrialised Sheffield

part IV|55 pages

Narrating Cityscapes

chapter 10|21 pages

This, Here, Now

Imagining the modern city

chapter 11|17 pages

(re)placing the City

Cultural relocation and the city as centre

chapter 12|13 pages

Anglicising the American Dream

Tragedy, farce and the ‘postmodern' city

part V|28 pages

Virtual Cities

chapter 13|13 pages

Cyberpunk as Social Theory 1

William Gibson and the sociological imagination