ABSTRACT

The seventh edition of the highly successful The City Reader juxtaposes the very best classic and contemporary writings on the city. Sixty-three selections are included: forty-five from the sixth edition and eighteen new selections, including three newly written exclusively for The City Reader. The anthology features a Prologue essay on "How to Study Cities", eight part introductions as well as individual introductions to each of the selected articles.

The new edition has been extensively updated and expanded to reflect the latest thinking in each of the disciplinary and topical areas included, such as sustainable urban development, globalization, the impact of technology on cities, resilient cities, and urban theory. The seventh edition places greater emphasis on cities in the developing world, the global city system, and the future of cities in the digital transformation age. While retaining classic writings from authors such as Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and Louis Wirth, this edition also includes the best contemporary writings of, among others, Peter Hall, Manuel Castells, and Saskia Sassen. New material has been added on compact cities, urban history, placemaking, climate change, the world city network, smart cities, the new social exclusion, ordinary cities, gentrification, gender perspectives, regime theory, comparative urbanization, and the impact of technology on cities.

Bibliographic material has been completely updated and strengthened so that the seventh edition can serve as a reference volume orienting faculty and students to the most important writings of all the key topics in urban studies and planning. The City Reader provides the comprehensive mapping of the terrain of Urban Studies, old and new. It is essential reading for anyone interested in studying cities and city life.

part |8 pages

Prologue

part One|90 pages

The evolution of cities

chapter |12 pages

“The Urbanization of the Human Population”

Scientific American (1965)

chapter |9 pages

“The Urban Revolution”

Town Planning Review (1950)

chapter |11 pages

“The Realisation of Democracy: Athens”

from The City-State of the Greeks and Romans (1893)

chapter |9 pages

“City Origins” and “Cities and European Civilization”

from Medieval Cities (1925)

chapter |10 pages

“The Great Towns”

from The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845)

chapter |8 pages

“Urbanity versus Suburbanity: France and the United States”

from Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (1987)

chapter |10 pages

“Global City Network”

part Two|73 pages

Urban culture and society

chapter |5 pages

“The Urban Drama”

from The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (1961)

chapter |9 pages

“Urbanism as a Way of Life”

American Journal of Sociology (1938)

chapter |8 pages

“The Code of the Street” and “Decent and Street Families”

from Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999)

chapter |7 pages

“Spicing the City”

from Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US Big City (2000)

chapter |9 pages

“Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”

Journal of Democracy (1995)

chapter |10 pages

“The City as Innovation Machine”

Regional Studies, 51(1): 86–96 (2017)

chapter |11 pages

“The City That Lost Its Soul”

from Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places (2010)

part Three|91 pages

Urban space

chapter |9 pages

“The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project”

from Robert Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick D. McKenzie, The City (1925)

chapter |6 pages

“The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety”

from The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)

chapter |11 pages

“Gender and Urban Space”

Annual Review of Sociology (2014)

chapter |11 pages

“The Causes of Sprawl”

from Sprawl: A Compact History (2005)

part Four|103 pages

Urban politics, governance, and economics

chapter |10 pages

Selections from Politics

chapter |9 pages

“The Right to the City”

New Left Review (2008)

chapter |13 pages

“A Ladder of Citizen Participation”

Journal of the American Institute of Planners (1969)

chapter |14 pages

“The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City”

Harvard Business Review (1995)

chapter |12 pages

“The City as a Growth Machine: Towards a Political Economy of Place”

American Journal of Sociology (1976)

chapter |9 pages

“The City as a Distorted Price System”

Psychology Today (1968)

part Five|64 pages

Urban planning history and visions

chapter |7 pages

“Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns”

American Social Science Association (1870)

chapter |8 pages

“Author’s Introduction” and “The Town–Country Magnet”

from Garden Cities of To-morrow (1898/1902)

chapter |9 pages

“A Contemporary City”

from The City of Tomorrow and its Planning (1929)

chapter |6 pages

“Broadacre City: A New Community Plan”

Architectural Record (1935)

chapter |6 pages

“Towards Sustainable Development”

from Our Common Future (1987)

chapter |4 pages

“The Charter of the New Urbanism”

chapter |8 pages

“Green Manhattan: Everywhere Should Be More Like New York”

The New Yorker (2004)

chapter |8 pages

“The Almost Perfect Town”

Landscape (1952)

part Six|104 pages

Urban planning theory and practice

chapter |14 pages

“The City of Theory”

from Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, 4th edn (2014)

chapter |12 pages

“The Uses of Planning Theory”

Journal of Planning Education and Research (2008)

chapter |14 pages

“Planning in the Face of Conflict”

Journal of the American Planning Association (1987)

chapter |12 pages

“Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning”

Journal of the American Institute of Planners (1965)

chapter |13 pages

“The Smart City”

chapter |11 pages

“Hybrid Planning Cultures: The Search for the Global Cultural Commons”

from Comparative Planning Cultures (2005)

part Seven|66 pages

Urban design and placemaking

chapter |5 pages

“What is Placemaking?”

chapter |9 pages

“The Design of Spaces”

from City: Rediscovering the Center (1988)

chapter |13 pages

“The Neighborhood Unit”

from The Regional Plan of New York and its Environs (1929)

chapter |11 pages

“The City Image and its Elements”

from The Image of the City (1960)

chapter |12 pages

“Toward an Urban Design Manifesto”

Journal of the American Planning Association (1987)

chapter |10 pages

“Three Types of Outdoor Activities,” “Life Between Buildings,” and “Outdoor Activities and the Quality of Outdoor Space”

Selection from Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space, 6th edn (2011)

part Eight|107 pages

Urban futures and global challenges

chapter |9 pages

“The Impact of the New Technologies and Globalization on Cities”

from Arie Graafland and Deborah Hauptmann, eds., Cities in Transition (2001)

chapter |8 pages

“Key Findings and Messages”

The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003

chapter |11 pages

“The Place Where Everything Changes”

from Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping Our World (2010)

chapter |14 pages

“Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change”

Selections from Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change (2011)

chapter |13 pages

“Making Room for a Planet of Cities”

from Planet of Cities (2012)

chapter |11 pages

“World Cities, or a World of Ordinary Cities?”

from Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development (2006)

chapter |10 pages

“Spectral Kinshasa: Building the City through an Architecture of Words”

from Tim Edensor and Mark Jayne, eds., Urban Theory Beyond the West: A World of Cities (2012)