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Discussion: Urban studies (new titles for 2009)
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GregoryKlages |
Urban studies (new titles for 2009)
Jan 14 2009, 12:10 PM EST
Items in this thread concern the planning and history of cities, and related issues throughout the history of the United States. NeoAmericanist journal seeks reviewers for all of the items listed in this thread, all of which have been posted in 2009. For more information on becoming a reviewer, please follow the “How to Submit A Review” link to the left. For additional listings pertaining to this theme, please see threads that might overlap.
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GregoryKlages |
1. Chicago Made: Factory Networks in the Industrial Metropolis
Jan 14 2009, 12:12 PM EST
Chicago Made: Factory Networks in the Industrial MetropolisAuthor: Robert Lewis 364 pages, 24 halftones, 17 maps, 30 tables 6 x 9 © 2008 ISBN: 9780226477015 Published December 2008 University of Chicago Press From the lumberyards and meatpacking factories of the Southwest Side to the industrial suburbs that arose near Lake Calumet at the turn of the twentieth century, manufacturing districts shaped Chicago’s character and laid the groundwork for its transformation into a sprawling metropolis. Approaching Chicago’s story as a reflection of America’s industrial history between the Civil War and World War II, Chicago Made explores not only the well-documented workings of centrally located city factories but also the overlooked suburbanization of manufacturing and its profound effect on the metropolitan landscape. For more info, reviewers should visit: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=305867 Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
2. Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia
Jan 14 2009, 12:41 PM EST
The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in PhiladelphiaAuthor: Guian A. McKee 400 pages, 26 halftones, 3 maps, 2 tables 6 x 9 © 2008 Cloth ISBN: 9780226560120 Published November 2009 University of Chicago Press Contesting claims that postwar American liberalism retreated from fights against unemployment and economic inequality, The Problem of Jobs reveals that such efforts did not collapse after the New Deal but instead began to flourish at the local, rather than the national, level. With a focus on Philadelphia, this volume illuminates the central role of these local political and policy struggles in shaping the fortunes of city and citizen alike. In the process, it tells the remarkable story of how Philadelphia’s policymakers and community activists energetically worked to challenge deindustrialization through an innovative series of job retention initiatives, training programs, inner-city business development projects, and early affirmative action programs. Without ignoring the failure of Philadelphians to combat institutionalized racism, Guian McKee's account of their surprising success draws a portrait of American liberalism that evinces a potency not usually associated with the postwar era. Ultimately interpreting economic decline as an arena for intervention rather than a historical inevitability, The Problem of Jobs serves as a timely reminder of policy’s potential to combat injustice. For more info, reviewers should visit: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=308917 Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
3. Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic
Jan 26 2009, 11:25 AM EST
Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American RepublicAuthor: Dell Upton Jul 28, 2008 416 p., 7 x 10 144 b/w + 20 color illus. Yale University Press In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, burgeoning American cities like New Orleans and Philadelphia seemed increasingly chaotic. Noise, odors, and a feverish level of activity on the streets threatened to overwhelm the senses. Growing populations placed new demands on every aspect of the urban landscape—streets, parks, schools, asylums, cemeteries, markets, waterfronts, and more. In this unique exploration of the early history of urban architecture and design, leading architectural historian Dell Upton reveals the fascinating confluence of sociological, cultural, and psychological factors that shaped American cities in the antebellum years. Through contemporary travel accounts, diaries, and correspondence, as well as maps, architectural drawings, paintings, and prints—many previously unpublished--Upton investigates not only how buildings were designed, streets were laid out, and urban space was put to use, but also why. He offers original insights into the way cities were imagined, and an extensive selection of illustrations recreates the various features of the urban landscape in the nineteenth century. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300124880 Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
4. Ethnic Amusements in New York, 1880–1920
Jan 26 2009, 11:27 AM EST
The Immigrant Scene: Ethnic Amusements in New York, 1880–1920Author: Sabine Haenni University of Minnesota Press | 336 pages | 2008 paper ISBN 978-0-8166-4982-2 Sabine Haenni reveals how theaters in New York created ethnic entertainment that shaped the culture of the United States in the early twentieth century. In analyzing how communities engaged with immigrant theaters and the nascent film culture in New York City, Haenni traces the ways in which performance and cinema provided virtual mobility and influenced national ideas of immigration, culture, and diversity in surprising ways. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/H/haenni_immigrant.html Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
5. Making Cities Work: Prospects and Policies for Urban America
Feb 5 2009, 11:31 AM EST
Making Cities Work: Prospects and Policies for Urban AmericaEdited by Robert P. Inman Paper | 2009 | 378 pp. | 6 x 9 | 53 line illus. 36 tables. Princeton University Press Making Cities Work brings together leading writers and scholars on urban America to offer critical perspectives on how to sustain prosperous, livable cities in today's fast-evolving economy. Successful cities provide jobs, quality schools, safe and clean neighborhoods, effective transportation, and welcoming spaces for all residents. But cities must be managed well if they are to remain attractive places to work, relax, and raise a family; otherwise residents, firms, and workers will leave and the social and economic advantages of city living will be lost. Drawing on cutting-edge research in the social sciences, the contributors explore optimal ways to manage the modern city and propose solutions to today's most pressing urban problems. Topics include the urban economy, transportation, housing and open space, immigration, race, the impacts of poverty on children, education, crime, and financing and managing services. The contributors show how to make cities work for diverse urban constituencies, and why we still need cities despite the many challenges they pose. Making Cities Work brings the latest findings in urban economics to policymakers, researchers, and students, as well as anyone interested in urban affairs. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8915.html Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
6. The National Mall: Rethinking Washington’s Monumental Core
Feb 11 2009, 8:13 AM EST
The National Mall: Rethinking Washington’s Monumental CoreEdited by Nathan Glazer and Cynthia R. Field; foreword by James F. Cooper. 978-0-8018-8805-2 2008 232 pp. 66 halftones The National Mall in Washington, D.C., has held an important place in the American psyche since the early nineteenth century. Home to monuments and museums dedicated to the ideals upon which the United States rests, the Mall serves as a gathering place for public protest and celebration. But as the nation ages and the population diversifies, demands for additional structures and uses have sparked debates over the Mall's future and the necessity of preserving its legacy and the vision of its designers. The National Mall addresses these issues with a novel and compelling collection of essays, the work of leading design professionals, historians, and social scientists. Supplemented by eye-catching illustrations and photographs, this cross-disciplinary examination follows the discussion over the Mall's design and use, from its conceptual origins as part of Pierre Charles L'Enfant's vision for the capital to the 1902 McMillan Plan to the present day and beyond. It assesses how architectural, societal, and political changes have altered the park-like space between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial and explores the influence that disparate interest groups and creeping corporatism have already had on—and are likely to exert upon—America's public square. The National Mall presents an overarching account of how a democratic society plans, creates, and expands a national ceremonial space, opening the way for a broadly based inquiry into the Mall as it was, is, and will become. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/9625.html Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
7. Building San Francisco's Parks, 1850–1930
Feb 11 2009, 8:19 AM EST
Building San Francisco's Parks, 1850–1930 Author: Terence Young 978-0-8018-8981-3 2008 280 pp. 80 halftones Johns Hopkins University Press In 1865, when San Francisco's Daily Evening Bulletin asked its readers if it were not time for the city to finally establish a public park, residents had only private gardens and small urban squares where they could retreat from urban crowding, noise, and filth. Five short years later, city supervisors approved the creation of Golden Gate Park, the second largest urban park in America. Over the next sixty years, and particularly after 1900, a network of smaller parks and parkways was built, turning San Francisco into one of the nation's greenest cities. In Building San Francisco's Parks, 1850-1930, Terence Young traces the history of San Francisco's park system, from the earliest city plans, which made no provision for a public park, through the private garden movement of the 1850s and 1860, Frederick Law Olmsted's early involvement in developing a comprehensive parks plan, the design and construction of Golden Gate Park, and finally to the expansion of green space in the first third of the twentieth century. Young documents this history in terms of the four social ideals that guided America's urban park advocates and planners in this period: public health, prosperity, social coherence, and democratic equality. He also differentiates between two periods in the history of American park building, each defined by a distinctive attitude towards "improving" nature: the romantic approach, which prevailed from the 1860s to the 1880s, emphasized the beauty of nature, while the rationalistic approach, dominant from the 1880s to the 1920s, saw nature as the best setting for uplifting activities such as athletics and education. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/1254.html Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
8. Relearning from Las Vegas
Apr 2 2009, 9:37 AM EDT
Relearning from Las VegasAron Vinegar and Michael J. Golec, editors 208 pages | 27 b&w photos | 7 x 10 | 2008 University of Minnesota Press Immediately on its publication in 1972, Learning from Las Vegas, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, was hailed as a transformative work in the history and theory of architecture, liberating those in architecture who were trying to find a way out of the straitjacket of architectural orthodoxies. Resonating far beyond the professional and institutional boundaries of the field, the book contributed to a thorough rethinking of modernism and was subsequently taken up as an early manifestation and progenitor of postmodernism. Going beyond analyzing the original text, the essays provide insights into the issues surrounding architecture, culture, and philosophy that have been influenced by Learning from Las Vegas. For the contributors, as for scholars in an array of fields, the pioneering book is as relevant to architectural debates today as it was when it was first published. Contributors: Ritu Bhatt, Karsten Harries, Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, John McMorrough, Katherine Smith, Dell Upton, Nigel Whitely. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/V/vinegar_relearning.html Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
9. Chicago Youths &... Struggle for Empowerment... 1908-1969
May 11 2009, 9:59 AM EDT
Mean Streets: Chicago Youths and the Everyday Struggle for Empowerment in the Multiracial City, 1908-1969Author: Andrew J. Diamond 416 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 13 b/w photographs, 3 maps June 2009, Available worldwide University of California Press Mean Streets focuses on the streets, parks, schools, and commercial venues of Chicago from the era of the 1919 race riot to the civil rights battles of the 1960s to cast a new light on street gangs and to place youths at the center of the twentieth-century American experience. Andrew J. Diamond breaks new ground by showing that teens and young adults stood at the vanguard of grassroots mobilizations in working-class Chicago, playing key roles in the formation of racial identities as they defended neighborhood boundaries. Drawing from a wide range of sources to capture the experiences of young Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Italians, Poles, and others in the multiracial city, Diamond argues that Chicago youths gained a sense of themselves in opposition to others. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10638.php Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
10. My Kind of Transit: Rethinking Public Transportation in America
May 11 2009, 10:16 AM EDT
My Kind of Transit: Rethinking Public Transportation in AmericaAuthor: Darrin Nordahl 176 pages, 48 color plates 6-3/4 x 9 University of Chicago Press, distributed for the Center for American Places. In America’s car-dominated landscape, public transit has long played second fiddle, but rising gasoline prices and the global warming crisis point to a need for alternative means of transportation. Darrin Nordahl sets the stage for these efforts by proposing that the experience of public transit and the quality of the ride are pivotal to the success of public transit. My Kind of Transit explores America’s most beloved transit systems and how they work. From San Francisco’s cable cars to Pittsburgh’s funiculars to the streetcars of New Orleans, Nordahl recounts a transportation history of both short-sighted planning and visionary policies, and reveals that current American transit systems contain many key elements for successfully expanding public transport. My Kind of Transit explains the characteristics of ideal transit, or “passenger enrichment,” such as transit vehicles that offer views of the surrounding landscape and systems that enable diverse peoples to interact. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=336803 Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
11. Memphis and the Paradox of Place: Globalization in the American South
Oct 30 2009, 11:26 AM EDT
Memphis and the Paradox of Place: Globalization in the American SouthBy Wanda Rushing 272 pgs., 2 illus., Sept. 2009 University of North Carolina Press Celebrated as the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll, Memphis, Tennessee, is where Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and other musical legends got their starts. It is also a place of conflict and tragedy--the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination--and a city typically marginalized by scholars and underestimated by its own residents. Using this iconic southern city as a case study, Wanda Rushing explores the significance of place in a globalizing age. Challenging the view that globalization renders place generic or insignificant, Rushing argues that cultural and economic distinctiveness persists in part because of global processes, not in spite of them. Rushing weaves her analysis into stories about the history and global impact of blues music, the social and racial complexities of Cotton Carnival, and the global rise of FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. She portrays Memphis as a site of cultural creativity and global industry--a city whose traditions, complex past, and specific character have had an influence on culture worldwide. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1634 Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
12. The Restoration of Virginia's Eighteenth-Century Capital
Nov 2 2009, 12:37 PM EST
Creating Colonial Williamsburg: The Restoration of Virginia's Eighteenth-Century CapitalAuthor: Anders Greenspan 240 pp., 6 x 9, 30 illus., notes, bibl., index University of North Carolina Press In Creating Colonial Williamsburg, Anders Greenspan examines the restoration and re-creation of the structures and gardens of Virginia's colonial capital beginning in 1926. The restoration was undertaken by the Rockefeller family, whose aim was to promote a twentieth-century appreciation for eighteenth-century ideals. Ironically, those ideals, including democracy, individualism, and representative government, were often promoted at the expense of a more complete understanding of the town's true history. The meaning and purpose of Colonial Williamsburg has changed over time, along with America's changing social and political landscapes, making the study of this historic site a unique and meaningful entry point to understanding the shifting modern American character. In recent years, financial struggles and declining attendance forced a new interpretation of the town, extending the presentation into the period of the American Revolution, while adding new interpretive approaches such as street theater and a greater emphasis on technology. Over its eighty-year history, says Greenspan, Colonial Williamsburg has grown and matured, while still retaining its emphasis on the importance of eighteenth-century values and their application in the modern world. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1664 Do you find this valuable? |
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GregoryKlages |
13. Land Use, Policing, and the Restoration of Urban America
Nov 27 2009, 2:46 PM EST
Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing, and the Restoration of Urban AmericaAuthor: Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 02, 2009 288 p., 6 1/8 x 9 1/4; 9 b/w illus. Yale University Press This timely and important book highlights the multiple, often overlooked, and frequently misunderstood connections between land use and development policies and policing practices. In order to do so, the book draws upon multiple literatures—especially law, history, economics, sociology, and psychology—as well as concrete case studies to better explore how these policy arenas, generally treated as completely unrelated, intersect and conflict. Nicole Stelle Garnett identifies different types of urban “disorder,” some that may be precursors to serious crime and social deviancy, others that may be benign or even contribute positively to urban vitality. The book’s unique approach—to analyze city policies through the lens of order and disorder—provides a clearer understanding, generally, of how cities work (and why they sometimes do not), and specifically, of what disorder is and how it affects city life. For more info, NeoAmericanist reviewers should visit: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300124941 Do you find this valuable? |
