The American Cities and Technology Reader: Wilderness to Wired City(Cities and Technology)

Cities and Technology , a series of three textbooks and three readers, explores one of the most fundamental changes in the history of human society: the transition from predominantly rural to urban ways of living. This series presents a new social history of technology, using primarily urban settings as a source of historical evidence and a focus for the interpretation of the historical relations of technology and society. Drawing on perspectives and writings from across a number of disciplines involved in urban historical studies (archaeology, urban history, historical geography, architectural history and environmental history), the books in this series explore: how towns and cities have been shaped by applications of a range of technologies; the social origins of technology; and how such technological applications have been influenced by their social contexts, including politics, economics, culture and the environment. The American Cities and Technology Reader is designed to be used on its own or as a companion volume to the American Cities and Technology textbook. Chronologically, this volume ranges from the earliest technological dimensions of Amerindian settlements to the 'wired city' concept of the 1960s and internet communications of the 1990s. Geographically, its focus is the continental United States, and the majority of the readings selected deal with American cases. However, the context for the study of modern electronic communications in relation to cities transcends national boundaries just as the technologies themselves do; consequently, the contents of some of the later texts in the volume extend to global coverage. Among the issues discussed are the rise of the skyscraper, the coming of the automobile age, relations between private and public transport, the development of infrastructural technologies and systems, the implications of electronic communications and the emergence of city planning. The principal cities featured are New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Table of Contents:
Introduction1. The Indian Legacy in the American Landscape Karl W. Butzer 2. Spanish Legacy in the Borderlands David Hornbeck 3. the Laws of the Indies John W. Reps 4. St Augustine, Florida John W. Reps 5. Mission, Presidio and Pueblo in California John W. Reps 6. French Landscapes in North America Cole Harris 7. New Orleans John W. Reps 8. The Northeast and the Making of American Geographical Habits Peirce F. Lewis 9. Timber Framing in Colonial America Carl W. Condit 10. Masonry Construction in Colonial America Carl W. Condit 11. Chicago: Nature's Metropolis William Cronon 12. Comparitive Perspectives on Transit in Europe and the United States, 1850-1914 John P. McKay 13. The Trolley and Suburbanization Kenneth T. Jackson 14. The Revolution in Street Pavements Clay McShane 15. The Decentralization of Los Angeles during the 1920s Mark S. Foster 16. The Minimum House Greg Hise 17. Light, Height, and Site: The Skyscraper in Chicago Carol Willis 18. Decisions about Wastewater Technology; 1850-1932 Joel Tarr 19. Refuse Pollution and Municipal Reform: The Waste Problem in America, 1880-1917 Martin Melosi 20. The Best Lighted City in the World: The Construction of a Noctural Landscape in Chicago Mark J. Bouman 21. Regional Planning for the Great American Metropolis: New York between the World Wars David A. Johnson 22. Transport: Maker and Breaker of Cities Colin Clark 23. Order in Diversity: Community without Propinquity Melvin W. Webber 24. Squaring the Circle: Can We Resolve the Clarkian Paradox? Peter Hall 25. New Highways James Martin 26. Telecommunications and the Changing Geographies of Knowledge Transmission in the Late 20th Century Barney Warf 27. Cities and their Airports: Policy Formation, 1926-1952 Paul Barrett 28. The Growth of the City Ernest W. Burgess 29. Boston's Highway 128: High-Technology Reindustrialization Manuel Castells and Peter Hall 30. The Role of Information Technology in the Planning and Development of Singapore Kenneth E. Corey 31. Continuity and Change in Conceptions of the Wired City William H. Dutton, Jay G. Blumler and Kenneth L. Kraemer