Understanding the City: Contemporary and Future Perspectives(IJURR Studies in Urban and Social Change Book Series)

This cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary analysis looks ahead to the direction which urban studies is likely to take during the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations viii List of Tables ix List of Contributors x Series Editors’ Preface xv Preface xvii Part I: Introduction 1 1 Understanding the City 3 John Eade and Christopher Mele Part II: A Middle Ground? Difference, Social Justice, and the City 25 2 Rescripting Cities with Difference 27 Ruth Fincher, Jane M. Jacobs, and Kay Anderson 3 The Public City 49 Sophie Watson 4 Social Justice and the South African City 66 David M. Smith 5 The Dangerous Others: Changing Views on Urban Risks and Violence in France and the United States 82 Sophie Body-Gendrot Part III: The Global and Local, the Information Age, and American Metropolitan Development 107 6 Power in Place: Retheorizing the Local and the Global 109 Michael Peter Smith 7 Depoliticizing Globalization: From Neo-Marxism to the Network Society of Manuel Castells 131 Peter Marcuse 8 Urban Analysis as Merchandising: The “LA School” and the Understanding of Metropolitan Development 159 Mark Gottdiener Part IV: Urban Research in Particular Regions of the Globe 181 9 State Socialism, Post-socialism, and their Urban Patterns: Theorizing the Central and Eastern European Experience 183 Chris Pickvance 10 The China Difference: City Studies Under Socialism and Beyond 204 Dorothy J. Solinger and Kam Wing Chan 11 Economic Miracles and Megacities: The Japanese Model and Urbanization in East and Southeast Asia 222 J. S. Eades Part V: Urban Processes and City Contexts: India and the Middle East 245 12 Cities of the Past and Cities of the Future: Theorizing the Indian Metropolis of Bangalore 247 Smriti Srinivas 13 The Syntax of Jerusalem: Urban Morphology, Culture, and Power 278 Shlomo Hasson 14 Muslim Civil Society in Urban Public Spaces: Globalization, Discursive Shifts, and Social Movements 305 Paul M. Lubeck and Bryana Britts Part VI: Urban Processes and City Contexts: The United States 337 15 The Bullriders of Silicon Alley: New Media Circuits of Innovation, Speculation, and Urban Development 339 Michael Indergaard 16 Fear and Lusting in Las Vegas and New York: Sex, Political Economy, and Public Space 363 Alexander J. Reichl 17 Efficacy or Legitimacy of Community Power? A Reassessment of Corporate Elites in Urban Studies 379 Leonard Nevarez 18 Dream Factory Redux: Mass Culture, Symbolic Sites, and Redevelopment in Hollywood 397 Jan Lin Index 419

About the Author :
John Eade is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Surrey, Roehampton. He undertook research in Calcutta before completing his doctorate on Bangladeshi community politics in London's East End. He directed the Wandsworth local/global study and his previous publications include The Politics of Community (1989), Living the Global City (1997), and Placing London (2000). He is currently directing a research project on Methodists in the global city and collaborating on an ESRC-funded program on links between Britain and Bangladesh. Christopher Mele is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City (2000). His current research is a study of the influence of historical patterns of race and class upon contemporary urban growth and development along the southeastern coast of the United States.

Review :
"Many anthologies on the city exist, but only a few contain both cutting-edge theoretical essays and rich empirical studies. The latter focus on cities outside the Western urban canon and will make Understanding the City even more attractive to urban scholars." Professor R. Beauregard, New School University Understanding the city is an engaging read for those grappling with new theoretical and conceptual questions about how cities function.....the essays in this book provide an excellent foundation for new levels of discourse on urban enviroments and city life." Area