Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe(Historical Urban Studies Series)

The field of urban environmental history is a relatively new one, yet it is rapidly moving to the forefront of scholarly research and is the focus of much interdisciplinary work. Given the environmental problems facing the modern world it is perhaps unsurprising that historians, geographers, political, natural and social scientists should increasingly look at the environmental problems faced by previous generations, and how they were regarded and responded to. This volume reflects this growing concern, and reflects many of the key concerns and issues that are essential to our understanding of the problems faced by cities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Addressing a variety of environmental issues, such as clean water supply, the provision/retention of green space, and noise pollution, that faced European and North American cities the essays in this volume highlight the common responses as well as the differences that characterised the reactions to these transnational concerns.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Resources of the City: towards a European urban environmental history, Dieter Schott; A metabolic approach to the city: 19th and 20th century Paris, Sabine Barles; Urban horses and Changing City-Hinterland Relationships in the United States, Joel A. Tarr and Clay McShane; 'Returning to nature': vacation and life style in the Montréal region, Michèle Dagenais; Citizens in Pursuit of Nature: Gardens, Allotments and Private Space in European cities, 1850-2000, Helen Meller; Sustainable Naples: the Disappearance of Nature as a Resource, Gabriella Corona; The struggle for urban space: Nantes and Clermont-Ferrand, 1830-1930, Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud; Sanitate Crescamus: Water Supply, Sewage Disposal and Environmental Values in a Victorian suburb, Nicholas Goddard; Resource Management and Environmental Transformations. Water Incorporation at the Time of Industrialization: Milan, 1880-1940, Simone Neri Serneri; Constructing Urban Infrastructure for Multiple Resource Management: Sewerage Systems in the Industrialization of the Rhineland, Germany, Ulrich Koppitz; Towards the Socialist Sanitary City: Urban Water Problems in East German new towns, 1945-70, Christoph Bernhardt; Experts and water quality in Paris in 1870, Laurence Lestel; Noise Abatement and the Search for Quiet Space in the Modern City, Michael Toyka-Seid; Environmental Justice, History and the City: The United States and Britain, 1970-2000, Bill Luckin; 'In Stadt und Land': Differences and Convergences between Urban and Local Environmentalism in West Germany, 1950-80, Jens Ivo Engels; Path Dependence and Urban History: Is a Marriage Possible?, Martin V. Melosi; Index.

About the Author :
Dieter Schott is a Professor at the History Department of Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. Bill Luckin is a Research Professor in Urban History at Bolton Institute, UK. Dr Genevieve Massard-Guilbaud works at the Universite de Clermont-Ferrand, France. Dieter Schott, Sabine Barles, Joel A. Tarr, Clay McShane, Michele Dagenais, Helen Meller, Gabriella Corona, Genevieve Massard-Guilbaud, Nicholas Goddard, Simone Neri Serneri, Ulrich Koppitz, Christoph Bernhardt, Laurence Lestel, Michael Toyka-Seid, Bill Luckin, Jens Ivo Engels, Martin V. Melosi.

Review :
'... this is a great book on what I hope is a rapidly emerging field.' H-NET Review ’This ground-breaking book brings together a constellation of stars in urban environmental history. Readers will recognise the authors in this collection as leaders in the field.’ Urban Studies