The metropolis is a site of endless making and unmaking. From the attempt to imagine a 'city-symphony' to the cinematic tradition that runs from Walter Ruttmann to Terence Davies, Restless Cities traces the idiosyncratic character of the metropolitan city from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first-century megalopolis. With explorations of phenomena including nightwalking, urbicide, property, commuting and recycling, this wide-ranging new book identifies and traces the pattern...

In his classic sequence of films, Patrick Keiller retraces the hidden story of the places where we live, the cities and landscapes of our everyday lives. This collection explores the surrealist perception of the city; the relationship of architecture to film; how cities change over time, as well as an urgent portrait of post-crash Britain. The View from the Train establishes Keiller as one of the most perceptive writers and thinkers about the city, landscape and politics.

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEARBased on an unprecedented eighteen-year study, the center of this riveting book are three engaging streetwise brothers who provide powerful testimony to the exigencies of life lived on the social and economic margins. With profound lessons regarding the intersection of social forces and individual choices, Black succeeds in putting a human face on some of the most important public policy issues of our time.

In this eye-opening work of economic theory, Jane Jacobs argues that it is cities—not nations—that are the drivers of wealth. Challenging centuries of economic orthodoxy, in Cities and the Wealth of Nations the beloved author contends that healthy cities are constantly evolving to replace imported goods with locally-produced alternatives, spurring a cycle of vibrant economic growth. Intelligently argued and drawing on examples from around the world and across the ages, here Jacobs...

Our towns and cities are saturated with the imagery of commerce and advertising, but alongside it a new creative phenomenon is demanding our attention: art, on the street, available for everyone to see. Banksy, Blek le Rat, Os Gêmeos and JR are just some of the major practitioners whose works are showcased in this book. From huge murals to exquisite miniature art that can easily be missed, the examples here are powerful expressions of what it is to be a modern human living in an urban land...

Violent urban schools loom large in our culture: for decades they have served as the centerpieces of political campaigns and as window dressing for brutal television shows and movies. Yet unequal access to quality schools remains the single greatest failing of our society—and one of the most hotly debated issues of our time. Of all the usual words used to describe non-selective city schools—segregated, unequal, violent—none comes close to characterizing their systemic dysfunction in high-p...

Few cities are so dramatically identified with their environment as San Francisco—the landscape of hills, the expansive bay, the engulfing fog, and even the deadly fault line shifting below. Yet most residents think of the city itself as separate from the natural environment on which it depends. In Our Better Nature, Philip J. Dreyfus recounts the history of San Francisco from Indian village to world-class metropolis, focusing on the interactions between the city and the land and ...

Winner of the EDRA book prize for 2012.In cities around the world, individuals and groups are reclaiming and creating urban sites, temporary spaces and informal gathering places. These ‘insurgent public spaces’ challenge conventional views of how urban areas are defined and used, and how they can transform the city environment. No longer confined to traditional public areas like neighbourhood parks and public plazas, these guerrilla spaces express the alternative s...

Contemporary city and suburban dwellers are constantly on the move. Does this mean they lack a sense of belonging to their neighbourhoods, or does enhanced mobility co-exist with feelings of community and belonging? This collection examines these questions through a unique series of neighbourhood-based global case studies.

The figure of the stranger is in serious need of revision, as is our understanding of the society against which the stranger is projected. Under conditions of globalization, inside/outside markers have been eroded and conventional indicators of 'we-ness' are no longer reliable. We now live in a generalized state of strangeness, one consequence of globalization: we no longer know where our community ends and another one begins. In such circumstances it is often the case that neighbours are ...

The Ever-Changing American City seeks to help readers understand the marked changes since 1945 in what constitutes a city in the United States and who lives and works in them. The story of the postwar American city is not a simple tale of decline and rebirth. Nor is it a straightforward account of the struggle between the old urban core or central business district and the suburbs on the urban periphery, for both have had their economic ups and downs. In the decades after World War II, the...