Understanding the City: Contemporary and Future Perspectives

This pioneering, multi–disciplinary analysis looks ahead to the direction which the study of urban society is likely to take. Leading researchers from sociology, geography, anthropology, and cultural studies examine the research issues that emerged during the 1990s, particularly from political economy and ′cultural turn′ perspectives. Their exploration reveals both how urban studies have fragmented, and how a new middle ground for future debate and research has arisen.
The volume brings together theoretical discussion of urban studies with analysis of urban processes at both regional and local levels around the globe. It enables readers to assess the degree to which differing perspectives have produced dynamic diversity as well as areas of mutual interest, creating exciting possibilities for urban studies locally and globally.

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

Nota biograficzna:

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< /b> 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.

Okładka tylna:
This pioneering, multi–disciplinary analysis looks ahead to the direction which the study of urban society is likely to take. Leading researchers from sociology, geography, anthropology, and cultural studies examine the research issues that emerged during the 1990s, particularly from political economy and ′cultural turn′ perspectives. Their exploration reveals both how urban studies have fragmented, and how a new middle ground for future debate and research has arisen.
The volume brings together theoretical discussion of urban studies with analysis of urban processes at both regional and local levels around the globe. It enables readers to assess the degree to which differing perspectives have produced dynamic diversity as well as areas of mutual interest, creating exciting possibilities for urban studies locally and globally.