1st Edition

Urban Utopias The Built and Social Architectures of Alternative Settlements

By Malcolm Miles Copyright 2008
268 Pages 33 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

268 Pages 33 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

272 Pages 33 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Utopia tends to generate a bad press - regarded as impracticable, perhaps nostalgic, or contradictory when visions of a perfect world cannot accommodate the change that is necessary to a free and self-organizing society. But people from diverse backgrounds are currently building a new society within the old, balancing literal and metaphorical utopianism, and demonstrating plural possibilities for... Read more

Introduction  Part 1: Histories and Theories  1. Imagining Places: Literary Utopias and the Far-Away  2. Drawing Lines: Modernity as Utopia  3. Planning Harmony: Fourier and Utopian Socialism  Part 2: Practices  4. New Cities  5. Social Utopias  6. Ecotopias: Frameworks  7. Ecotopias: Practices  Part 3: Horizons  8. Mud-Brick Utopias  9. A Barefoot Society  Part 4: Short Case Studies  Case 1: Economy, Pennsylvania, USA  Case 2: Arcosanti, Arizona, USA  Case 3: Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India  Case 4: Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark  Case 5: Ufa-fabrik, Berlin, Germany  Case 6: Uzupio, Vilnius, Lithuania  Case 7: Cambridge Co-Housing, Massachusetts, USA  Case 8: Ecovillage at Ithaca, New York State, USA  Case 9: Z.E.G.G, Belzig, Germany.  Conclusion

Biography

Malcolm Miles is Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Plymouth, UK, where he convenes the Critical Spaces Research Group and coordinates a research methods programme for the Faculty of Arts.