Urban History Books

New and Published Books

1. Living in the City

   Urban Institutions in the Low Countries, 1200–2010

   Edited by L.A.C.J. (Leo) Lucassen, W.H. (Wim) Willems

   Series: Routledge Studies in Cultural History

   The city is a place to find shelter, a market place, and an elevator for social mobility and success. But the city is also a place that frightens people and that can marginalize newcomers. Living in the City tries to understand what pulls people to the city since the High Middle Ages, focusing on...

   Published December 21st 2011 by Routledge
2. Staging the New Berlin

   Place Marketing and the Politics of Urban Reinvention Post-1989

   By Claire Colomb

   Series: Planning, History and Environment Series

   This book explores the politics of place marketing and the process of ‘urban reinvention’ in Berlin between 1989 and 2011. In the context of the dramatic socio-economic restructuring processes, changes in urban governance and physical transformation of the city following the Fall of the Wall, the ‘...

   Published November 20th 2011 by Routledge
3. Rights of Passage

   Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow

   By Nicholas Blomley

   Series: Social Justice

   Rights of Passage: Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow documents a powerful and under-researched form of urban governance that focuses on pedestrian flow. This logic, which Nicholas Blomley terms 'pedestrianism', values public space not in terms of its aesthetic merits, or its success in...

   Published October 5th 2011 by Routledge
4. City and Soul in Divided Societies

   By Scott Bollens

   Series: Planning, History and Environment Series

   In this unique book Scott A. Bollens combines personal narrative with academic analysis in telling the story of inflammatory nationalistic and ethnic conflict in nine cities – Jerusalem, Beirut, Belfast, Johannesburg, Nicosia, Sarajevo, Mostar, Bilbao, and Barcelona. Reporting on seventeen...

   Published September 6th 2011 by Routledge
5. Tower and Slab

   Histories of Global Mass Housing

   By Florian Urban

   Tower and Slab looks at the contradictory history of the modernist mass housing block - home to millions of city dwellers around the world. Few urban forms have roused as much controversy. While in the United States decades-long criticism caused the demolition of most mass housing projects for the...

   Published August 31st 2011 by Routledge
6. renovatio urbis

   Architecture, Urbanism and Ceremony in the Rome of Julius II

   By Nicholas Temple

   Series: The Classical Tradition in Architecture

   Examining the urban and architectural developments in Rome during the Pontificate of Julius II (1503–13) this book focuses on the political, religious and artistic motives behind the changes. Each chapter focuses on a particular project, from the Palazzo dei Tribunali to the Stanza della...

   Published April 20th 2011 by Routledge
7. Planning the Megacity

   Jakarta in the Twentieth Century

   By Christopher Silver

   Series: Planning, History and Environment Series

   Planning the Megacity examines the dramatic transformation of Jakarta over the past century. In 1900, the colonial capital of the Netherland Indies, then known as Batavia, was a compact city of approximately 150,000 inhabitants. During the next hundred years, but especially after 1950, it was...

   Published April 5th 2011 by Routledge
8. Patrick Geddes and Town Planning

   A Critical View

   By Noah Hysler-Rubin

   Patrick Geddes is considered a forefather of the modern urban planning movement. This book studies the various, and even opposing ways, in which Geddes has been interpreted up to this day, providing a new reading of his life, writing and plans. Geddes' scrutiny is presented as a case study for...

   Published January 12th 2011 by Routledge
9. Urban and Regional Planning

   By Peter Hall, Mark Tewdwr-Jones

   This is the fifth edition of the classic text for students of urban and regional planning. It gives an historical overview of the developments and changes in the theory and practice of planning, throughout the entire twentieth century. This extensively revised edition follows the successful format...

   Published November 11th 2010 by Routledge
10. The American Urban Reader

    History and Theory

    Edited by Steven H. Corey, Lisa Krissoff Boehm

    Series: Routledge Readers in History

    The American Urban Reader brings together the most exciting work on the evolution of the American city, from colonial settlement and western expansion to post-industrial cities and the growth of the suburbs. Each of the chronologically and thematically organized chapters includes thoughtfully...

    Published July 22nd 2010 by Routledge