The Questioning Cities series brings together an unusual mix of urban scholars under the title. Rather than taking a broadly economic approach, planning approach or more socio-cultural approach, it aims to include titles from a multi-disciplinary field of those interested in critical urban analysis. The series thus includes authors who draw on contemporary social, urban and critical theory to explore different aspects of the city. It is not therefore a series made up of books which are largely case-studies of different cities and predominantly descriptive. It seeks instead to extend current debates, through in most cases, excellent empirical work, and to develop sophisticated understandings of the city from a number of disciplines including geography, sociology, politics, planning, cultural studies, philosophy and literature. The series also aims to be thoroughly international where possible, to be innovative, to surprise, and to challenge received wisdom in urban studies. Overall, it will encourage a multi-disciplinary and international dialogue always bearing in mind that simple description or empirical observation, which is not located within a broader theoretical framework, would not - for this series at least - be enough.
Edited
By Peter Marcuse, James Connolly, Johannes Novy, Ingrid Olivo, Cuz Potter, Justin Steil
April 10, 2011
Cities are many things. Among their least appealing aspects, cities are frequently characterized by concentrations of insecurity and exploitation. Cities have also long represented promises of opportunity and liberation. Public decision-making in contemporary cities is full of conflict, and ...
By David Wilson
October 31, 2006
This fascinating book examines the 1990s rise of a new black ghetto in rust belt America, 'the global ghetto'. It uses the emergent perspective of 'racial economy' to delineate a fundamental proposition; historically neglected and marginalized black ghettos, in a 1990s era of societal boom and...
By David Bell, Mark Jayne
August 23, 2006
Until now, much research in the field of urban planning and change has focused on the economic, political, social, cultural and spatial transformations of global cities and larger metropolitan areas. In this topical new volume, David Bell and Mark Jayne redress this balance, focusing on urban ...
Edited
By Christoph Lindner
April 19, 2006
From the verticals of New York, Hong Kong and Singapore to the sprawls of London, Paris and Jakarta, this interdisciplinary volume of new writing examines constructions, representations, imaginations and theorizations of 'cityscapes' in modern and contemporary culture. With specially-commissioned ...
Edited
By Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika, Erik Swyngedouw
January 20, 2006
The social and material production of urban nature has recently emerged as an important area in urban studies, human/environmental interactions and social studies. This has been prompted by the recognition that the material conditions that comprise urban environments are not independent from social...
By Gary Bridge
December 30, 2004
In the modernist city rationality ruled and subsumed difference in a logic of identity. In the postmodern city, reason is abandoned for an endless play of difference. Reason in the City of Difference poses an alternative to these extremes by drawing on classical American philosophical pragmatism (...