City Life, which I just finished reading, is an excellent survey of general urban planning trends that attempts (and largely achieves) to answer the question: Why aren't our (North American) cities like theirs (European)? Witold Rybczynski, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, lays out the key concepts that shaped cities in the United States and Canada and discusses why cities developed as they did, within the political and economic frameworks of their time.
Having lived in several cities: Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Albuquerque, Ithaca (NY), San Francisco, and New York City (twice now), for both months and years at a time, I can certainly appreciate the different factors that influence urban development. For instance, having grown up a stone's throw from the elegantly rational (in street layout only) nation's capital, I find cities like New Orleans and San Francisco to be oddly perplexing, with their design shaped so much by geographic features of the terrain on which they stand. And of course, like everything, cities are so political.
One of the (many) thought-provoking points that Rybcyznski makes in City Life is that because America is largely founded on the principle that equality and democracy are our greatest values, these values also impress themselves upon city planning, the arts, and almost every major aspect of our culture. Access, in the end, determines outcome. Hence, shopping malls.
Along those lines, I'm reminded of sort of tangentially related, but very interesting Artsjournal critical essay by William Osborne that discusses the differences in funding for the arts in the U.S. and Europe, and offers some potential explanations: Marketplace of Ideas: But First, The Bill.
City Life is excellent, and I highly recommend it, if that's your sort of thing. Rybcyznski has written several other well-regarded books exploring similar topics, and his Home: A Short History of an Idea is the one I'll probably check out next. Also on my short list, The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg. And, if you're a Financial Times subscriber, check out this article about urban activist Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, that Elizabeth noted at the Cupcake blog.
Not too long ago, I read an interesting article in Smithsonian magazine about Arcosanti, a utopian community that has had trouble sustaining itself. I'm all for architecture changing (and adapting to) the way we live, but I'm not sure why the middle of the Arizona desert would appeal to anyone but the most die-hard believers.
Right now I've just started The Seven Ages of Paris, by Alistair Horne. It's a history of the city of Paris that is fairly dripping with scandal and intrigue from page one -- certainly the type of tome I treasure.
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