The past 10 years have seen the publication of a whole range of books from the US dealing with the loss of place in one way or the other. The books under review were, in general, written for broad audiences and are, in many cases, campaign documents. Their success and substantial number indicate an unease, which many academic texts cannot formulate. They are in this way evidence, in just the same way as were The Death and Life of Great American Cities or Edge City. This European-based review will critically review these recent books in an attempt to highlight their common threads. While the books show particular concern for the poverty of current urban and suburban environments, they lack any substantial discussion of the economic mechanisms which are reproducing the undesired results. They are also unaware of the recent developments in communications and transport technologies, which have considerable potential to influence future trends, which will be discussed in the review. Also included in the review are a number of transport-oriented books, as they formulate a different aspect of the same concern about the built environment.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aasho (1973) A Policy on Design of Urban Highways and Arterial Streets. Washington, DC : AASHO.
2.
Barnett, J. (1995) The Fractured Metropolis: Improving the New City, Restoring the Old City and Reshaping the Region. New York : Harper Collins.
3.
Blakely, E. and Snyder, M.S. (1997) Fortress America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
4.
Brandes-Gratz, R. and Mintz, N. (1998) Cities Back from the Edge: New Life forDowntown. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
5.
Buchanan, C., Cooper, G.H.C., Macewen, A. ET AL. (1963) Traffic in Towns. London : HMSO.
6.
Cairncross, F. (1995) The death of distance: a survey of telecommunications , The Economist, 336, p. 7934.
7.
Calthorpe, P. (1993) The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community and the American Dream. New York: PrincetonArchitectural Press.
8.
Canzler, W. and Knie, A. (1998) Möglichkeitsraume: Grundrisse einer modernen Mobilitäts- und Verkehrs-politik . Wien: Bohlau .
9.
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
10.
Congress For The New Urbanism (2000) Charter of the New Urbanism: Region, Neighbourhood, District and Corridor, Block, Street and Building. New York: McGraw-Hill.
11.
Davis, M. (1990) City of Quartz. New York: Verso .
12.
Downs, A. (1992) Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-hour Traffic Congestion. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
13.
Downs, A. (1994) New Visions for Metropolitan America. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
14.
Drew, B. (1998) Crossing the Expendable Landscape. St. Paul, MN: Grey Wolf Press.
15.
Duany, A. and Plater-Zyberk, E. (1991) Towns and Town-making Principles . New York: Rizzoli.
16.
Dunn, J.A. (1998) Driving Forces: The Automobile, Its Enemies and the Politics of Mobility. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
17.
Ehrenhalt, A. (1995) The Lost City: The Forgotten Virtues of Community in America. New York: Basic Books .
18.
Feldtkeller, A. (1995) Die zweck-entfremdeteStadt : Wider die Zerstörung des Öffentlichen Raums. Frankurt: Campus.
19.
Findley, J.M. (1992) Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture after 1940. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
20.
Fishman, R. (1982) Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.
21.
Fodor, E. (1999) Better not Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community. Gabriola Island: New Society Publisher.
22.
Fowler, E.P. (1992) Building Cities That Work. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
23.
Frank, R.H. (1999) Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess. New York: Free Press .
24.
Garreau, J. (1991) Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. New York: Anchor Books.
25.
Garvin, A. (1996) The American City: What Works and What Doesn't . New York: McGraw-Hill.
26.
Geddes, N.B. (1940) Magic Motorways. New York: Random House.
27.
Gottdiener, M., Collins, C.C. and Dickens, D.R. (1999) Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American City. Oxford: Blackwells Publisher .
28.
Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1996) Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places. London: Routledge .
29.
Haefner, K. and Marte, G. (1994) Der schlanke Verkehr: Handbuch für einen umweltfreundlichen und effizienten Transport von Personen und Gütern. Berlin : Erich Schmidt Verlag.
30.
Hannigan, J. (1998) Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the PostmodernMetropolis. London: Routledge.
31.
Harris, R. (1997) Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto's American Tragedy 1900-1950 . Baltimore, NJ: Johns Hopkins University Press.
32.
Hoffmann-Axthelm, D. (1993) Die dritte Stadt. Frankfurt : Suhrcamp.
33.
Hoffmann-Axthelm, D. (1996) Anleitung zum Stadtumbau. Frankfurt : Campus.
34.
Holmes, S. and Sunstein, C.R. (1999) The Costs of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes . New York: Norton.
35.
Holtz-Kay, J. (1997) Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took over America and How We Can Take it Back. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
36.
Howard, E. (1898) To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. London: Swan Sonnenschein.
37.
Huxtable, A.L. (1996) The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion. New York: New Press.
38.
Jackson, K.T. (1985) Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
39.
Jacobs, A.B. (1993) Great Streets. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.
40.
Jacobs, J. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities (reprint) . London: Peregrine Books.
41.
Keil, R. (1998) Los Angeles. New York : Wiley and Sons.
42.
Kunstler, J.H. (1993) Geography of Nowhere. New York : Simon and Schuster.
43.
Kunstler, J.H. (1996) Home from Nowhere. New York : Simon and Schuster.
44.
Langdon, P. (1994) A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb. New York: Harper Perennial .
45.
Le Corbusier, E. (1929) The City of To-morrow and its Planning. New York: Dover Publications.
46.
Lewis, P.G. (1996) Shaping Suburbia: How Political Institutions Organize Urban Development. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
47.
Lynd, R.S. and Lynd, H.M. (1929) Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture . New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
48.
Marten, F. (1997) Kaputtgeplant: Das Elend der Raum- und Stadtplanung . Frankfurt : Campus.
49.
McKenzie, E. (1994) Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
50.
Mcshane, C. (1994) Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City. New York: Columbia University Press.
51.
Meikle, J.L. (1984) The City of Tomorrow: Model 1937. London: Pentagram.
52.
Mitchell, W.J. (1995) City of Bits. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.
53.
Mitchell, W.J. (1999) e-topia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .
54.
Moe, R. and Wilkie, C. (1997) Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl. New York: Henry Holt .
55.
Mohney, D. and Easterling, K. (1995) Seaside: Making a Town in America. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
56.
Monheim, H. and Monheim-Dandorfer, R. (1990) Strassen für Alle: Analysen und Konzepte zum Stadtverkehr der Zukunft. Hamburg: Rasch und Rohring.
57.
Orfield, M. (1997) Metropolitics: A Regional Agenda for Community and Stability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
58.
Plunz, R. (1995) Detroit is everywhere, Stadtbauwelt , 86(36), pp. 2012-2013.
59.
Pope, A. (1996) Ladders. Houston, TX: Rice University Press.
60.
Rowe, P.G. (1991) Making a Middle Landscape. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
61.
Rudlin, D. and Falk, N. (1999) Building the 21st Century Home. Oxford: Architectural Press.
62.
Rusk, D. (1993) Cities Without Suburbs. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
63.
Seligman, A.B. (1997) The Problem of Trust. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
64.
Sexton, R. (1995) Parallel Utopias: Sea Ranch, California and Seaside, Florida. San Franscico, CA: Chronicle Books.
65.
Sieverts, T. (1997) Zwischenstadt zwischen Ort und Welt, Raum und Zeit, Stadt und Land. Braunschweig: Vieweg Verlag.
66.
Sorkin, M. (Ed.) (1992) Variations on a Theme Park. New York: Hill and Wang.
67.
Southworth, M. and Ben-Joseph, E. (1997) Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities. New York: McGraw-Hill.
68.
Stieber, N. (1998) Housing Design and Society in Amsterdam: Reconfiguring Urban Order and Identity, 1900-1920. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
69.
Stilgoe, J.R. (1988) Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939 . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
70.
Suarez, R. (1999) The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration; 1966-1999. New York: Free Press.
71.
Twitchell, J.B. (1999) Lead Us into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism. New York: Columbia University Press.
72.
Unwin, R. (1909/1994) Town Planning in Practice. New York: PrincetownArchitectural Press.
73.
Vergara, C.J. (1995) The New AmericanGhetto. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press .
74.
Waldie, D.J. (1996) Holyland: A Suburban Memoir. New York: St Martin's Press.
75.
Ward, S.V. (1998) Selling Places: The Marketing and Promotion of Towns and Cities 1980-2000. London: E. & F.N. Spon.
76.
Whyte, W.R. JR. (1956) The Organisation Man. New York : Simon and Schuster.
77.
Winston, C. and Shirley, C. (1998) Alternate Route: Toward Efficient Urban Transportation . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
78.
Wright, F.L. (1945) When Democracy Builds, rev. edn. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
79.
Wright, F.L. (1958/1995) The living city, republished in: Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, vol. 5, ed. by B. Brooks Pfeiffer.New York: Rizzoli International Publications.
