America's cities: celebrated by poets, courted by politicians, castigated by social reformers. In their numbers and complexity they challenge comprehension. Why is urban America the way it is? Eric Monkkonen offers a fresh approach to the myths and the history of US urban development, giving us an unexpected and welcome sense of our urban origins. His historically anchored vision of our cities places topics of finance, housing, social mobility, transportation, crime, planning, and growth into a perspective which explains the present in terms of the past and ofers a point from which to plan for the future.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
"The United States is urban but not urbane," writes Monkkonen, who points out that our oldest cities' modern layouts were planned less than 200 years ago. In colonial America, city streets had no names; today's urbanites may dream of owning their homes, yet this ideal is divorced from attachment to the land, which was so dear to European forefathers. By putting U.S. cities in a historical context, this UCLA professor of history makes us realize how fragile, amorphous, innovative and rootless American cities are. He labels Lewis Mumford an anti-historical aesthete and attacks Jane Jacobs for believing "the kingdom of heavenGreenwich Village, 1950s' styleis nigh." Contemporary U.S. cities, in Monkkonen's schema, once acted like corporate entrepreneurs to provide services, but the Depression ended that and the federal government has not filled the breach. While this study offers no solutions, Monkkonen's long-range perspective is refreshing, even if some readers have trouble accepting his thesis that levels of violent crime have fallen over the centuries.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Inside Flap
"The best reinterpretation of American urban history in the last twenty-five years."--Roger w. Lotchin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"A challenging analytical framework that can guide the discipline of urban history into its second half century."--Kenneth t. Jackson, Mellon Professor of History and of the Social Sciences, Columbia University
"A challenging analytical framework that can guide the discipline of urban history into its second half century."--Kenneth t. Jackson, Mellon Professor of History and of the Social Sciences, Columbia University
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
A fresh rethinking of the history of American cities requires a brief excursion into the well-tilled intellectual landscape of urban thinkers and urban historians. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
new urban historians, new urban history, fixed rail transit, hard surfaced roads, local debt, city debt Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, United States, World War, Los Angeles, Government Printing Office, Bureau of the Census, New England, Supreme Court, North American, San Francisco, Historical Monuments, Jane Jacobs, New Jersey, Bank of Augusta, Great Depression, Max Weber, Bohemian Flats, Frank Lloyd Wright, London's Metropolitan Police, New Haven, North Carolina, Royal Commission New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
A fresh rethinking of the history of American cities requires a brief excursion into the well-tilled intellectual landscape of urban thinkers and urban historians. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
new urban historians, new urban history, fixed rail transit, hard surfaced roads, local debt, city debt Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, United States, World War, Los Angeles, Government Printing Office, Bureau of the Census, New England, Supreme Court, North American, San Francisco, Historical Monuments, Jane Jacobs, New Jersey, Bank of Augusta, Great Depression, Max Weber, Bohemian Flats, Frank Lloyd Wright, London's Metropolitan Police, New Haven, North Carolina, Royal Commission New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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56
books
cite this book:
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- The Changing Face of Inequality by Olivier Zunz on 4 pages
- The Politics of Urban Fiscal Policy (New Approaches to Social Science History) by Terrence J. McDonald on 4 pages
- American Commonwealth, The by James Bryce on 4 pages
- Plains Country Towns by John C. Hudson in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Culture of Cities by Lewis Mumford on page 10, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 100 books this book cites
- Seeing with Their Hearts: Chicago Women and the Vision of the Good City, 1871-1933 by Maureen A. Flanagan on 5 pages
- Automobility and Social Change in the South, 1909-1939 (Studies in American Popular History and Culture) by Corey Leisseig on 4 pages
- Eating Smoke: Fire in Urban America, 1800-1950 by Mark Tebeau on 4 pages
- Down the Asphalt Path by Clay McShane in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Technology as Freedom: The New Deal and the Electrical Modernization of the American Home by Ronald C. Tobey in Front Matter, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 56 books citing this book
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