City Making [Hardcover]

Gerald E. Frug (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 26, 1999

American metropolitan areas today are divided into neighborhoods of privilege and poverty, often along lines of ethnicity and race. City residents traveling through these neighborhoods move from feeling at home to feeling like tourists to feeling so out of place they fear for their security. As Gerald Frug shows, this divided and inhospitable urban landscape is not simply the result of individual choices about where to live or start a business. It is the product of government policies -- and, in particular, the policies embedded in legal rules. A Harvard law professor and leading expert on urban affairs, Frug presents the first-ever analysis of how legal rules shape modern cities and outlines a set of alternatives to bring down the walls that now keep city dwellers apart.

Frug begins by describing how American law treats cities as subdivisions of states and shows how this arrangement has encouraged the separation of metropolitan residents into different sometimes hostile groups. He explains in clear, accessible language the divisive impact of rules about zoning, redevelopment, land use, and the organization of such city services as education and policing. He pays special attention to the underlying role of anxiety about strangers, the widespread desire for good schools, and the pervasive fear of crime. Ultimately, Frug calls for replacing the current legal definition of cities with an alternative based on what he calls "community building" -- an alternative that gives cities within the same metropolitan region incentives to forge closer links with each other.

An incisive study of the legal roots of today's urban problems, City Making is also an optimistic and compelling blueprintfor enabling American cities once again to embrace their historic role of helping people reach an accommodation with those who live in the same geographic area, no matter how dissimilar they are.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Has it become all too easy to fight City Hall? Why can't cities and suburbs get along? And how can we fix the laws that set them at odds? Where other urban reformers concentrate on bricks and mortar, or jobs and welfare, Harvard Law School professor Frug (Local Government Law) shows how American laws and legal traditions have hurt many cities, keeping them hobbled by state government and favoring suburbs at cities' expense. Zoning laws can undermine diversity and aggravate segregation, separating the poor from the rich and placing valuable services beyond reach of the poor. Writing as a legal academic, Frug takes welcome account not only of the relevant court decisions but also of urban history, sociology and political and literary theorists, from Hannah Arendt to Judith Butler. His commanding abstractions produce plausible policy recommendations, too. Recognizing how hard it would be to change how states and businesses operate, Frug recommends that American cities "transform city services into vehicles for community building," using schools, police forces and other government functions to help citizens recognize mutual interests. Residents ought to learn to think of themselves as political and ethical actors, rather than as mere consumers; policy makers can help them do so. Frug argues saliently that a city's character is shaped as much by its residents' perceptions of their civic responsibilities as by its built environment. If his prose is less than action-packed, his points come through clearly: they're all worth making, and readers who find his first chapters too theoretical will be happier later, when he gets down to cases. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

An important and eloquent critique of the way in which the US legal system disempowers deprived urban communities. -- Brian Jacobs, Urban Studies

[A} challenge to a branch of the law that desperately needs rethinking. . . . -- Harvard Design Magazine

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (July 26, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691007411
• ISBN-13: 978-0691007410
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,171,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Classroom Book, September 12, 2010

By 

Duane E Malm (HARLEYSVILLE, PA, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City Making (Hardcover)

I've used this book for the past two years in a junior-level college course on community economic development. As an accomplished lawyer, Frug is able to quickly summarize a wide variety of literatures (from the history of cities, to history of corporate law, to post modern identity theory) and bring these diverse literatures together to tell a story about the fragmentation of the modern American city. It's a thought provoking book that has been well received by the students who put in the effort to think about the issues he raises.