Dreaming the Rational City: The Myth of American City Planning [Paperback]

M. Christine Boyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 1986 | ISBN-10: 0262521113 | ISBN-13: 978-0262521116

Dreaming the Rational City is both a history of the city planning profession in the United States and a major polemical statement about the effort to plan and reform the American city. Boyer shows why city planning, which had so much promise at the outset for making cities more liveable, largely failed. She reveals planning's real responsibilities and goals, including the kind of "rational order" that was actually forseen by the planning mentality, and concludes that the planners have continuously served the needs of the dominant capitalist economy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Boyer attempts nothing less than the story of urban planning from the perspective of the major economic and political forces in American society.... This wide-ranging and ambitious study, clearly informed by Marxist theory, is in many ways the most comprehensive treatment of American urban planning to date and ought to be a useful and standard item in the literature."
- Journal of American History



"One of the most important planning books published in the last decade, a book that provides a rare intellectual stimulus to explore the ways we think, work, and ultimately, live."
- Manuel Castells, Design Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (March 20, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262521113
• ISBN-13: 978-0262521116
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,553,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.