Classic representations of the city have focused on simplistic urban dichotomies such as renewal or decline, poverty or prosperity, and vice or vigor. We are left with the question of what actually constitutes a city and what makes it and its people succeed or fail. Recent writing on the city, however, has begun to question the images, metaphors, and discourses through which the contemporary city is represented. Discussing recent visual, architectural and spatial transformations in New York and other major world cities in relation to the themes of ethnicity, capital, and culture, Re-Presenting the City moves between interpretive representations of the newly emerging metropolis and the theoretical and methodological questions raised by the task of such representations. Contributors with backgrounds in urban planning, sociology, cultural studies, architecture, art history, geography, and philosophy reflect on the construction of both the real and the unreal city, the images, metaphors and discourses through which the contemporary city is represented, and the texts which both mediate our experience of, as well as contribute to producing, the city of the future.

The aim of this volume is to link the study of 'the urban question' to new developments in general social theory. Urban studies, as an interdisciplinary science, must take account of political science, history, sociology, economics, planning, and policy analysis in order to broaden its application. To do this the authors advance the debate on the scope and limit of individual and local action within the structure of advanced urban concentration. They explore the analytical advantages and disadvantages of focusing on the system-level dynamics of economic, political, and social structures. `This excellent anthology brings us up to date on theoretical developments and empirical research within the framework of left urban polit

An overview of U.S. cities from the colonial period to the present with useful ideas on how their central problems came about and some ideas to solve them.

The whole landscape of research in urban studies was revolutionized by the publication of Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class in 2002, and his subsequent book entitled The Flight of the Creative Class has helped to maintain a decade-long explosion of interest in the field. While these two books examine the creative class in the context of the United States, research has emerged which investigates the creative class worldwide. This book brings together detailed studies of the creative class in cities across the globe, examining the impact of the creative class on growth and development. The countries covered include the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, China, Japan and Canada, in addition to the United States. Taken together, the contributions deepen our understanding of the creative class and the various factors that affect regional development, highlighting the similarities and differences between the creative class and economic development across countries. This book will be of great interest to scholars of economic geography, regional economics, urban sociology and cultural policy, as well as policy makers involved in urban development.

Richard Florida outlines how certain cities succeed in attracting members of the 'creative class' - the key economic growth asset - and argues that, in order to prosper, cities must harness this creative potential.