The relationship between public and private spheres is one of the key concerns of the modern society. This book investigates this relationship, especially as manifested in the urban space with its social and psychological significance. Through theoretical and historical examination, it explores how and why the space of human socities is subdivided into public and private sections. It starts with the private, interior space of the mind and moves step by step, through the body, home, neighborhood and the city, outwards to the most public, impersonal spaces, exploring the nature of each realm and their complex, interdependent realtionships. A stimulating and thought provoking book for any architect, architectural historian, urban planner or designer.

The classic work on the evaluation of city form. What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.

First published in 1999, Everyday Urbanism has become a classic in the discussion of cities and real life. Within the context of history, theory, and practice of urban design, the essays explore the city as a social entity that must be responsive to daily routines and neighborhood concerns and offer both an analysis of and a method for working within the social and political urban framework. This expanded edition builds on the original essays focusing on the urban vernacular in Los Angeles with new material on interventions in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Hoogvliet, near Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Discussion of the Latino community in Los Angeles is expanded with a survey of Latino signage, big, bold signs painted right on the walls defying all the principles of graphic design. The evolution of the mall, from the mini-mall, for quick convenience shopping, to midi-mall and macro mall, destinations in themselves, to the minicity, complete with residential and entertainment amenities, is presented as a new challenge for planners. Editors John Leighton Chase, Margaret Crawford, and John Kaliski bring the discourse into the twenty-first century, examining the challenges and critical reaction to the approach and its application for the future.

Cover -- About Island Press -- Subscribe -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Why Urban Observation Matters: Seeing the Better City -- 01. How to See City Basics and Universal Patterns -- 02. Observational Approaches -- 03. Seeing the City through Urban Diaries -- 04. Documenting Our Personal Cities -- 05. From Urban Diaries to Policies, Plans, and Politics -- Conclusion: What the Better City Can Be -- Notes -- Index -- IP Board of Directors

This international and illustrated work challenges current writings focussing on the problems of urban public space to present a more nuanced and dialectical conception of urban life. Detailed and extensive international urban case studies show how urban open spaces are used for play, which is defined and discussed using Caillois' four-part definition – competition, chance, simulation and vertigo. Stevens explores and analyzes these case studies according to locations where play has been observed: paths, intersections, thresholds, boundaries and props. Applicable to a wide-range of countries and city forms, The Ludic City is a fascinating and stimulating read for all who are involved or interested in the design of urban spaces.

Explores the notion that the push toward marketization is the central force restructuring the communications landscape. This book examines the consequences of this development for the constitution of public culture. It analyzes the core institutional processes of marketization.