This book provides an overview of the Horizontal Metropolis concept, and of the theoretical, methodological and political implications for the interdisciplinary field in which it operates. The book investigates the contemporary emergence of a new type of extended urbanity across regions, territories and continents, up to the global scale. Further, it explores the diffusion of contemporary urban conditions in an interdisciplinary and original manner by analyzing essential case studies. Offering extensive content on the Horizontal Metropolis concept, the book presents a range of approaches intended to transcend various inherited spatial ontologies: urban/rural, town/country, city/non-city, and society/nature. The book is intended for all readers interested in the emergence and development of new approaches in cultural theory, urban and design education, landscape urbanism and geography.

This book draws together classic and contemporary texts on the “Horizontal Metropolis” concept. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it explores various theoretical, methodological and political implications of the Horizontal Metropolis hypothesis. Assembling a series of textual and cartographic interventions, this book explores those that supersede inherited spatial ontologies (urban/rural, town/country, city/non-city, society/nature). It investigates the emergence of a new type of extended urbanity across regions, territories and continents up to the global scale through the reconstruction of a fundamental but neglected tradition. This book responds to the radical nature of the changes underway today, calling for a rethinking of the Western Metropolis idea and form along with the emergence of new urban paradigms. The Horizontal Metropolis concept represents an ambitious attempt to offer new instruction to take on this challenge at the global scale. The book is intended for a wide audience interested in the emergence and development of new approaches in urbanism, architecture, cultural theory, urban and design education, landscape urbanism and geography.

Two contrasting terms are joined to conjugate the traditional idea of metropolis with horizontality; to combine the center of a vast territory--hierarchically organized, dense, vertical, and produced by polarization--with the idea of a more diffuse, isotropic urban condition, where center and periphery blur. Beyond a simplistic center versus periphery opposition, the concept of a horizontal metropolis reveals the dispersed condition as a potential asset, rather than a limit, to the construction of a sustainable and innovative urban dimension. Around 1990, Terry McGee, an urban researcher at University of British Columbia, coined the term desakota, deriving from Indonesian “desa” (village) and “kota” (city). Desakota areas typically occur in Asia, especially South East Asia. The term describes an area situated outside the periurban zone, often sprawling alongside arterial and communication roads, sometimes from one agglomeration to the next. They are characterized by high population density and intensive agricultural use, but differ from densely populated rural areas by more urban-like characteristics. The new book The Horizontal Metropolis investigates such areas alongside examples in the US, Italy, and Switzerland. The study highlights the advantages of the concept and its relevance under economical, ecological, and social aspects. The concept reflects a vision of global urbanization that does no longer allow for “outside” areas and that will test the urban ecosystem to its limits.

Global Urbanism is an experimental examination of how urban scholars and activists make sense of, and act upon, the foundational relationship between the ‘global’ and the ‘urban’. What does it mean to say that we live in a global-urban moment, and what are its implications? Refusing all-encompassing answers, the book grounds this question, exploring the plurality of understandings, definitions, and ways of researching global urbanism through the lenses of varied contributors from different parts of the world. The contributors explore what global urbanism means to them, in their context, from the ground and the struggles upon which they are working and living. The book argues for an incremental, fragile and in-the-making emancipatory urban thinking. The contributions provide the resources to help make sense of what global urbanism is in its varieties, what’s at stake in it, how to research it, and what needs to change for more progressive urban futures. It provides a heterodox set of approaches and theorisations to probe and provoke rather than aiming to draw a line under a complex, changing and profoundly contested set of global-urban processes. Global Urbanism is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students in geography, sociology, planning, anthropology and the field of urban studies, for whom it will provide an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across the range of disciplines and practices which converge in the study of urbanism. Chapter 36 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429259593

The Book explores the intricate balance of preserving cultural heritage while fostering sustainable urban growth. This comprehensive volume presents a diverse array of chapters, each exploring unique facets of this critical intersection. From the contextual preservation methods in Italy's military landscapes and advanced data fusion techniques in Selinunte, to the phenomenological exploration of Bahrain's architectural identity and the environmental frameworks for its primary health care centers, the book offers multifaceted insights. It navigates through the urban transformations in historic sites like Thamugadi and Tripoli, the digitization for conservation in Algeria, and the sustainable urban futures informed by indigenous knowledge systems. Furthermore, it examines public space dynamics, urban green infrastructure, and the integration of sustainable development into urban planning, with case studies spanning from Turkey to Tehran. The book also addresses contemporary architectural discourse, mobility in architecture, and the significance of unacknowledged tributaries in urban planning. Through a rich tapestry of empirical research, case studies, and theoretical analysis, this book is an essential resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers dedicated to the advancement of cultural heritage and sustainable urban development.

The urban condition is today being radically transformed. Urban restructuring is accelerating, new urban spaces are being consolidated, and new forms of urbanization are crystallizing. In New Urban Spaces, Neil Brenner argues that understanding these mutations of urban life requires not only concrete research, but new theories of urbanization. To this end, Brenner proposes an approach that breaks with inherited conceptions of the urban as a bounded settlement unit-the city or the metropolis-and explores the multiscalar constitution and periodic rescaling of the capitalist urban fabric. Drawing on critical geopolitical economy and spatialized approaches to state theory, Brenner offers a paradigmatic account of how rescaling processes are transforming inherited formations of urban space and their variegated consequences for emergent patterns and pathways of urbanization. The book also advances an understanding of critical urban theory as radically revisable: key urban concepts must be continually reinvented in relation to the relentlessly mutating worlds of urbanization they aspire to illuminate.

Extended methods of analysis for urbanisation processes illustrated in eight world regions. Urbanisation processes are unfolding far beyond the realm of agglomerations, profoundly transforming agrarian areas, rain forests, deserts and oceans. Inextricably bound to the earth’s ecologies, these developments are causing manifold planetary crises which require urgent scrutiny and call for new conceptions and cartographies of the urban beyond-the-city. Through detailed analysis and fieldwork captured in text, photographs and hand-drawn maps, the book portrays the effects of extended urbanisation in eight world regions. It offers a redefinition of the very notions of the “city”, “urban” and “urbanisation” and outlines new urban agendas developed to address planetary challenges. This book decenters the perspective on the urban, foregrounds urban struggle, and transcends rural-urban and north-south divides. Fundamental book for urbanism studies Redefinition of the terms “city”, “urban” and “urbanisation” Analysis of urbanisation processes in eight world regions