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Author Rybczynski, Witold.

Title Makeshift metropolis : ideas about cities / Witold Rybczynski.

Publication Info. New York : Scribner, 2010.

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Glastonbury, Welles-Turner Memorial Library - Adult Department  711 RYBCZYNSKI    Check Shelf
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  711.4 RYB    Check Shelf
Edition First Scribner hardcover edition.
Description xiv, 240 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Remaking the city -- Three big ideas -- Home remedies -- Mr. Wright and the disappearing city -- The demand-side of urbanism -- Arcades and malls, big boxes and lifestyle centers -- On the waterfront -- The Bilbao anomaly -- Putting the pieces together -- The kind of cities we want -- The kind of cities we need.
Summary Rybczynski (A Clearing in the Distance), professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, offers a glimpse of an urban future that might very well serve as a template for cities around the world. Just as the dense and green Israeli city Modi'in mixes old and new modes of urban planning, this book integrates history and prediction in its survey of the development of the American city. A brisk look back takes us from colonial town planning through the Garden City and City Beautiful initiatives of the early 20th century that defined and delivered the distinctive aesthetic character to such cities as New York and Chicago to the big box era. He also examines how contemporary urban designers and planners are revisiting and refreshing older urban ideas, bringing gardens to a blighted Brooklyn waterfront. Rybczynski's study is kept relevant by his focus on what the past can teach us about creating the "cities we want" and "cities we need." The prose is instructive and always engaging, and the author's enthusiasm for the future of cities and his enduring love of urban settings of all kinds is evident. He not only writes about what people want from their cities, he inspires the reader to imagine the possibilities--Publisher's Weekly.
Subject City planning -- United States.
Architecture and society -- United States.
Added Title Ideas about cities
ISBN 9781416561255 hardcover
1416561250 hardcover
9781416561293 ebook
1416561293 ebook
9781416561262 paperback
1416561269 paperback
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