New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities - Hardcover

Abu-Lughod, Janet L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816633355 ISBN 13: 9780816633357

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1999

Synopsis

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles -- for all their differences, they are quintessentially American cities. They are also among the handful of cities on the earth that can be called "global." Janet L. Abu-Lughod's book is the first to compare them in an ambitious in-depth study that takes into account each city's unique history, following their development from their earliest days to their current status as players on the global stage.

Unlike most other global cities, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles all quickly grew from the nearly blank slate of the American landscape to become important beyond the nation's borders early in their histories. As a result, Abu-Lughod is able to show the overall effect of globalization on each city's development. While all three are critical to global economics and the spread of American culture to the farthest reaches of an increasingly interlinked world, their influence reflects their individual histories and personalities. In a masterful synthesis of historical and economic information, Abu-Lughod clarifies how each city's global role is -- and will be -- affected by geography, ethnicity of population, political institutions, and tradition of governance.

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are more than global players: they are also home to forty million people. Abu-Lughod closes the book with a set of vignettes that captures the cities' differences as perceived by one who has lived in them. Bringing together the local and the global in thoroughly unexpected and enlightening ways, this important volume offers fascinating insight into these vital urban centers.

About this title

About the Author

Janet L. Abu-Lughod, professor emerita of sociology of Northwestern University and the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, has been writing about and studying cities for more than fifty years. Her books include From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York's Lower East Side; Changing Cities: Urban Sociology; Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350; Rabat: Urban Apartheid in Morocco; and Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious, among many other publications. In 1999 she received the Robert and Helen Lynd Award (American Sociological Association, Section on Community and Urban Sociology) for distinguished lifetime contributions to the study of cities.

From Publishers Weekly

Chicago, whose surrounding marshlands abounded in "wild onions," was wrested from Native tribes in 1795; Los Angeles County in the 1930s used a federal law allowing deportation of "indigent aliens" to expel tens of thousands of Mexican immigrants from the U.S. These are among the surprising historical footnotes to be found Abu-Lughod's revealing study of the forces of globalization that have swept three major American cities over the last century. A prolific sociologist and professor emerita (Northwestern University and Manhattan's New School for Social Research), Abu-Lughod singles out New York, Chicago and Los Angeles as America's "global cities" shaped by the increased importance of business services, a dichotomized class structure and the internationalization of commerce. Globalization, she insists, is much older than many scholars understand, with the seeds firmly in place in the mid-19th-century. A central thesis here is that, since 1973, the class and income gap between rich and poor Americans has widened sharply thanks to regressive government policies, cutbacks in entitlements and a tax system that shifts wealth upwards from the poor and the middle classes to corporations and the wealthy. The writing, which is unusually vigorous and incisive for so academic a tome, and the scores of photographs and maps, will secure a place for this book well beyond the drafting tables of aspiring city planners. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0816633355
• ISBN 13: 9780816633357
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 592