Building Cities that Work

Fowler, Edmund P.

ISBN 10: 0773511830 / ISBN 13: 9780773511835

Published by McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, Canada, 1993

About this Item

Underlining, highlighting & notes to text; binding tight; minor wear to covers. 315 pages. Examines new forms for human settlement, as our current ways are destroying the planet. Size: 6" x 9".

Seller Inventory # S267-059108

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Building Cities that Work
• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, Canada
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0773511830
• ISBN 13: 9780773511835
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Since 1945 North Americans have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on urban development, literally transforming the landscape of the continent. This development is disastrous, Edmund Fowler maintains, because it is inordinately expensive, destructive of the environment, and disruptive of healthy social life and authentic politics. Revealing the connections between our basic cultural beliefs and why we build the way we do, Fowler stresses that to build cities that work we must become aware of how our personal choices contribute to the form of the built environment.

Using Jane Jacobs' critique of postwar city-building as a starting point, Fowler shows that recent North American urban development has been characterized by development projects on a massive scale, an indiscriminate use of vast areas of land, and an increasingly evident homogeneity. These are characteristics, Fowler argues, of a perverse and unnatural way of building that is wrecking the planet and enfeebling our social and political networks.

In exploring how the built environment contributes to social problems, Fowler used Toronto as a case study, conducting extensive field work in nineteen areas of the city. He shows not only that postwar building was the result of conscious public policy but goes further, arguing that our cities reflect deep-seated insecurities and cultural malaise in surprisingly direct ways.

From the Back Cover

Since 1945, North Americans have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on urban development, literally transforming the landscape of the continent. This development has been disastrous, Edmund Fowler maintains, because it is inordinately expensive, destructive of the environment, and disruptive of healthy social life and authentic politics. Revealing the connections between our basic cultural beliefs and why we build the way we do, he stresses that to build cities that work we must become aware of how our personal choices contribute to the form of the built environment.