Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010049730 | HT241 B46 1999 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
On Order
Summary
Summary
Cities affect every person's life, yet across the traditional divides of class, age, gender and political affiliation, armies of people are united in their dislike of the transformations that cities have undergone in recent times. The physical form of the urban environment is not a designer add-on to 'real' social issues; it is a central aspect of the social world. Yet in many people's experience, the cumulative impacts of recent urban development have created widely un-loved urban places. To work towards better-loved urban environments, we need to understand how current problems have arisen and identify practical action to address them.
Urban Transformations examines the crucial issues relating to how cities are formed, how people use these urban environments and how cities can be transformed into better places. Exploring the links between the concrete physicality of the built environment and the complex social, economic, political and cultural processes through which the physical urban form is produced and consumed, Ian Bentley proposes a framework of ideas to provoke and develop current debate and new forms of practice.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
Bentley's ponderous survey of (mainly British) city planning and architecture is organized into a four-part exploration of the processes "through which urban settings are made and used." Each part consists of an introduction and three chapters. Part 1 ("Problematics of Production") develops a framework to explain how built form is produced; part 2 ("Spatial Transformations and Their Cultural Supports") focuses on the urban transformations of the capitalist era and beyond; part 3 ("Positive Values, Negative Outcomes") is concerned with the challenges of getting "better-loved places on the ground"; and part 4 ("Windows of Opportunity"), having identified a large potential constituency for change, explores practical ways to exploit this finding. Although intellectually stimulating and well documented, Bentley's study is so overloaded with theoretical baggage that urban scholars outside its narrow field will have difficulty accessing it. The book also fails to clearly identify the author (who appears to be affiliated with Oxford University) and his credentials. Physically, the work is well produced, but it skimps on illustrations and is easily the most outrageously overpriced book this reviewer has encountered in years. Graduate, faculty. P. O. Muller; University of Miami
Table of Contents
| Part 1 Problematics of production Introduction |
| 1 Untouched by human hand |
| 2 Heroes and servants, markets and battlefields |
| 3 Genius and tradition Conclusion: A framework of questions |
| Part 2 Spatial transformations and their cultural support Introduction |
| 4 Profit and Place |
| 5 Propping up the system |
| 6 Building bastions of sense Conclusion: Supports for the power bloc |
| Part 3 Positive values, negative outcomes Introduction |
| 7 Concepts for prospecting common ground |
| 8 Beyond buzzwords |
| 9 Horizons of choice Conclusion: An agenda for positive change |
| Part 4 Windows of opportunity Introduction |
| 10 Reclaiming the Modernist vision |
| 11 Experts who deliver |
| 12 Artists in a common cause Conclusion: Exciting prospects |
