Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The giant city is the enduring figure of modernity, and the inter
disciplinary topic par excellence in the humanities and social sciences
in the last two decades. For much of that time it has been the site
for an intellectual and ideological tussle between those analyzing the
city as the political economy writ large, and those reading the city as
the crucible of identity.
The Endless City synthesizes both approaches, and for that
reason alone represents an important contribution to the dialectic
of urban studies. Further, it prioritizes questions of policy over
theory, demanding, by its alarming orange cover, its lap-crushing
unwieldiness, and its sheer institutional clout, that decision-makers
take notice. Edited at one of the worlds leading academic centers
for the study of political economy, the London School of Economics,
and sponsored by the Alfred Herrhausen Society, a think-tank of the
Deutsche Bank, The Endless City represents the published findings
of the Urban Age Project, a transnational touring conference that
in 200506 pulled into its orbit an astonishing list of academics,
politicians, activists, and financiers.
The Endless City thus represents something of an apotheosis
for discourse on the city; it is at once progressive its pedigree
stretches back to Europes Enlightenment urban-reform and
architectural-planning movements and sublime, imbued with a
Book Reviews
Book Reviews
Book Reviews
Angela Riechers is a
graphic designer and
second-year MFA student
in the new Design
Criticism program at the
School of Visual Arts,
New York.
artdeptnyc@gmail.com,
ariechers@sva.edu