Table Of ContentRethinking the AmeRicAn city
Architecture | technology | culture
Series editors: Klaus Benesch, Jeffrey l. Meikle, David e. nye, and Miles orvell
rethinking the American city
An InternAtIonAl DIAlogue
edited by Miles orvell and Klaus Benesch
foreworD By DoloreS hAyDen
univerSity of pennSylvAniA preSS
philADelphiA
copyright © 2014 university of pennsylvania press
All rights reserved. except for brief quotations used
for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this
book may be reproduced in any form by any means without
written permission from the publisher.
published by
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia, pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
printed in the united States of America
on acid-free paper
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
library of congress cataloging-in-publication Data
rethinking the American city : an international dialogue / edited
by Miles orvell and Klaus Benesch ; foreword by Dolores
hayden. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Architecture, technology, culture)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBn 978-0-8122-4561-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. city planning—united States—history—21st century. 2.
cities and towns—united States—history—21st century. 3.
Architecture and society—united States—history—21st century.
i. orvell, Miles. ii. Benesch, Klaus, 1958–. iii. hayden, Dolores. iv.
Series: Architecture, technology, culture.
nA9105.r48 2014
720.973'09051—dc23 2013021874
Contents
foreworD Dolores hayden vii
introDuction Miles orvell and Klaus Benesch xi
1 energy David e. nye 1
2 SuStAinABility Andrew ross 29
3 the MulticulturAl city Mabel o. wilson 49
4 ruinS Miles orvell 71
5 AeSthetic SpAce David M. lubin 93
6 DeSigning the city Albena yaneva 119
7 MoBility Klaus Benesch 143
8 the DigitAl city Malcolm Mccullough 167
9 future city Jeffrey l. Meikle 193
concluSion 215
list of contributors 219
notes 223
v
contentS
index 233
Acknowledgments 245
vi
ForeworD
DoloreS hAyDen
in the pASt two or three decades, researchers from many academic
disciplines have explored the history of the built environment, enlarging
the history of architecture from the aesthetic study of individual works
by well-known architects to the economic, political, social, and cultural
analysis of ordinary buildings. Ordinary buildings are shaped by many
actors: construction laborers as well as developers, residents as well as
landlords, community organizers as well as architects. Everyday buildings
are planned, designed, built, inhabited, appropriated, celebrated, despoiled,
and discarded over long stretches of time, so study of the built environment
may reveal much more about everyday life than the analysis of high-style
architecture. Anthropologists and geographers have joined historians of
architecture, technology, and cities in research on the built environment,
adding the insights of qualitative social science and bringing the geogra-
phers’ term cultural landscape to the study of places as the combination
of natural and built environments.
Many Americans turned away from reading about the built environment
in the 1950s and 1960s because they were profoundly disappointed with
mass suburbs, interstate highways, and urban renewal. Popular disillusion-
ment only grew as the ruthless demolition of older urban neighborhoods
occurred on an unprecedented scale, and bad building patterns became
commonplace as government subsidies for new construction favored sub-
urban malls, fast-food outlets, and office parks. Academics and practitio-
ners compounded the problem in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s by wrapping
discussions of architecture and planning in impenetrable jargon while
ignoring the vast influence of the real estate lobby on public policy.
Historians who believe in the possibility of popular reengagement
with American places are now trying to interest the public in historic
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DoloreS hAyDen
and contemporary sites as the material expression of culture and politics.
To that end, the authors in this volume have created a lively interdisci-
plinary discussion about architecture, technology, and culture, and their
efforts are similar to those of organizations founded in recent decades
to support broad investigations of the built environment, including the
Society for American City and Regional Planning History, the Urban
History Association, and the Vernacular Architecture Forum. (Confer-
ences held by these groups regularly attract two or three hundred scholars,
and presentations of research may extend beyond academic groups to
public humanities venues.) Yet for all the vitality of this field, definitions
of key terms such as space, place, public, private, urban, and suburban
remain controversial. There are ongoing debates about the most interest-
ing spatial scale to study: is it the building, the neighborhood, the city,
the metropolitan region, the nation, or the globe? And how much does
analysis of the built environment need to be visual and spatial versus
social, economic, or political? Economic questions often provoke highly
critical analyses of capitalism, as well as more positive assessments of real
estate development as progress. There is much to argue about, especially
when contemporary building projects are under scrutiny and questions
of public policy may be involved.
The nine essays gathered in this volume respond to these debates and
offer diverse ways to approach the history of architecture, technology, and
culture in our present time. The authors examine a wide range of topics,
from the design of transportation systems, workplaces, and housing to
public art, urban ruins, and futurist visions of the city. They utilize many
different analytical frameworks for probing specific examples of land
use, infrastructure, and building design across the nineteenth, twentieth,
and twenty-first centuries. Because the authors conferred and recorded
extended conversations about each essay, thoughtful responses follow
each piece, expanding the original contributions with pointed questions
about definitions of terms and methods of research. There is some sharp
disagreement as well as excited accord. The commentaries and the authors’
replies (in the dialogue section following each essay) provide the kind
viii
foreworD
of intellectual exchange that often occurs within academic peer-review
processes, behind the scenes, before publication.
The concluding section of the book explores some of the common threads
in these papers. Narratives of progress are contrasted with narratives of
decline. There is a shared concern for analyzing economic, social, and
political power, one participant notes. Another reports that “the voices of
ordinary people are becoming a little more audible.” And a third commends
sustained thinking about architecture, technology, and culture, and the
ways they interact. While specialists in the history of the American city
will enjoy this collection of essays and the provocative dialogue they spark,
these investigations of the processes of shaping space will also appeal to
readers in many interdisciplinary programs, including American studies,
cultural studies, urban studies, visual culture, technology studies, and
environmental studies.
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