11.949 | Spring 2004 | Graduate

City Visions: Past and Future

Readings

WEEK # TITLES READINGS
1 The City as a Social, Legal, and Political Concept Rowe, L. S. “The City in History.” American Journal of Sociology 5, no. 6 (May 1900): 721-745.

Griffeth, Robert, and Carol G. Thomas. The City-State in Five Cultures. Oxford: ABC-Clio, 1981, pp. 181-204.

Frug, Gerald. City Making: Building Community Without Building Walls. Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 3-70, 113-142.

2 The Nature and Historical Origins of Cities Weber, Max. “The Nature of the City.” In Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities by Sennett, Richard. Meredith Corporation, 1969, pp. 24-46.

Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. Harcourt, 1989; first edition 1961, pp. 315-431, 439-445.

3 The City as Nation (and vice-versa) Vale, Lawrence J. Architecture, Power, and National Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992, chapters 3-5.

Trillo, Mauricio Tenorio. “1910 Mexico City: Space and Nation in the City of the Centenario.” Journal of Latin American Studies 20, no. 1 (Feb 1996): 75-104.

4 The City-Nation Nexus in Global Context Abu-Lughod, Janet. Before European Hegemony: The world system AD 1250 to 1350. Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 51-131.

Tilly, Charles. Capital, Coercion, and European States: AD 990-1990. Blackwell, 1990, pp. 1-66.

Brenner, Neil. “Global Cities, ‘Glocal’ States: Global City Formation and State Territorial Restructuring in Contemporary Europe.” International Political Economy 5, no. 1 (1998): 1-37.

5 Urban Utopias Olmsted, Frederick Law. “Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns.”
Howard, Ebenezer. “The Town-Country Magnet.”
Corbusier, Le. “A Contemporary City.”
Wright, Frank Lloyd. “Broadacre City: A New Community Plan.”
In The City Reader, by Richard Le Gates, and Frederick Stout. Routledge, 2003, pp. 309-330.

Smith, Car. Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief. University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 177-270.

_Suggested Readings
_
Harvey, David. Spaces of Hope. University of California Press, 2000, pp. 133-196.

Mazlish, Bruce. “A Tale of Two Enclosures: Self and Society as a Setting for Utopia.” Theory, Culture, and Society 20, no. 1 (2003): 3-60.

6 Cities in National Consolidation and Global Expansion Helmer, Stephen. Hitler’s Berlin: The Speer Plans for Reshaping the Central City. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985, pp. 27-48.

Ladd, Brian. “Nazi Berlin,” and “Divided Berlin.” In The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pages to be specified.

Speer, Albert. “Responsibility and Response.” Journal of Architectural Education 32, no. 2 (1978).

Notaro, Anna. “Resurrecting an Imperial Past: Strategies of self-representation and ‘masquerade’ in fascist Rome (1934-1938).” In The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and experiencing the modern metropolis, by Neal Leach. Routledge, 2002, pp. 59-69.

Suggested Readings

Bose, Sumantra. Bosnia Afer Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention. Oxford University Press, 2002, chapter 3.

7 Cities and Nationalism Edelman, Murray. “Architecture, Spaces, and Social Order.” In From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political Conceptions. University of Chicago Press, 1995, pp. 73-90.

Blockmans, Wim P. “Reshaping Cities: The Staging of Political Transformation.” Journal of Urban History 30, no. 1 (2003): 7-20.

Ghirardo, Diane. “Italian Architects and Fascist Politics: An Evaluation of the Rationalist’s Role in Regime Building.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 39 (1980): 109-27.

Doordan, Dennis P. “The Political Content in Italian Architecture During the Fascist Era.” Art Journal 43, no. 2 (summer 1983): 121-131.

Background Readings

Payne, Stanley G. “What do we mean by Fascism?” In Fascism: Comparisons and Definition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980.

8 Rebuilding Nations by Reconstructing Cities Wise, Michael Z. Capital Dilemma: Germany’s Search for a New Architecture of Democracy. Princeton Architectural Press, 1998, pp. 57-80, 121-134.

Ladd, Brian. “Capital of the New Germany.” In The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pages to be specified.

Strom, Elizabeth. Building the New Berlin: The Politics of Urban Development in Germany’s Capital City. Lexington Books, 2001, pp. 159-222.

Leach, Neal. “Erasing the Traces: The ‘denazification’ of post-revolutionary Berlin and Bucharest,” and “Erasing the Traces: the ‘denazification’ of post-apartheid Johannesburg and Pretoria.” In The Hieroglyphics of Space: Reading and experiencing the modern metropolis. Routledge, 2002, pp. 80-100.

9 Cities as Spaces for Democracy Sennett, Richard. Spaces of Democracy. Harvard Design Review.

Harvey, David. Spaces of Hope. University of California Press, 2000, pp. 199-255.

Amin, Ash, and Nigel Thrift. Cities: Reimagining the Urban. Polity Press, 2002, pp. 131-159.

Davis, Diane. “In Search of the Public Sphere: Local, National, and International Influences in the Planning of Downtown Mexico City.” Space and Culture (Forthcoming, 2004).

10 Cities and World Peace Corbusier, Le. “Standards,” “Folly,” “17 Acres,” and “Battle Post.” In UN Headquarters. New York: Reinhold, 1947, pp. 1-24, pp. 55-74.

Vale, Lawrence J. “Designing Global Harmony: Lewis Mumford and the United Nations Headquarters.” In Lewis Mumford: Public Intellectual. Edited by Thomas Hughes, and Agatha Hughes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 256-282.

11 Scales of Agency in a Global World: Individuals, Cities, Nations, and Beyond Mitchell, William. Me ++. MIT Press, 2003, chapters 1 and 2.

Bunnel, Tim. “Cities for Nations? Examining the City-Nation-State Relation in Information Age Malaysia.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 16.2 (Jun 2002): 284-298.

Borja, Jordi, and Manuel Castells. “Local and Global: Management of Cities in the Information Age.” Earthscan Publications, 1997, pp. 90-118, 151-192, 204-226, and 254-255.

Brenner, Neil. “Urban Governance and the Production of New State Spaces in Western Europe, 1960-2000.” Review of International Political Economy 11, no. 4 (2004).

12 Cities and Representation in a Global Age Appadurai, Arjun. “Sovereignty without Territoriality: Notes for a Post-national Geography.” In The Anthropology of Space and Place - Locating Culture. Edited by Setha Low, and Denise Lawrence-Zuñiga. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 337-349.

Luke, Timothy W. “Codes, Collectives, and Commodities: Rethinking Global Cities as Metalogistical Spaces.” In Global Cities: Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age. Edited by Louise Krause, and Patrice Petro. Rutgers University Press, 2003, pp. 157-174.

Sassen, Saskia. “Reading the City in a Global Digital Age: Between Topographic Representation and Spatialized Power Politics.” In Global Cities:Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age. Edited by Louise Krause, and Patrice Petro. Rutgers University Press, 2003, pp. 15-30.

Smith, Michael Peter. Transnational Urbanism. Published by Blackwell, 2001, pp. 123-183.

13 Considering Jerusalem  

Course Info

As Taught In
Spring 2004
Level
Learning Resource Types
Lecture Videos
Written Assignments with Examples