Cities in Modernity: Representations and Productions of Metropolitan Space, 1840–1930

by Richard Dennis

• ISBN13: 9780521464703
• ISBN10: 0521464706
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

What made cities modern in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Cities in Modernity explores connections between culture, economy and built environment in cities of this period, drawing its evidence principally from London, New York and Toronto. The book discusses both the cultural experience of modernity and the material modernization of cities, placing special emphasis on their historical geographies, on the production, representation and use of urban space. The opening chapters present new ways of seeing cities in political and religious discourse, social survey, mapping, art and literature. The book then concentrates on new kinds of public and private spaces, such as apartment buildings, office blocks and department stores, and the networks of communication between them. An important theme throughout is the gendered experience of the new types of environment. The book will appeal to scholars and students of historical geography, urban history and cultural studies.

Author Biography

Richard Dennis is Reader in the Department of Geography, University College London (UCL)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. ix
List of tables	p. xii
Preface	p. xiii
A note on vocabulary and units of measurement	p. xvii
Building bridges	p. 1
The idea of progress	p. 29
Surveying the city	p. 52
Writing and picturing the city	p. 80
Improving streets	p. 113
Public spaces - practised places	p. 144
Building suburbia	p. 179
Consuming suburbia	p. 206
Mansion flats and model dwellings	p. 224
Geographies of downtown: office spaces	p. 263
Geographies of downtown: the place of shopping	p. 296
Networked cities	p. 322
Notes	p. 351
Bibliography	p. 401
Index	p. 425
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.