Theorizing the City

by Low, Setha M.

• ISBN13: 9780813527208
• ISBN10: 0813527201
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Rutgers Univ Pr

Summary

Anthropological perspectives are not often represented in urban studies, even though many anthropologists have been contributing actively to theory and research on urban poverty, racism, globalization, and architecture. Theorizing the City corrects this omission by presenting twelve cross-cultural case studies focusing on the analysis of space and place.

Five images of the city -- the divided city, the contested city, the global city the modernist city, and the postmodern city -- serve as the framework for the selected essays. These images highlight current research trends in urban anthropology, such as poststructural studies of race, class, and gender in the urban context; political economic studies of transnational culture; and studies of the symbolic and social production of urban space and planning.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments and Permissions	xi
Introduction. Theorizing the City	1	(36)
Setha M. Low
Part I The Divided City
The Changing Significance of Race and Class in an African American Community	37	(30)
Steven Gregory
Creating Family Forms: The Exclusion of Men and Teenage Boys from Families in the New York City Shelter System, 1987-1991	67	(16)
Ida Susser
Fortified Enclaves: The New Urban Segregation	83	(28)
Teresa P. R. Caldeira
Part II The Contested City
Spatializing Culture: The Social Production and Social Construction of Public Space in Costa Rica	111	(27)
Setha M. Low
Landscape and Power in Vienna: Gardens of Discovery	138	(31)
Robert Rotenberg
Part III The Global City
Personal Relations and Divergent Economies: A Case Study of Hong Kong Investment in South China	169	(32)
Josephine Smart
Alan Smart
Wholesale Sushi: Culture and Commodity in Tokyo's Tsukiji Market	201	(44)
Theodore C. Bestor
Part IV The Modernist City
The Modernist City and the Death of the Street	245	(32)
James Holston
The Power of Space in the Evolution of an Accra Zongo	277	(40)
Deborah Pellow
Part V The Postmodern City
Making Place in the Nonplace Urban Realm: Notes on the Revitalization of Downtown Atlanta	317	(25)
Charles Rutheiser
Discourses of the City: Policy and Response in Post-Transitional Barcelona	342	(35)
Gary Mcdonogh
Spatial Discourses and Social Boundaries: Re-imagining the Toronto Waterfront	377	(24)
Matthew Cooper
Biographical Notes	401	(4)
Index	405