For all the attention urbanism has gotten over recent years, the study of cities for their own sake has often languished—and might even risk being defined out of existence. With apologies to Louis Wirth.
From Left to Right: Ildefons Cerdà, Louis Wirth, Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, Jan Gehl.
Sometime last summer, during one of my regular walks exploring an urban neighborhood—I've long found that the old advice to "pound the pavement" is the best way to stay actually grounded as an urbanist—I unexpectedly stumbled across an independent book shop. The weather was blisteringly hot, and being a sucker for a good bookstore, I popped in, as much for the AC as to browse. My brain numbed by the heat, I perused the shelves, duly impressed by the store's selection and curation, but not focused on anything in particular. My detached drift, however, came to a sudden stop as I stumbled across something that made my heart lurch: an entire section labeled simply, "Urbanism."
At first glance, I was ecstatic. Not so long ago, finding books about cities was a thankless task, even in the best shops. If you were lucky, you might find a small selection of books about urban design tucked in at the back of the architecture section, some pieces of urban history peppered in with general or local history, or perhaps some works of urban theory stashed in amongst other, more general works of sociology. To suddenly be faced with a dedicated section stacked with luminaries like Jane Jacobs, Kenneth T. Jackson, Mike Davis, Christopher Alexander, and Richard Sennett seemed almost transcendental. It felt like urbanism as a field of study—as a discipline all its own—had finally come of age, and was finally starting to get the attention it so richly deserves.
Looking closer, however, my crest began to fall almost as quickly as it had risen. While it was tremendous to see all the authors listed above in one place, they were hardly contemporary: most of their groundbreaking works were at least thirty years old, and many were far older. There were also plenty of newer works as well, of course—most of which deserved (or at least, at a glance, seemed to deserve) their spot here. Seeing them all in one place, however, made it clear that while there were undoubtedly a lot of contemporary books about cities, most here came out of their own specific field, not urbanism. There was a lot of history (for instance, Lizabeth Cohen's excellent work on Ed Logue), biography (Richard Rein's book on William H. Whyte), sociology, social science, a few books of policy, and enough expensive architecture tomes to rival the construction cost of a Santiago Calatrava project. Many of these works (at least the ones I have personally engaged with) are good or even great. Almost none, however, could truly be said to come from the domain of urbanism itself. Read more...
