Building Cities That Work

✍ Scribed by Edmund P. Fowler

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 332
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Since 1945 North Americans have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on urban development, literally transforming the landscape of the continent. This development is disastrous, Edmund Fowler maintains, because it is inordinately expensive, destructive of the environment, and disruptive of healthy social life and authentic politics. Revealing the connections between our basic cultural beliefs and why we build the way we do, Fowler stresses that to build cities that work we must become aware of how our personal choices contribute to the form of the built environment.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Tables and Figures
Preface
1 Postwar City Building from Above and Below
The New Urban Environment
The Areas of the Toronto Study
PART ONE: THE LACK OF PHYSICAL DIVERSITY: ITS CONSEQUENCES
2 The Economic Costs of the New North American City
The Costs of Municipal Services
Housing
Retail and Manufacturing
Conclusions
3 The Social Consequences of the New North American City
The Suburbs
Likes and Dislikes
Friendship Patterns
Crime
4 Children
Belonging to the Environment
Socializing
Juvenile Delinquency
5 Politics and the New Urban Environment
Conventional Politics 115
Authentic Politics
Local Government
The Impact of the New Built Environment on Politics
PART TWO: EXPLORING WHY WE BUILT THIS WAY: OPENINGS TO CHANGE
6 Why Did We Do It? Explanations for the Postwar Urban Environment
Economic Explanations
Political Explanations
Culture
Planners and Planning
7 Basic Assumptions
Separation from Nature
Economic Institutions
Political Institutions
8 Our Cities, Our Selves
Appendix The Areas and Their Scores on Physical Diversity
Notes
Bibliography
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
Z