The imaginative structure of the city / Alan Blum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blum, Alan, 1935-

Series:

Culture of cities

The culture of cities

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sociology, Urban.

Cities and towns.

Physical Description:

x, 330 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Ithaca : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2003]

Summary:

A timely and challenging analysis of the modern city. In The Imaginative Structure of the City Alan Blum explores the symbolic and imaginative nature of the city as a vital part of everyday life in modern civilization. He introduces the city as a community that must struggle to maintain its collective identity against typical problems - problems that threaten to fragment the city's sense of itself. Blum's distinctive form of theoretical inquiry pushes the reader to move beyond conventional ways of thinking about familiar urban issues in answering such fundamental questions as, How does a city exist? How do its inhabitants define their relationship to it? Who is entitled to speak for it? What is its symbolic nature? In what way does the city function as a focus of attempts to resolve social problems such as alienation, participation, and community? In what ways do night and nighttime affect our relationship to it? How is it possible to speak of a city as both exciting and alienating?

Contents:

1 The City Is Nothing But a Sign! 24

2 The Common Situation 50

3 Time, Space 88

4 Cosmopolitanism 115

5 Nighttime 141

6 Scenes 164

7 Materialism 189

8 Impermanence 232

9 Excitement 262.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [299]-325) and index.

ISBN:

0773525394

OCLC:

51242901