Seeing like a city / Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift ; drawings by Katarina Nitsch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Amin, Ash, author.

Thrift, N. J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cities and towns.

Sociology, Urban.

Human geography.

Physical Description:

203 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, 2017.

Summary:

Seeing like a city" means recognizing that cities are living things made up of a tangle of networks, built up from the agency of countless actors. Cities must not be considered as expressions of larger paradigms or sites of human effort and organization alone. Within their density, size and sprawl can be found a world of symbols, bodies, buildings, technologies and infrastructures. It is the machine-like combination, interaction and confrontation of these different elements that make a city. Such a view locates urban outcomes and influences in the character of these networks which together power urban life, allocating resources, shaping social opportunities, maintaining order and simply enabling life. More than the silent stage on which other powers perform, they represent the essence of the city. They also form an important political project, a politics of small interventions with large effects. The increasing evidence for an Anthropocene bears out the way in which humanity has stamped its footprint on the planet by constructing urban forms that act as systems for directing life in ways that create both immense power and immense constraint. "Seeing like a city" means re-energizing the social scientific study of the urban to chart the path to equity and justice.

Contents:

Prologue

Looking through the city

Shifting the beginning: the anthropocene

How cities think

The matter of economy

Frames of poverty

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-189) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Amin, Ash, author. Seeing like a city

ISBN:

9780745664255

0745664253

9780745664262

0745664261

OCLC:

965614099