The City Revisited: Urban Theory from Chicago

摘要

The City Revisited is a concise, readable analysis of the contemporary U.S. city focusing on three urban environments: Chicago, Los Angeles (LA), and New York. Its mission is to deepen the theorizing of the city using these three historic exemplars. Judd and Simpson posit that three urban schools have dominated the debate about city dynamics-the L.A. School, the Chicago School, and the New York School-and have generated a base of fundamental understandings that need updating, nuance, and modification. Such urban theory, to the authors, is understandably contested terrain, and any single story line will have limitations. In theme, cities are complex, theory-resistant objects, but times change, societies change, cities change. Thus, they contend, the search to understand the U.S. city must proceed ahead, and these schools must be cracked open to generate new insights into this ever-evolving city.