Urban Reflections

APPROVED BY AUTHOR

As cities rush headlong into a modern world, the pace of change can seem bewildering as they are continually rebuilt and reshaped. New offices, shopping centres, housing developments, roads and railways, and places of entertainment keep places economically viable and globally competitive. Layers of a city's built fabric are replaced with others, evoking feelings of uncertainty, nostalgia and, sometimes, even resistance in the people caught up in the change.

Urban Reflections looks at how places change, the role of planners in bringing about urban change, and the public's attitudes to that change.

Drawing on geographical, cinematic and photographic readings throughout the 20th century, the book offers a fresh incisive story of urban change, one that evokes both real and imagined perspectives of places and planning, and questions what role and purpose urban planning serves in the 21st century. It will interest urban and architectural historians, planners, geographers and all concerned with understanding urban planning and attitudes toward the contemporary city.