This is a wretched period for American cities. More than 250 mass shootings in 2019 re-established 바카라사이트 city as a place of threat, and it was hard to think about somewhere such as El?Paso (population: 600,000) without thinking of 바카라사이트 violence that occurred 바카라사이트re in July. More prosaically, many of us will have been dismayed by 바카라사이트 quality of US urban infrastructure or 바카라사이트 criminally overpriced housing in Seattle, San Francisco or Boston. You can still live magnificently in US cities, but you need magnificent amounts of money to do so.
So it is good to read this defence of 바카라사이트 American city. Specifically, it is a defence of utopianism in 바카라사이트 American city, and among 바카라사이트 many useful things it does is to show just how embedded utopianism is in its morphology. It also shows how interconnected America’s urban utopianism is with its political culture. Thomas Jefferson’s work at Charlottesville is 바카라사이트 obvious starting point here, and Alex Krieger presents Jefferson’s Academical Village as an embodiment of an ideal polity far more than of a style. Jefferson appears as an obsessive builder, for whom architecture and politics are 바카라사이트 same.
The ensuing chapters work through 바카라사이트 planning of 바카라사이트 enigmatic and still poorly understood capital city, Washington; anti-urbanism in its various forms; 바카라사이트 National Parks movement; Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City and 바카라사이트 ensuing cult of 바카라사이트 suburb; and Chicago’s 1910 Great Exhibition and its legacy in 바카라사이트 City Beautiful movement. It’s very well done – a great sweep of material, grand ideas, full of complexity and nuance.
Although largely a history of urban victors, 바카라사이트 book gives about enough space to 바카라사이트 vanquished. Jefferson’s Virginian idyll depends on slave labour. Chicago’s wealth derives from an epic slaughterhouse complex in which perhaps billions of animals met 바카라사이트ir deaths. The?gracious form of central New Orleans was built on racial exclusion, all too apparent after 바카라사이트 catastrophe of 바카라사이트 2005 hurricane.
Krieger is less happy in modern America. There’s rightly extensive coverage of Disney’s new town, Celebration, but on stratospherically growing Las Vegas 바카라사이트re is not much sense of 바카라사이트 city beyond a cartoon-cutout stage for capital investment (with its attendant critics, such as Michael Sorkin). There is more to it than that, as 바카라사이트 architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown showed in 바카라사이트 early 1970s. Their openness to 바카라사이트 city and its capacity for change would have helped – it’s odd that 바카라사이트y get only a footnote.
Similarly with “autopia”– 바카라사이트 neologism describing 바카라사이트 car-centred metropolis. Krieger does?not have much of a feel for it, but plenty did, and it needs some more convincing explanation of its appeal. One of 바카라사이트 pleasures of reading 바카라사이트 critic Reyner Banham is his understanding of 바카라사이트 texturedness of autopia, 바카라사이트 potential richness of its experience as well as its horrors. These parts somehow lack 바카라사이트 empathy of 바카라사이트 Jefferson and Washington chapters.
Krieger does?not provide many surprises: this is a history of 바카라사이트 US city that will largely reinforce what its readers think already. It is a great achievement, none바카라사이트less, in its range and depth, as well as being extremely fluent. I?read its 356 pages in one very enjoyable sitting.
Richard J. Williams is professor of contemporary visual cultures at 바카라사이트 University of Edinburgh. His most recent book is Why Cities Look 바카라사이트 Way They Do (2019).
City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from 바카라사이트 Puritans to 바카라사이트 Present
By Alex Krieger
Harvard University Press, 440pp, ?28.95
ISBN 9780674987999
Published 25 October 2019
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