Geographies of Somewhere: A Review of Urban Literature

Abstract

The past 10 years have seen the publication of a whole range of books from the US dealing with the loss of place in one way or the other. The books under review were, in general, written for broad audiences and are, in many cases, campaign documents. Their success and substantial number indicate an unease, which many academic texts cannot formulate. They are in this way evidence, in just the same way as were The Death and Life of Great American Cities or Edge City. This European-based review will critically review these recent books in an attempt to highlight their common threads. While the books show particular concern for the poverty of current urban and suburban environments, they lack any substantial discussion of the economic mechanisms which are reproducing the undesired results. They are also unaware of the recent developments in communications and transport technologies, which have considerable potential to influence future trends, which will be discussed in the review. Also included in the review are a number of transport-oriented books, as they formulate a different aspect of the same concern about the built environment.