The City Reader

by Richard T. LeGates (Editor), Frederic Stout (Editor), Roger W. Caves (Editor)

Overview

The eighth edition of the highly successful The City Reader juxtaposes the very best classic and contemporary writings on the city to provide the comprehensive mapping of the terrain of Urban Studies and Planning old and new. The City Reader is the anchor volume in the Routledge Urban Reader Series and is now integrated with all ten other titles in the series. It has been extensively updated and expanded to reflect the latest thinking in each of the disciplinary areas included and in topical areas such as urban history, place making, sustainable urban development, globalization, resilience, artificial intelligence in planning cities, climate change, the world city network, the impact of technology on cities, cities in Africa, and urban theory. 

The new edition places greater emphasis on cities in the developing world, globalization and the global city system of the future. The plate sections have been more than doubled to include 93 plates.

The 8th edition includes fifty-eight generous selections: forty-seven from the 7^th edition, one from the 6^th edition, and ten new selections, including four newly written exclusively for the 8^th edition. This new edition retains classic writings by authors such as Ebenezer Howard, Ernest W. Burgess, H.D.F. Kitto, LeCorbusier, Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Louis Wirth, and Peter Hall as well as the best contemporary writings of, among others David Harvey, Manuel Castells, Michael Batty, Sara Meerow, Fulong Wu, Saskia Sassen, Richard LeGates, Michael Smith, John McWhorter, and a co-authored selection by Xuefei Ren and Roger Keil. 

The City Reader 8^th Edition features general and section introductions as well as individual introductions to the selected articles introducing the authors, providing context, and relating the selection to other selections. The 8th edition includes a greatly expanded bibliography with up-to-date information on books, articles, professional reports, and videos for all the topics covered.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032857114
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/07/2025
Series:	Routledge Urban Reader Series
Edition description:	8th ed.
Pages:	828
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Richard T. LeGates is a Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and Planning at San Francisco State University.

Frederic Stout is a lecturer in Urban Studies at Stanford University.

Roger W. Caves is a Professor Emeritus of City Planning at San Diego State University.

Table of Contents

Lists of plates

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

 

Prologue: ‘How to Study Cities”

Richard T. LeGates

 

 

Part 1 The Evolution of Cities

 

Introduction

 

“The Urbanization of the Human Population”

Kingsley Davis

 

“The Urban Revolution”

V. Gordon Childe

 

“The Earliest Cities”

Michael Smith

 

“The Polis”

H. D. F. Kitto

 

“City Origins” and “Cities and European Civilization”

Henri Pirenne

 

“The Great Towns”

Friedrich Engels

 

“The Automobile, the City, and the New Urban Mobilities”

Frederic Stout

 

Globalizing Cities

 

Xuefei Ren and Roger Keil

 

Plate Section 1: The Evolution of Cities

 

 

 

Part 2:  Urban Culture and Society

 

Introduction

 

“The Urban Drama”

Lewis Mumford

 

“Urbanism as a Way of Life”

Louis Wirth

 

“The Negro Problems of Philadelphia,” “The Question of Earning a Living,” and “Color Prejudice”

W. E. B. Du Bois

 

“The Code of the Street” and “Decent and Street Families”

Elijah Anderson

 

“Winning the Race”

John H. McWhorter

 

“Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”

Robert D. Putnam

 

“The City That Lost Its Soul”

Sharon Zukin

 

Plate Section 2: “Urban Culture and Society”

 

Part 3    Urban Space

 

Introduction

 

“The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project”

Ernest W. Burgess

 

“Gender and Urban Space”

Daphne Spain

 

“The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety”

Jane Jacobs

 

“Social Exclusion, Space, and Time”

Ali Madanipour

 

“Bright vs. Blurred Boundaries: Second-generation Assimilation and Exclusion in France, Germany, and the United States

Richard Alba

 

“The Causes of Sprawl”

Robert Bruegmann

 

Networks of Outrage and Hope

Manuel Castells

 

“Making Room for a Planet of Cities”

Schlomo Angel

 

Plate Section 3: “Urban Space”

 

Part 4    Urban Politics, Governance, and Economics

 

Introduction

 

“Politics”

Aristotle

 

“The Right to the City”

David Harvey

 

“A Ladder of Citizen Participation”

Sherry Arnstein

 

“The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City”

Michael Porter

 

“The City as a Growth Machine: Towards a Political Economy of Place”

Harvey Molotch

 

“The City as a Distorted Price System”

Wilbur Thompson

 

“Metropolitics and Fiscal Equity”

Myron Orfield

 

Plate Section 4: “Urban Politics, Governance, and Economics”

 

Part 5    Urban Planning History and Visions

 

Introduction

 

“Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns”

Frederick Law Olmsted

 

Garden Cities of Tomorrow

Ebenezer Howard

 

“A Contemporary City”

Le Corbusier

 

“Broadacre City: A New Community Plan”

Frank Lloyd Wright

 

“The Charter of the New Urbanism

Congress for the New Urbanism

 

“Green Manhattan: Everywhere Should Be More Like New York”

David Owen

 

“The Almost Perfect Town”

John Brinckerhoff Jackson

 

Plate Section 5: “Urban Planning History and Visions”

 

Part 6    Urban Planning Theory and Practice

 

Introduction

 

“The Smart City”

Michael Batty

 

“The City of Theory”

Peter Hall

 

“The Uses of Planning Theory”

John Friedmann

 

“Planning in the Face of Conflict”

John Forester

 

“Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning”

Paul Davidoff

 

“Hybrid Planning Cultures: The Search for the Global Cultural Commons”

Bishwapriya Sanyal

 

“Seeing from the South: Refocusing Urban Planning on the Globe’s Central Urban Issues”

Vanessa Watson

 

“Urban resilience”

Sara Meerow

 

Plate Section 6: “Urban Planning: Theory and Practice”

 

 

Part 7    Urban Design and Placemaking

 

Introduction

 

“Urban Design

Richard LeGates

 

“What is Placemaking?”

Project for Public Spaces

 

“The Design of Spaces”

William H. Whyte

 

“The Neighborhood Unit”

Clarence Perry

 

“The City Image and its Elements”

Kevin Lynch

 

“Toward an Urban Design Manifesto”

Allan Jacobs and Donald Appleyard

 

“Designing Inclusive, Healthy Places”

Jennifer Gardner

 

“Life Between Buildings”

Jan Gehl

 

Plate Section 7: “Urban Design and Placemaking”

 

Part 8    Urban Futures and Global Challenges

 

Introduction

 

“The Impact of the New Technologies and Globalization on Cities”

Saskia Sassen

 

“Planning as statecraft: a perspective of state entrepreneurialism in China

Fulong Wu

 

“AI-Driven Urban Planning: From Planning Support to Plan-Making”

Zhong-Ren Peng

 

“World Cities, or a World of Ordinary Cities?”

Jennifer Robinson

 

Plate Section 8: Urban Futures and Global Challenges

 

 

Illustration credits

Copyright information

Index

Editorial Reviews

…the definitively complete reader on urban problems and policies.

Peter Hall, University College London

…a "must read" book…comprehensive, authoritative and just plain fun.

Eugenie Birch, Professor of Urban Planning and Design, University of Pennsylvania

…A book for all generations of urbanists.

Margaret Wilder, Executive Director, Urban Affairs Association

… the single most authoritative collection of foundational readings in urban studies and planning today.

Tridib Bannerjee, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Southern California

… an indispensable widely read book in the world which provides a collection of classical and contemporary seminal literature for understanding the multidisciplinary complexities of our cities.

Anthony G.O. Yeh, Chair Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Design, The University of Hong Kong, Secretary-General, Asian Planning Schools Association

… the best single "go-to" volume for young scholars interested in how cities work, and how they can be made to work better.… As a one-stop source for historical and contemporary theory and practice… still unbeatable.

John Landis, Professor of Urban Planning and Design, University of Pennsylvania

… an indispensable resource across all the fields concerned with the study of city.

Michael Hibbard, Professor Emeritus of Planning, Public Policy & Management, University of Oregon

… a magnificent job… Essential reading as our world turns into one dominated by cities.

Michael Batty, Bartlett Professor, University College London

…should be on the required list for all individuals interested in urbanism

Roger Caves, Professor of Urban Planning, San Diego State University

… an excellent, international resource for all urbanists… a really useful global overview of contemporary developments in urban studies

Robin Hambleton, Professor of City Leadership, University of the West of England

…a continuing invaluable and reliable global resource for urban and regional planners tackling complex issues in an increasingly urbanising world.

Barbara Norman, Foundation Chair, Urban and Regional Planning Department, University of Canberra

… an inclusive introduction that captures the major topics and readings in urban studies.

Susan S. Fainstein, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

… the definitively complete reader on urban problems and policies.

Peter Hall, University College London

… a "must read" book…comprehensive, authoritative and just plain fun.

Eugenie Birch, Professor of Urban Planning and Design, University of Pennsylvania

…A book for all generations of urbanists.

Margaret Wilder, Executive Director, Urban Affairs Association

… the single most authoritative collection of foundational readings in urban studies and planning today.

Tridib Bannerjee, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Southern California

… an indispensable widely read book in the world which provides a collection of classical and contemporary seminal literature for understanding the multidisciplinary complexities of our cities.

Anthony G.O. Yeh, Chair Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Design, The University of Hong Kong, Secretary-General, Asian Planning Schools Association

… the best single "go-to" volume for young scholars interested in how cities work, and how they can be made to work better.… As a one-stop source for historical and contemporary theory and practice… still unbeatable.

John Landis, Professor of Urban Planning and Design, University of Pennsylvania

… an indispensable resource across all the fields concerned with the study of city.

Michael Hibbard, Professor Emeritus of Planning, Public Policy & Management, University of Oregon

… a magnificent job… Essential reading as our world turns into one dominated by cities.

Michael Batty, Bartlett Professor, University College London

… should be on the required list for all individuals interested in urbanism

Roger Caves, Professor of Urban Planning, San Diego State University

… an excellent, international resource for all urbanists… a really useful global overview of contemporary developments in urban studies

Robin Hambleton, Professor of City Leadership, University of the West of England

… a continuing invaluable and reliable global resource for urban and regional planners tackling complex issues in an increasingly urbanising world.

Barbara Norman, Foundation Chair, Urban and Regional Planning Department, University of Canberra

… an inclusive introduction that captures the major topics and readings in urban studies.

Susan S. Fainstein, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

From the Publisher