Urban Sociology - General & Miscellaneous, Urban Growth, World History - General & Miscellaneous, Civilization - General & Miscellaneous

Cities in Civilization

Name: Cities in Civilization
Author: Peter Geoffrey Hall
ISBN: 9780394587325

by Peter Geoffrey Hall

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Overview

Ranging over 2,500 years, Cities in Civilization is a tribute to the city as the birthplace of Western civilization. Drawing on the contributions of economists and geographers, of cultural, technological, and social historians, Sir Peter Hall examines twenty-one cities at their greatest moments. Hall describes the achievements of these golden ages and outlines the precise combinations of forces -- both universal and local -- that led to each city's belle epoque.

Hall identifies four distinct expressions of civic innovation: artistic growth, technological progress, the marriage of culture and technology, and solutions to evolving problems. Descriptions of Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan London, and nineteenth-century Vienna bring to life those seedbeds of artistic and intellectual creativity. Explorations of Manchester during the Industrial Revolution, of Henry Ford's Detroit, and of Palo Alto at the dawn of the computer age highlight centers of technological advances. Tales of the creation of Los Angeles' movie industry and the birth of the blues and rock 'n' roll in Memphis depict the marriage of culture and technology.

Finally, Hall celebrates cities that have been forced to solve problems created by their very size. With Imperial Rome came the apartment block and aqueduct; nineteenth-century London introduced policing, prisons, and sewers; twentieth-century New York developed the skyscraper; and Los Angeles became the first city without a center, a city ruled instead by the car. And in a fascinating conclusion, Hall speculates on urban creativity in the twenty-first century.

This penetrating study reveals not only the lives of cities but also the lives of the people who built them and created the civilizations within them. A decade in the making, Cities in Civilization is the definitive account of the culture of cities.

About the Author, Peter Geoffrey Hall

Sir Peter Hall is Professor of Planning at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College, London, and Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author or editor of more than twenty-five books, including The World Cities and Cities Tomorrow, and is a former Special Advisor on Planning to the Secretary of State for the Environment. He lives in London.

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Editorials

Craig Whitaker

Hall's tome is better read as an encyclopedia of creative epochs, a place to start a more specific journey.
— USA Today

Fred Siegel

This is a marvelous book, the distillation of a lifetime of learning. It will more than reward those who are willing to brave its formidable bulk. -- Wall Street Journal

Ariel Levy

. . .Hall reminds us that though we may think of it as the greatest city on earth, New York's sudden leap into the ranks of great world cities occurred only around the turn of the century.
—New York Magazine

Library Journal

Like Braudel's and Holmes's, Hall's thesis here is that "the biggest and most cosmopolitan cities...have throughout history been the places that ignited the sacred flame of the human intelligence and the human imagination." Case studies illustrate themes such as the city as cultural crucible, the milieu for innovation, etc. Other recent larger studies of historically important cities include Robert Hughes's Barcelona (LJ 10/1/91) and Roy Porter's London: A Social History (Harvard Univ., 1995). (LJ 12/98). Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

From The Critics

This new paperback edition of a classic presents 2,500 years of urban history with a focus on city planning and urban design changes over the centuries. From the rise of the great cities of Europe to America, Cities In Civilization uses the urban focus to reveal the growth and force of cities in civilization's expansion.

Ariel Levy

Kirkus Reviews

Any book this size must pass the hernia test: Is the payoff from reading it greater than the potential discomfort from lifting it? Urban planning expert Hall's (University Coll., London) magnum opus passes, but just barely. He observes that certain cities, at certain times, pass through "golden ages," and he seeks an explanation for these brief historical moments. Hall explores the cultural flowering of Athens, Florence, London, Vienna, Paris, and Berlin, each in their prime; considers the productive innovation of Manchester, Glasgow, Berlin, Detroit, Palo Alto, and Tokyo; and describes the merger of art and industry in Los Angeles and Memphis. This survey produces a wealth of information but doesn't pin down specific variables explaining the rise and fall of great cities, so the indefatigable author seeks out the organizational basis of the urban order in Rome, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and Stockholm. The empirical description is supported by theoretical analysis drawing upon a wide array of thinkers, and Hall's ability to remain focused on his initial question through a thousand pages of material is remarkable. A reasonable reader, however, could feel cheated by his conclusion. While recognizing preconditions which can encourage or retard a city's development, Hall finds that "time and chance happeneth to them all; it is a question of finding the moment and seizing the hour." To explain that there's no explanation cannot satisfy. And the failure may reflect an authorial flaw. For Hall, cities are too much the grandest variable in human existence for them to be epiphenomena, so factors such as the rise and fall of nations or shifts in global economic patterns remain atthe margin of his analysis. Unfortunately, excluding the variables most likely to be fruitful is a recipe for intellectual frustration. Nevertheless, his exhaustive case studies of cities are commendable.