Cities in civilization: Culture, innovation, and urban order
Subject
Abstract
Why should great cities suddenly
become creative? Why do they have golden ages,
belles époques? Why was Florence so remarkable a
place in the fifteenth century, or London at the end
of the sixteenth, or Paris at the end of the nineteenth
and the beginning of the twentieth century?
Why, in a different way, was Manchester
so remarkable at the end of the eighteenth
century, or Detroit around 1900, or
Silicon Valley today? How exactly do
these golden ages come about? Why do
so few cities have more than one such
golden age? What forces are going to
shape the fates of cities in the coming
century-and what, if anything, can we as
planners do about them?