Urban Books - Page 12

Streets of Hope : The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood

Peter Medoff, Holly Sklar

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Streets of Hope tells the unique story of the revitalization of a Boston neighborhood—from the grassroots and without gentrification.

In the early 1980s Dudley Square was under attack. Redlining and redevelopment made arson common and hardly a night passed when a house was not on fire. It was here that residents and their allies formed the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DNSI), one of the most successful community development projects in the nation. Becoming the only nongovernmental agency in the United States authorized to claim eminent domain, DNSI wielded this and a range of other tools to create affordable, livable housing by and for the community.

As the mortgage crisis worsens and banks continue to tighten their lending guidelines, neighborhoods across the United States face a return to those fiery days. But not Dudley Street. DNSI’s land trust, a limited equity model—one hailed by Fannie Mae—is not at risk. Now, twenty-five years after DNSI’s founding and fifteen years after Streets of Hope appeared, South End Press is proud to release this updated anniversary edition.

With “personalities, poetic utterings and stories a novelist would enjoy” (The Boston Globe), Streets of Hope offers one community’s hard-won lessons to us all.

Peter Medoff, a leading consultant on community development, died in 1994, shortly after Streets of Hope was published. Media expert Holly Sklar is a nationally syndicated columnist, author, and policy analyst. Her op-eds have appeared in hundreds of newspapers and online outlets.

The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, And The Culture Of The Night

Anthony Haden-guest

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Excellent Book, But Not For All Studio 54 Fans 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This book is an excellent in-depth analysis of the New York City Nightworld from the disco-elite 1970s into the Club-Kids of the 1990s. The title might mislead readers into thinking this is "The Studio 54 story." This book does not focus solely on the rise and fall of Studio 54. Anthony Haden-Guest focuses on the rise and fall of the entire NYC nightclub scene, with Studio 54's Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager taking center stage.

If you are looking for a book that mainly emphasizes the celebrities, the glitz, and wild parties in Studio 54, this book may not be your cup of tea. These topics are covered, but the book emphasizes the chaotic, competitive ---and often cutthroat--- business nature of nightclubs. In doing so, Haden-Guest does a great and even job of illustrating Nightworld's sharp businessmen, the starry-eyed dreamers, the junkies, the megalomaniacs, the doormen, and the party-goers. You read the frightening ups & downs of the business players, and their mad scrambles to try and duplicate the success of Studio 54. And often, some of these key players are all the abovementioned items rolled up into one.

I was surprised to read just how unstable the nightclub business was during this "Boom" period. There was no club that matched Studio 54's once-in-a-century money making machine. But even its best competitors found numerous obstacles in running a successful night-scene, and very few lasted more than two years. You will read about the fickle Nightworld party-goers, how they tired quickly of even the hottest parties, eventually abandoning the hot club in hopes of a newer, hotter nightspot.

It is equally astounding to see how many would be entrepreneurs sought funding to duplicate Studio 54's achievements; some well equipped, others incompetent. There are the brief triumphs of Maurice Brahms, the drive of Arthur Weinstein, the mixed success of Scotty Taylor, and the sad story of Uva Hardin, the volatile dreamer that never even got a club off the ground.

You do meet the charismatic characters that inhabited Studio 54 and the surrounding clubs, including Bianca Jagger, drug runner Tom Sullivan, Mark Benecke (probably the only guy who became famous for being a club doorman), club goer Tinkerbelle, Carmen D'Alessio, legendary attorney Roy Cohn, Rudolf and His Club Kids, and Halston. The author does not merely tell you the cool stories about their doings, he illustrates how they shaped Nightworld and/or how Nightworld shaped (and sometime damaged) them.

Haden-Guest paces the story of Rubell and Schrager's unexpected success very well. Their financial boom was so intense and happened so fast that both men failed to see the potential fallout. Like many club owners, they skimmed money, only Rubell and Schrager skimmed mountains more than the average club owner, and practically egged on the IRS to investigate them. The out of control egos, the delusion of being untouchable, is all too evident in this tale. The author also illustrates the irony in Studio 54's downfall, how if Rubell and Schrager reeled in their egos just a little bit, there is a chance the Saga of Studio 54 would be an ongoing success story today.

If I could point to the one thing that I enjoyed most about The Last Party, it would be the treatment of Steve Rubell. I have seen numerous articles and documentaries of the nightclub phenomenon that paints Rubell as an eccentric visionary, a maverick, a madman? and not much else. Haden-Guest does show us the manic & drugging Rubell, but we get a keen look at the soul behind the "human perpetual-motion machine." Especially moving was that after numerous whirlwind career ups-&-downs and "Hello & G'bye" sexual encounters, Rubell, in the last years of his life, found love with Bill Hamilton.

If you are looking for a book on the glitz of Studio 54, a good source is the VH1 Behind the Music documentary aired around 1996-97. If you want an insightful look into the complex and unpredictable nature of the Nightworld phenomenon, this is the book for you.

Editorial Review:

Studio 54 was the epicenter of disco culture and pre-AIDS debauchery. Now, journalist and nightworld denizen Anthony Haden-Guest takes us behind the velvet rope that separated the celebrities from the wanna-bes, into an all-night world of revelry, sensation, and decadence.

Going beyond the endless partying with Liza, Bianca, Halston, Andy, and Mick, Haden-Guest probes the seamy underside of Studio 54: the drugs, the deaths, and the corruption that eventually shuttered the club. It is the story of Studio 54's flamboyant owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, who achieved early success beyond their wildest imaginings, came within a hair's breadth of great power, and then crashed and burned.

Race and the Education of Desire: Foucaults History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things

Ann Stoler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality has been one of the most influential books of the last two decades. It has had an enormous impact on cultural studies and work across many disciplines on gender, sexuality, and the body. Bringing a new set of questions to this key work, Ann Laura Stoler examines volume one of History of Sexuality in an unexplored light. She asks why there has been such a muted engagement with this work among students of colonialism for whom issues of sexuality and power are so essential. Why is the colonial context absent from Foucault’s history of a European sexual discourse that for him defined the bourgeois self? In Race and the Education of Desire, Stoler challenges Foucault’s tunnel vision of the West and his marginalization of empire. She also argues that this first volume of History of Sexuality contains a suggestive if not studied treatment of race.
Drawing on Foucault’s little-known 1976 College de France lectures, Stoler addresses his treatment of the relationship between biopower, bourgeois sexuality, and what he identified as “racisms of the state.” In this critical and historically grounded analysis based on cultural theory and her own extensive research in Dutch and French colonial archives, Stoler suggests how Foucault’s insights have in the past constrained—and in the future may help shape—the ways we trace the genealogies of race.
Race and the Education of Desire will revise current notions of the connections between European and colonial historiography and between the European bourgeois order and the colonial treatment of sexuality. Arguing that a history of European nineteenth-century sexuality must also be a history of race, it will change the way we think about Foucault.

Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perceptions, Attitudes, and Values

Yi-Fu Tuan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The seeds of Tuan's "humanistic geography" 4 out of 5 stars.
25 of 25 people found this review helpful.

After reading Yi-Fu Tuan's "Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience," delving into "Topophilia" is a bit like stepping backward in the philosopher's evolution of thought. There are astounding passages of wisdom here, about the nature of human experience as it relates to the environment -- interspersed, sometimes jarringly, with related histories and descriptions. The seeds of Tuan's "humanistic geography" are here, but are not as philosophically compelling as the mature synthesis found in "Space and Place."

It would be a mistake, however, to view Tuan's more mature work as superceding this volume. "Topophilia" is full of amazing sensitivity and insight, and key to gaining a deep and useful understanding of the author's philosophy. This book's emphasis on the conventional 'environment' is also significantly different from the broader notions 'space and place' explored in the later work of that name. Both works are seminal.

To the philosopher, artist, and psychologist, I would recommend reading "Space and Place" before this book. To the geographer and especially the environmentalist, however, Topophilia's particular focus may be a more enticing place to start.

Editorial Review:

What are the links between environment and world view? Topophilia, the affective bond between people and place, is the primary theme of this book that examines environmental perceptions and values at different levels: the species, the group, and the individual.

Yi-Fu Tuan holds culture and environment and topophilia and environment as distinct in order to show how they mutually contribute to the formation of values. Topophilia examines the search for environment in the city, suburb, countryside, and wilderness from a dialectical perspective, distinguishes different types of environmental experience, and describes their character.

Next Stop: Growing Up Wild-Style in the Bronx

Ivan Sanchez

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Beyond the safety of New York City's news headlines, Next Stop is a train ride into the heart of the Bronx during the late eighties and early nineties at the height of the crack epidemic, a tumultuous time when hip-hop was born and money-hungry slumlords were burning down apartment buildings with tenants still inside. From one stop to the next, this gritty memoir follows Ivan Sanchez and his crew on their search for identity and an escape from poverty in a stark world where street wars and all-night symphonies of crime and drug-fueled mayhem were as routine as the number 4 train.

In the game, the difference between riches and ruin was either a bullet or a lucky turn away. Almost driven insane by the poverty, despair, and senseless violence, Ivan left it all behind and moved to Virginia, but the grotesque images and voices of the dead continued to haunt him. This book honors the memories of those who died. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Next Stop shares with a whole new generation the insights and hard lessons Ivan learned.

A Prayer for the City

Buzz Bissinger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Current Affairs/Urban Studies

"An extraordinary book, an insider's account of the daily
workings of a big-city administration."
--Witold Rybczynski, The New York Review of Books

A Prayer for the City is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Buzz Bissinger's true epic of Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell, an utterly unique, unorthodox, and idiosyncratic leader who will do anything to save his city: take unions head on, personally lobby President Clinton to save 10,000 defense jobs, or wrestle Smiley the Pig on Hot Dog Day--all the while bearing in mind the eternal fickleness of constituents whose favor may hinge on a missed garbage pick-up or an overzealous meter maid. It is also the story of citizens in crisis: a woman fighting ceaselessly to give her great-grandchildren a better life, a father of six who may lose his job at the Navy Shipyard, and a policy analyst whose experiences as a crime victim tempt her to abandon her job and ideals. Heart-wrenching and hilarious, alive with detail and insight, A Prayer for the City describes a city on its knees and the rare combination of political courage and optimism that may be the only hope for America's urban centers.

"A Prayer for the City gives a unique insider account. . . . [It] is a superb book. . . . Bissinger's writing, sparse and urgent, always shines . . . and his narrative crackles with descriptive force." --The Miami Herald

"A full-scale portrait of a struggling American metropolis that brings to mind such classics of urban reportage and analysis as J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground and Nicholas Lemann's Promised Land."
--The New York Times Book Review

"What we see through Bissinger's unique lens is profoundly touching and inspiring, poignant and sad. . . . If you really want to feel the
heartbeat of the American city--and find a source of hope for its
revival--you will find it here." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster is the first critical scholarly book on the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. The disaster will go down in record as one of the worst in American history, not least because of the government's generally inept and cavalier response. But it's also a huge story for other obvious reasons. Firstly, the impact of the hurricane was uneven, and race and class (and tied to this, poverty) were deeply implicated in the unevenness. It was not by accident that the poorest and blackest neighborhoods were the ones that were buried under water. Secondly, the response underscored the impoverishment of social policy (or what passes for it) in both George W. Bush's America and more specifically the Republican-dominated South. Thirdly, New Orleans is not just any place - it's a great American city with a rich and unique history. People care about the place and what happens there. Fourthly, what happened and what will happen there can tell us a greatdeal about the state of urban and regional planning in contemporary America.
The book, edited by two eminent scholars/authors, gathers together ten excellent scholars to put forth a multifaceted portrait of the social implications of the disaster. And the disaster was primarily social in nature, as the title reminds us. The book covers the response to the disaster and the roles that race and class played, its impact on housing, the historical context of urban disasters in America, the nature of contemporary metropolitan planning, what the hurricane has taught us about planning, the role of the vast prison system in all of this, the future of economic development, the roles of business and the media, and how the hurricane disproportionately impacted female headed households. In total, it offers a critical and comprehensive social portrait of the disaster's catastrophic effects on New Orleans.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings

Jan Harold Brunvand

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The very best book ever on this subject 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This author is a rare find in literature of this kind: a genuine, professional folklorist who carefully documents his subject and traces its beginnings. Brumvand is the first author to consult on urban folklore. This book is a keeper, one to read and re-read.

Not A Book About Urban Legends 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 32 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book thinking that it was a collection of short stories about urban legends. I was partly right. It does have short stories but it also contains a explaination about each and every one including varations of a story.

I would recommend that unless this is a book report for school or college that you should save your money and try and find it in a used book store or buy it used from a seller on amazon. It is not worth the money to buy it new.

Original Text for Urban Legends 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Thanks to the work of Jan Brunvand, the term "urban legend" has become part of the English language lexicon. This is the first book that Brunvand wrote on urban legends, and it contains the classics. You can find out the scoop on rats in KFC, spiders in bananas, the hookman, and (of course) the vanishing hitchhiker. The work shows how legends are oftentimes accepted without critique for being true, and the analysis provides interesting ways for considering why these stories catch on amongst tellers and listeners.

Editorial Review:

The culmination of 20 years of collection and research, this book on urban legends remains a classic.

Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century

Peter Hall

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Good read and study of planning history! 4 out of 5 stars.
17 of 30 people found this review helpful.

My university is using this book as a text as part of our study of Planning History. It is a very good read and is unlike a textbook. Outlines planning history from 1880 to 1980.

Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Be the first to review this item

Essential Planning History 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

A reference classic to approach with a critical eye the history of urban planning. Probably what Peter Hall is most recognized for...

Editorial Review:

Cities of Tomorrow is a critical history of planning in theory and practice in the twentieth century, as well as of the social and economic problems and opportunities that gave rise to it.

• A critical history of planning in theory and practice in the twentieth century, as well as of the social and economic problems and opportunities that gave rise to it.
  
• Trenchant, perceptive, global in coverage, this book is an unrivalled account of its crucial subject.
  
• Comprehensively revised to take account of abundant new literature published since its original appearance, and to view the 1990s in historical perspective.
  
• Reviews the development of the modern planning movement over the entire span of the twentieth century.

Hyperborder: The Contemporary U.S.? Mexico Border and It's Future

Fernando Romero

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

"Excels in the every aspect" "The Most Comprehensive Book on the US/Mexico Border" 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

There is no other book that explains better what the US/Mexico Border is. It should be read by all of those that want to understand issues about the border including policy makers at all levels.

It is important that we understand the integrartion between Mexico and the United States that exist and that can have a very possitive impact to the economy of both countries.

This is a must for all Universities.

Editorial Review:

Roving vigilantes, fear-mongering politicians, hysterical pundits, and the looming shadow of a seven hundred-mile-long fence: the  US–Mexican border is one of the most complex and dynamic areas on the planet today. Hyperborder provides the most nuanced portrait yet of this dynamic region. Author Fernando Romero presents a multidisciplinary perspective informed by interviews with numerous academics, researchers, and organizations. Provocatively designed in the style of other kinetic large-scale studies like Rem Koolhaas's Content and Bruce Mau’s Massive Change, Hyperborder is an exhaustively researched report from the front lines of the border debate.