City Making: Building Communities Without Building Walls - Hardcover

Frug, Gerald E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691007411 ISBN 13: 9780691007410

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

American metropolitan areas today are divided into neighborhoods of privilege and poverty, often along lines of ethnicity and race. City residents traveling through these neighborhoods move from feeling at home to feeling like tourists to feeling so out of place they fear for their security. As Gerald Frug shows, this divided and inhospitable urban landscape is not simply the result of individual choices about where to live or start a business. It is the product of government policies--and, in particular, the policies embedded in legal rules. A Harvard law professor and leading expert on urban affairs, Frug presents the first-ever analysis of how legal rules shape modern cities and outlines a set of alternatives to bring down the walls that now keep city dwellers apart.

Frug begins by describing how American law treats cities as subdivisions of states and shows how this arrangement has encouraged the separation of metropolitan residents into different, sometimes hostile groups. He explains in clear, accessible language the divisive impact of rules about zoning, redevelopment, land use, and the organization of such city services as education and policing. He pays special attention to the underlying role of anxiety about strangers, the widespread desire for good schools, and the pervasive fear of crime. Ultimately, Frug calls for replacing the current legal definition of cities with an alternative based on what he calls "community building"--an alternative that gives cities within the same metropolitan region incentives to forge closer links with each other.

An incisive study of the legal roots of today's urban problems, City Making is also an optimistic and compelling blueprint for enabling American cities once again to embrace their historic role of helping people reach an accommodation with those who live in the same geographic area, no matter how dissimilar they are.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gerald E. Frug is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard University. He is the author of Local Government Law.

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"Gerald Frug persuasively shows how the current legal powers and divided jurisdictions of municipalities in America reproduce privileges and threaten the solidarity that strong democracy requires. Frug does not stop with critique, however, but also boldly offers an alternative vision of regionally cooperating cities that support the well-being of all their inhabitants. The argument ofCity Making is both rigorous and inspiring."--Iris M. Young, author of Justice and the Politics of Difference and Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy

"This is an innovative book by one of America's leading legal scholars. Frug creates a set of legal and policy frameworks for cities to practice themselves, rather than have imposed from outside. He has found a way to talk about decentralization that makes sense for our time. . . . I admire the clarity and precision with which the author writes."--Richard Sennett, author ofFlesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization

"Frug writes with authority and complete mastery of his subject matter, as well as with moving moral conviction. His proposals are bold and unexpected yet well bolstered by the force of his arguments and the scope of his historical and theoretical discussion. This is an excellent and important book. Very few works published in recent years deserve to be placed in the company of Lewis Mumford's classicThe City in History. Frug's book is one of those few."--Richard T. Ford, Stanford University

Aus dem Klappentext

"Gerald Frug persuasively shows how the current legal powers and divided jurisdictions of municipalities in America reproduce privileges and threaten the solidarity that strong democracy requires. Frug does not stop with critique, however, but also boldly offers an alternative vision of regionally cooperating cities that support the well-being of all their inhabitants. The argument of City Making is both rigorous and inspiring."--Iris M. Young, author of Justice and the Politics of Difference and Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy

"This is an innovative book by one of Americas leading legal scholars. Frug creates a set of legal and policy frameworks for cities to practice themselves, rather than have imposed from outside. He has found a way to talk about decentralization that makes sense for our time. . . . I admire the clarity and precision with which the author writes."--Richard Sennett, author of Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization

"Frug writes with authority and complete mastery of his subject matter, as well as with moving moral conviction. His proposals are bold and unexpected yet well bolstered by the force of his arguments and the scope of his historical and theoretical discussion. This is an excellent and important book. Very few works published in recent years deserve to be placed in the company of Lewis Mumford's classic The City in History. Frug's book is one of those few."--Richard T. Ford, Stanford University

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691007411
• ISBN 13: 9780691007410
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Princeton University Press; https://press.princeton.edu/books; ; 7th Floor, New South Building; PRINCETON; NJ; 8544; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar