Document generated on 09/26/2021 8:52 a.m.

Urban History Review Revue d'histoire urbaine

Cadman, David & Geoffrey Payne, eds. The Living City: Towards a Sustainable Future. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. Pp. x, 246. Tables, index Gordon, David, ed. Green Cities: Ecologically Sound Approaches to Urban Space. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1990. Pp. 299. Tables, black and white plates, maps, appendices. $34.95 (hard); $19.95 (soft) (U.S.) Gottmann, Jean and Robert A. Harper, eds. Since Megalopolis: The Urban Writings of Jean Gottmann. Baltimore and London: The Press, 1990. Pp. xii, 294. Black and white plates, index. $36.00 (hard); $14.95 (soft) Logan, John R. and Todd Swanstrom, eds. Beyond the City Limits: Urban Policy and Economic Restructuring in Comparative Perspective. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Pp. xii, 276. Index. $39.95 (U.S.) Bruce Tucker

Volume 21, Number 1, October 1992

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1019250ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1019250ar

See table of contents

Publisher(s) Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine

ISSN 0703-0428 (print) 1918-5138 (digital)

Explore this journal

Cite this review Tucker, B. (1992). Review of [Cadman, David & Geoffrey Payne, eds. The Living City: Towards a Sustainable Future. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. Pp. x, 246. Tables, index / Gordon, David, ed. Green Cities: Ecologically Sound Approaches to Urban Space. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1990. Pp. 299. Tables, black and white plates, maps, appendices. $34.95 (hard); $19.95 (soft) (U.S.) / Gottmann, Jean and Robert A. Harper, eds. Since Megalopolis: The Urban Writings of Jean Gottmann. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Pp. xii, 294. Black and white plates, index. $36.00 (hard); $14.95 (soft) / Logan, John R. and Todd Swanstrom, eds. Beyond the City Limits: Urban Policy and Economic Restructuring in Comparative Perspective. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Pp. xii, 276. Index. $39.95 (U.S.)]. Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 21(1), 64–66. https://doi.org/10.7202/1019250ar

All Rights Reserved © Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 1992 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/

This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

Users are cautioned to read carefully the Cadman, David & Geoffrey Payne, eds. books according to the criteria of conven• section that details what is nctfincluded. The Living City: Towards a Sustainable tional historical modes of explanation. We While Mapping Upper Canada is itself a Future. New York and London: Routledge, may lack experience in listening sensitively veritable treasure map for Ontario histori• 1990. Pp. x, 246. Tables, index. to the discourses of other disciplines, but in ans, the exclusions are fairly substantial. the case of these books, we have much to Anyone looking for maps of, say, Indian Gordon, David, ed. Green Cities: gain from the attempt. reservations, timber limits, engineering Ecologically Sound Approaches to Urban plans of railways, or maps still in British Space. Montreal: Black Rose Books, These books aim to diagnose and pre• PRO correspondence series will find few of 1990. Pp. 299. Tables, black and white scribe for the resolution of contemporary them here, Winearls excludes many maps plates, maps, appendices. $34.95 (hard); problems, focusing particularly on envi• at the Survey Records Office that detail $19.95 (soft) (U.S.). ronmental issues and economic develop• areas smaller than a township, including ment. The contributors to The Living City, many fascinating plans of individual farms, Gottmann, Jean and Robert A. Harper, Green Cities, and Beyond the City Limits drawn to illustrate boundary disputes but eds. Since Megalopolis: The Urban cover a broad range of topics, including including interesting information about farm Writings of Jean Gottmann. Baltimore the politics of third-world urban develop• layout and land use. Also excluded are and London: The Johns Hopkins ment, the politics of "green" urban agen• many "minor military maps," mostly in clas• University Press, 1990. Pp. xii, 294. das, citizen participation in urban plan• sifications 440 and 450 at the National Black and white plates, index. $36.00 ning, and current economic theories Archives. She has tried to include most (hard); $14.95 (soft). about urban restructuring. Since Mega• maps of entire townships, towns, and vil• lopolis offers a retrospective selection of lages, all registered subdivision plans, and Logan, John R. and Todd Swanstrom, essays by French urban geographer maps in published books that are not eds. Beyond the City Limits: Urban Policy Jean Gottmann. found elsewhere. I was pleased to see a and Economic Restructuring in listing for the 1826 map of Upper Bytown Comparative Perspective. Philadelphia: The essays in Beyond the City Limits (#1723), picked up in A.H.D. Ross' Ottawa Temple University Press, 1991. Pp. xii, were originally given as papers at a con• Past and Present (1927). Following Ross, 276. Index. $39.95 (U.S.). ference on the economic restructuring of Winearls notes the original as being in a pri• cities at the State University of New York vate collection, but it has long been at the My first reading of the four books under at Albany in 1989. Economic restructur• Archives of Ontario, the only map in the review left me with an uneasy sense of ing refers to a cluster of grand changes Thomas Burrowes collection of watercolour what historian Allan Megill, in "AHR in the modern history of cities: the crisis views. Winearls of course has searched for Forum: Fragmentation and the Future of in the international capitalist order which such needles only in the most promising of Historiography," American Historical analysts date from the emergence of the non-cartographic haystacks. She also Review (95, June 1991), has called the OPEC cartel in 1973; the transition from began this work in the early 1970s and "blindness of historians who argue only cities as centres of industrial production does not tell us whether acquisitions during with other historians, philosophers only to service economies; and the mobility of the 1980s have been included comprehen• with other philosophers, economists only capital owing to cheaper sources of lab• sively for all repositories. with other economists, and so on." The con• our in developing countries. As a result tributors to these edited collections of of these developments, cities compete So the historian will not find everything essays include political scientists, econo• for development projects and are often here and will always have to examine the mists, urban planners, activists, urban forced to mould city and social welfare catalogues, lists, and indexes in the vari• geographers, and sociologists, but histori• planning to suit the demands of invest• ous repositories. But this essential refer• ans are noticeably absent. Most of the ors. The authors address the question of ence work will guide the researcher to authors seek to affect public policy, and whether cities can affect their own eco• many unexpected treasures and will thus they address the future rather than the nomic restructuring or whether they are assist immeasurably in interpreting the past. They are more interested in pointing victims of larger, transnational economic maps themselves. out the mistakes of past urban planners forces. Collectively the authors envision rather than in asking the historical question a model of economic development which Bruce S. Elliott of why now discarded plans and visions abandons ruthless competition for Department of History once made sense to their inventors. Yet it mobile capital in favour of emphasizing Carleton University would be a mistake to evaluate these

64 Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXI, No. 1 (October, 1992) Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

human needs and building upon the challenge the idea that urban develop• ple from nature and indeed encourage a strengths of local economies. ment must inevitably be determined by false distinction between humanity and the imperatives of the marketplace. The nature. Like Beyond the City Limits and Most of the authors are keenly attuned to authors stress the primacy of human The Living City, Green Cities emphasizes the political dimensions of economic needs, local self-reliance, and sus- the need for local initiatives, community planning. Michael Parkinson's article on tainability over the goals of international participation and an end to the concept the transformation of British urban policy capital accumulation and economic of economic growth as inherently desir• under Margaret Thatcher concludes that growth. able. "Economic Development," writes "change was primarily ideologically, not futurist consultant David Morris, "must be economically driven." Likewise, Susan The chief strength of this book is its atten• seen as a means to an end and not as Fainstein emphasizes that political will in tion to models of economic transforma• an end in itself." New York and London in the 1980s tion in developing countries. In particular, shaped policies that produced "highly Arif Hansan's description of the Orangi Readers will value this book for its uneven development, severe shortages project in Karachi, Pakistan, a sewer descriptions of alternative environmental of affordable housing, congestion and building effort of the 1980s, suggests the technologies and planning strategies. environmental deterioration." Fainstein potential for mobilizing local resources, Christine Feredy offers an excellent concludes that cities can have "growth through sensitive community involve• example of the unintended environmen• with equity" only within a market-based ment, to alter traditional habits of waste tal dividends in Calcutta from the prac• system that promotes both the welfare of disposal. It required the modification of tice of agricultural production on a bog the middle class and greater public con• standard engineering techniques to take filled with organic urban wastes. Plan• trol over private investment patterns than account of local abilities and resources. ners interested in urban reforestation will is now the case in the and This project brought effective, low-cost learn much from Tjeerd Deelstra's histori• Britain. For historians who are accus• sanitation to over 75 per cent of the tar• cal account on the reconstitution of tomed to probing the social and intellec• get community and also altered the rela• urban forests in the Netherlands. A sec• tual context in which planning is carried tionship of the people to local govern• tion on political strategies to effect out, these conclusions will come as no ment in the direction of greater citizen change will inspire activists involved in surprise. participation. In a more generalized anal• campaigns to promote "environmental lit• ysis of the politics of "Third World" devel• eracy" and sound ecological planning. The contributors to Beyond the City Lim• opment, Tade Akin Aina similarly Readers will find the appendices, which its stress that local responses to eco• stresses the resilience and ingenuity of list suppliers of green products and ser• nomic restructuring assume a variety of poor urban dwellers to use scarce vices, an extensive bibliography, and forms, but collectively they indicate that resources effectively. Both authors stress addresses of organizations and demon• the decisions of the managers of interna• the importance of a respectful negotia• stration projects, especially useful. tional capital have a greater impact on tion between planners and local popula• restructuring than local politics. In addi• tions, and both contribute to an emerg• Since Megalopolis contains a selection tion, the authors point to the greater ing, reciprocal dialogue between of articles by French geographer Jean importance of national, rather than local, planners from the industrialized and Gottmann published since his monumen• economic policies and planning. On developing countries. tal study Megalopolis: The Urbanized occasion, however, such as in leftist- Northeastern Seaboard of the United dominated municipal governments in Green Cities: Ecologically Sound States (1961), a book in which he identi• France, local efforts to plan restructuring Approaches to Urban Space addresses fied the Boston-Washington corridor as a can have considerable impact—using primarily the concerns of environmental single urban unit. With its population of the case of economic restructuring in planners and activists on several issues. 38 million people living on about 2% of French cities, Edmond Preteceille empha• The authors seek to further the agenda of American territory, Megalopolis, in sises the potential role of local social the "green planning movement," arguing Gottmann's view, was the hinge of inter• movements in rehabilitating the state as that cities no longer make sense and can• national exchange (cultural, technologi• an instrument of restructuring. not survive as presently constituted. Tre• cal, financial, and political) for the United mendous amounts of energy are wasted States. In Megalopolis, Gottmann The editors of The Living City pursue a in the importation of food and the exporta• stressed the erosion of traditional distinc• similar line of argument, seeking to tion of waste. Modern cities divorce peo• tions between urban and rural societies.

65 Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine VoL XXI, No. 1 (October, 1992) Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

He also argued that the area was not one increases in population density have his• work might be different. These books undifferentiated city but contained forces torically caused only temporary difficul• invite us to try. and counter forces which ultimately ties for urban dwellers. "The lesson from would contribute to an ethos of cultural history seems fairly simple and clear," he Bruce Tucker and social diversity. In an article in 1976, writes in one of his characteristically Department of History he identified five additional such centres sweeping positivist statements, "high University of Windsor internationally and predicted the emer• density creates a challenge to improve, gence of three more. through better organization and fairer dis• Merriman, John M., The Margins of City tribution, the lot of the people." Gottmann Life: Explorations on the French Urban One of the aims of Since Megalopolis, it remains optimistic about the future of cit• Frontier 1815-1851. New York and seems, is to clarify previously stated ies and about the capacity of thoughtful Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. ideas and to preserve the term "megalop• planning to cope with modern urban Pp. 318. Illustrations, maps, black and olis" from misuse. Megalopolis, problems. white photographs. $63.00. Gottmann writes, applies to "very large polynuclear urbanized systems endowed Readers will find these books useful, John Merriman continues his exploration with enough continuity and internal inter• even occasionally intriguing. North Ameri• of French cities during the nineteenth connections for each of them to be con• can readers will particularly appreciate century in his latest monograph, The Mar• sidered in itself." The area must be sepa• the many forays into non-Western arenas gins of City Life. While his previous work rated from non-megalopolitan areas by of urban politics and development. Many concentrated on one city, Limoges, this substantial and less urbanized spaces, of the articles are written in a spirited and work deals with several towns, including and its population density and intensity heartening tone, emphasising the possi• Perpignan, , Reims, Nîmes and Poi• of activities must be substantially greater bilities of an urban economics based on tiers. The social, economic and political than that of conventional cities. human need and environmental sus- consequences of urban development Gottmann's efforts to refine the definition tainability. Historians, however, may have between 1815 and 1851 are examined. of Megalopolis are aimed at critics who a difficult task in puzzling out a relation• appear to have understood the term only ship to the efforts of planners to make The over-arching theme of the book is as an "overgrown metropolitan area." sense of the contemporary scene. Read• that of marginality in all its aspects: cul• ers will notice that there is almost no tural, geographical, social and eco• Since Megalopolis is a delight to read, attention in these books to the peculiari• nomic. Merriman tells the story of spa• for Gottmann brings an erudition to his ties of race, gender, and ethnicity that tially isolated suburbanites who also writing that is uncommon in the literature has so enriched recent work in the dis• were marginal in a social and economic of North American urban studies. A cipline, such as Lisabeth Cohen's Mak• sense. Perpignan most graphically superb essay on archaeological excava• ing a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chi• illustrates this inclusive marginality. As tions on the Aegean islands of Santori cago, 1919-1934, and Susan A. Glenn's Merriman brilliantly demonstrates, the and Delos, for example, provides an Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in working class inhabitants, the Catalan occasion for illuminating a discourse on the Immigrant Generation. We are tradi• population, lived on the outskirts of town the Platonic notion of cities as isolated, tionally hesitant to embrace generaliza• and were distinct from the French popula• largely self-contained units, and Alexan• tions that are not rooted in time and tion of the city centre, linguistically, cultur• der of Macedon's pluralistic, expansive, place, and we resent the efforts of social ally, and religiously. The popular reli• commercial model which defined cities scientists to ransack the past, as many of gious beliefs and practices of the as parts of larger networks. Another the contributors do, for evidence to sup• Catalans conflicted with the orthodoxy of essay examines urban planning in mod• port universal propositions. We are French Catholicism. These cultural differ• ern and assesses the attempts of trained to account for change over time ences bolstered the Catalan opposition Japanese planners by the late 1970s to and to maintain a healthy distance from to the French state. subordinate economic growth to the our informants, rather than to praise or "non-material" needs of urbanités. In an criticise them. Perhaps, however, our dia• Merriman reminds us of the importance engaging article entitled "The Ethics of logues with the practitioners of other dis• of studying the marginal. Like other schol• Living at High Densities," (originally pub• ciplines are too infrequent, our abilities to ars in the field, such as Bernard Vincent lished in 1966), Gottmann stresses his wander in the literature of other fields too and Roger Chartier, he believes that mar• argument from Megalopolis that stunted to appreciate fully how our own ginality served as a "mirror," meaning

66 Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol XXI, No. 1 (October, 1992)