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 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.) 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,