The Urbanism Reader: Design, Technology, Culture and the Future of Cities

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Positioning design at the center of the debate, The Urbanism Reader brings together classic and contemporary readings to help designers understand the complexities of cities and urban design in the 21st century. The selection of readings presented here is uniquely tailored to a design perspective for architects and urban designers balancing social issues in urbanism with a clear focus on foregrounding design as an instrument for change in cities, and examining the outcomes and challenges of recent design theories, design methods, and technologies in the built urban environment. Covering todays most urgent issues, 45 texts explore key topics in urbanism from digital design technologies to smart cities, from the ongoing ecological crisis to public health and the impact of Covid-19, and from emergence and informality to economic inequity in global cities. Chapters cover cultural issues including diversity, indigenous knowledge, decolonization, social justice, and inclusion alongside technological developments, while a final chapter speculates on the future of urbanism through readings in AI, virtual reality, and the frontiers of current thinking in architecture and urban design. The extracts are grouped by theme, each with an introduction to the historical contexts and guiding paradigms helping design students, researchers, and professionals to make sense of the diverse field of theory and practice in the past, present, and future of global urbanism.

Author Bio

Stefan Al is Assistant Professor in Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech, USA. His previous books include The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream which was a Wall Street Journal best book to read and Beyond Mobility: Planning Cities for People and Places which won the 2019 National Urban Design Award. Tom Verebes is a Tenured Professor in the School of Architecture and Design at the New York Institute of Technology, USA, and Director of OCEAN CN, based in New York. He is the author of over 150 books, chapters, articles and project features.