"The never-before-told inside story of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center - an epic tale of business, politics, and engineering by the man who spent two decades working to make it happen. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 destroyed the World Trade Center, New Yorkers and Americans faced a critical set of questions: What should be done with the site? Could the towers be replaced? And how best to memorialize those lost on that day? For Larry Silverstein, a lifelong New Yorker who had signed a lease for the properties just a few months before the attacks, the answer was clear: America had to rebuild as quickly as possible. In The Rising, Silverstein recounts in vivid detail his long battle to construct a new World Trade Center complex and to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood while also memorializing the victims of the attacks. Silverstein made history in 2001 when he signed a 99-year lease on the 10.6 million square foot World Trade Center for $3.25 billion. For the next twenty years, he navigated warring political interests, byzantine city bureaucracies, and resistant insurance companies, as well as the many challenges of designing, engineering, and constructing several new towers in the heart of downtown Manhattan. More than once the entire project almost folded, but today the buildings are nearly complete and the neighborhood is once again a thriving hub that draws hundreds of thousands of people a day. The Rising is a vibrant portrait of the inner workings of New York City in the wake of its most profound tragedy, but it is also a master class in how to succeed in business despite all odds. Full of outsize characters and relentless adversity, this is a riveting book about a remarkable feat of vision and determination"--

This book examines the cultural and artistic awakening of New York City through a detailed look at the city's architecture and urbanism during the years '890 - 1925, when the city first acquired a distinct sense of itself as the representative American metropolis, comparable to London and Paris.

"New York 2000 is the culmination of an award-winning series documenting the history of architecture and urbanism in New York City from the Civil War to the present. The previous books, New York 1880, New York 1900, New York 1930, and New York 1960, provide comprehensive coverage on the architects and urban planners who defined New York since the mid-nineteenth century. This volume chronicles milestones in the city's history over the past thirty years, with more than 1,800 color illustrations to complement the text." "Featuring insightful discussions on the development of Battery Park City, the rebirth of Harlem and Times Square, the creation of the cultural precinct around the new MoMA, and the reclaiming of the waterfront along the East and Hudson Rivers as recreational parkland, New York 2000 documents ongoing commitments to innovation and renovation and celebrates the achievements of internationally recognized architects, including Sir Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli, Richard Meier, and Renzo Piano." "The survey of organized geographically, beginning in Lower Manhattan and moving north through Harlem and to the outer boroughs including the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Woven throughout is commentary on the repercussions of September 11, 2001, New York 2000 is a thorough study of how a world-class metropolis preserves, showcases, and constructs an architectural heritage that endures over the course of two centuries."--BOOK JACKET

Modernism in architecture and urban design has failed the American city. This is the decisive conclusion that renowned public intellectual Nathan Glazer has drawn from two decades of writing and thinking about what this architectural movement will bequeath to future generations. In From a Cause to a Style , he proclaims his disappointment with modernism and its impact on the American city. Writing in the tradition of legendary American architectural critics Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs, Glazer contends that modernism, this new urban form that signaled not just a radical revolution in style but a social ambition to enhance the conditions under which ordinary people lived, has fallen short on all counts. The articles and essays collected here--some never published before, all updated--reflect his ideas on subjects ranging from the livable city and public housing to building design, public memorials, and the uses of public space. Glazer, an undisputed giant among public intellectuals, is perhaps best known for his writings on ethnicity and social policy, where the unflinching honesty and independence of thought that he brought to bear on tough social questions has earned him respect from both the Left and the Right. Here, he challenges us to face some difficult truths about the public places that, for better or worse, define who we are as a society. From a Cause to a Style is an exhilarating and thought-provoking book that raises important questions about modernist architecture and the larger social aims it was supposed to have addressed-and those it has abandoned.

Often referred to as the city of the future, Los Angeles is known for its sprawl, its constant change, and its special relationship to the film industry. The twelve contributors to Looking for Los Angeles focus on dramatic shifts in the urban landscape, important moments in the city's architectural history, and the role of the image in this mecca of image makers. Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom searches for Los Angeles's center and finds a city that "breaks itself down, builds itself up again, displaces and regroups itself" and where "freedom of movement" is a basic premise of life. Historian Philip Ethington documents the city's changing character in both text and images, urban studies professor Dana Cuff exposes the demise of once-thriving urban neighborhoods to make way for Modernist housing projects, and anthropologist Susan A. Phillips invites us on a personal journey into "the projects" to meet gang members and their families today. Artist Robbert Flick offers a sixteen-page, full-color photo-essay that takes us on a "drive-by" along Alameda Avenue, architectural historian Thomas S. Hines traces Frank Lloyd Wright's influence on the life and career of photographer Edmund Teske, and film historian Robert L. Carringer examines Los Angeles as a setting for Hollywood feature films.

The terrorist attacks of September 11 have created an unprecedented public discussion about the uses and meanings of the central area of lower Manhattan that was once the World Trade Center. While the city sifts through the debris, contrary forces shaping its future are at work. Developers jockey to control the right to rebuild "ground zero." Financial firms line up for sweetheart deals while proposals for memorials are gaining in appeal. In After the World Trade Center, eminent social critics Sharon Zukin and Michael Sorkin call on New York's most acclaimed urbanists to consider the impact of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and what it bodes for the future of New York. Contributors take a close look at the reaction to the attack from a variety of New York communities and discuss possible effects on public life in the city.

Architect and social critic Michael Sorkin develops his own vision of the future lower Manhattan through a series of chronologically organized essays illustrated with full-color images of his own plans. Mixing his inimitable brand of social criticism with more personal reflections, Starting From Zero offers a striving challenge to the Ground Zero redevelopment plan recently chosen by New York's establishment insiders.

The nature and effects of globalization are coming under critical scrutiny across all continents. This book focuses on one aspect, the globalization of cities. It examines the claim that the state is powerless to influence events, and that history, geography, and culture have become irrelevant in the worldwide trend towards a uniform urban model; a model which features increased segregation, decline of the central city, and social polarization. The international team of contributors is well placed to put these claims in perspective. Drawing on their experiences of cities as diverse as New York and Warsaw, Istanbul and Sao Paulo, they demonstrate that states and cities have adopted widely varying approaches to the advent of globalization; and that its impact has been constrained by each city's history, physical layout, location, environment, role in the international economy, and demographic composition. The diversity of urban development and political response revealed is enormous, and provides ample practical examples of what might be done to bring about improvements for the increasing number of people who live in cities.

"A deep dive into a masterwork, Building SimCity analyzes the history, reception, and design of Will Wright's seminal simulation game, and locates SimCity-alongside Maxis, its developer/publisher-within the larger history of simulation, computing, and games"--

Robert Hughes once described Michael Sorkin as “unique in America––brave, principled, highly informed and fiercely funny.” All Over the Map confirms all of these superlatives as Sorkin assaults “the national security city, with its architecture of manufactured fear.”

Introduction -- Garden cities and colonial Africa: -- Symbolic usage of the 'garden city' concept during the French Protectorate of Morocco : from the Howardian model to garden housing estates /Charlotte Jelidi -- From metropolitan to colonial planning : Dakar between garden city and cité-jardin /Liora Bigon -- The 'plateau' in West African, French-speaking colonial towns : between garden and city /Alain Sinou -- The afterlife of the Lanchester Plan : Zanzibar as the garden city of tomorrow /Garth Andrew Myers and Makame Ali Muhajir -- Garden cities in in colonial and Mandatory Palestine (Eretz Israel): -- 'May be solved by the construction of garden cities' : German Jewish literary proposals on garden cities in Eretz Israel /Ines Sonder -- Urban development in the 'garden city' : examples from late Ottoman-era Palestine and the late British Mandate /Yossi Katz and Liora Bigon -- Garden cities and suburbs in Palestine : the case of Tel Aviv /Miki Zaidman and Ruth KarkAfterword -- Multilateral cities and colonial planning /Liora Bigon and Yossi Katz.