Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780520209305)

The corporate downtown, with its multitude of social dilemmas and contradictions, is the focus of this well-illustrated volume. How are downtown projects conceived, scripted, produced, packaged, and used, and how has all this changed during the twentieth century? The authors of Urban Design Downtown offer a critical appraisal of the emerging appearance of downtown urban form. They explore both the poetics of design and the politics and economics of development decisions.

Following a historical review of the various phases of downtown transformation, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Tridib Banerjee turn to contemporary American downtowns. They examine the phenomenon of public-space privatization, arguing that corporate open spaces are the consumer-oriented result of policies that have promoted downtown renovation and restructuring but at the same time have neglected the cities' existing poverty-stricken cores.

The book's case studies of individual West Coast downtown projects capture the essence of late twentieth-century urbanism. This analysis of downtown urban America, which offers extensive insight into the design and development process, will interest architects, city planners, developers, and urban designers everywhere.

Author: Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Tridib Banerjee
ISBN-10: 0520209303
ISBN-13: 9780520209305
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 10/19/1998
Pages: 382
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.89lbs
Size: 10.32h x 7.39w x 1.30d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2005 pg. 1760