The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City

Look no further.  Whether interested in the latest conceptual turn in defining the urban, or in the importance of transcending disciplinary boundaries in the study of cities, this handbook has it all. It is a superb collection that contains a remarkable set of essays from the world’s leading urbanists whose combined wisdom is essential to anyone seeking to understand the 21st century city.  As noted in the editors’ introduction, this is not your standard urban sociology monograph. It is a call to consider new methods of action and imagination, built on a scholarly embrace of ethnographic and analytical thinking and brought to life through the careful reexamination of what the city is and might become in times of rapid and disruptive change. Adroitly organized around a range of thematic topics and scales of inquiry that shed light on timely issues such as immigration, risk, eviction, and conflict as well as more enduring concerns like governance, globalization, and investment, the main challenge for the reader will be to absorb it all. Yet, the editors’ abiding concern with the socio-spatial and experiential contours of the urban, and their clear appreciation for the impact of design on the production and consumption of the city, provide an opportunity to tie together the various sections and chapters in unique and provocative ways.  Although there are many worthy urban collections available on the market today, hands-down this is the one I’d want my students to read and my colleagues to discuss.

• 1) Introduction: The Urban Churn - Suzanne Hall, Ricky BurdettPart 1: Questions of Definition: An Urban Compendium2) The Global Urban: Difference and Complexity in Urban Studies and the Science of Cities - Jenny Robinson, Sue Parnell 3) Urban Studies and the Postcolonial Encounter - Ananya Roy4) Elements for a New Epistemology of the Urban - Neil Brenner, Christian SchmidPart 2: Hierarchy: Elites and Evictions5) The Elite Habitus in Cities of Accumulation - Mike Savage6) Reimagining Chinese London - Caroline Knowles, Roger Burrows7) Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty - Matt DesmondPart 3: Productivity: Over-investment and Abandonment8) Global Cities: Places for Researching the Translocal - Saskia Sassen9) Origins of an Urban Crisis: The Restructuring of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Geography of Foreclosure - Alex Schafran10) Urban Economy and Social Inequality in Productivity: Investment and Abandonment - Fran Tonkiss11) Ruination and Post-industrial Urban Decline - Alice MahPart 4: Authority: Governance and Mobilisations12) The Political Sociology of Cities and Urbanisation Processes: Social Movements, Inequalities and Governance - Patrick Le Galès13) Limits to South Africa’s ‘Right to the City’: Prospects For and Beyond Urban Commoning - Patrick Bond14) Aesthetic Governmentality : Administering the ‘World-Class’ City in Delhi’s Slums - Asher GhertnerPart 5: Volatility: Disruption and Adaptation15) Post-Disaster, Recovery and Rebuilding - Kevin Fox Gotham, Wesley Cheek16) What the Eye Does Not See: The Yamuna in the Imagination of Delhi - Amita Baviskar17) Endangered City: Security and Citizenship in Bogota - Austin ZeidermanPart 6: Conflict: Vulnerability and Insurgency18) The European Refugee Crisis in “Our” Cities: Conflict, Vulnerability and Ethics of Surface - Christine Hentschel19) Temporal (Un)Civility of the City: MENA Urban Insurgencies and Revolutions - Anna M. Agathangelou20) Violent Infrastructures, Places of Conflict: Urban Order in Divided Cities - Wendy PullanPart 7: Provisionality: Infrastructure and Incrementalism21) The Majority-World and the Politics of Everyday Living in Southeast Asia - AbdouMaliq Simone22) Incremental Urbanism and Tactical Learning: Reflections from Mumbai and Kampala - Colin McFarlane23) Infrastructure Deficits and Potential in African Cities - Edgar Pieterse, Katherine HymanPart 8: Mobility: Re-bordering and De-bordering24) City of Migrants - Ash Amin25) The Migrant Street - Suzanne Hall, Robin Finlay, Julia King26) Rethinking Border Cities: In-Between Spaces, Unequal Actors and Stretched Mobility Across the China-Southeast Asia Borderland - Xiangming Chen, Curtis Stone27) Re-bordering Camp and City: ‘Race’, Space and Citizenship in Dhaka - Victoria Redclift28) The Essences of Multiculture: A Sensory Exploration of an Inner-city Street Market - Alex Rhys TaylorPart 9: Civility: Contestation and Encounter29) The Contradictions of Urban Public Space: The View From London and New York - David Madden30) The Public Life of Social Capital - Talja Blokland31) From the Speculative to the Littoral City - Sarah NuttallPart 10: Design: Speculation and Imagination32) The Public Realm - Richard Sennett33) Urban Design: Beyond Architecture at Scale - Rahul Mehrotra34) Towards a Minor Global Architecture at Lamu, Kenya - Lindsay Bremner35) Forensic Architecture: Political Practice, Activism, Aesthetics - Eyal Weizman36) Designing Infrastructure - Keller Easterling37) A Latecomer Imagines the City - William Mann