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 The City After The AutomobileAn Architect's Visionby Basic Books, Wendy Kohn Oct 8, 1998
DescriptionIn an age of virtual offices, urban flight, and planned gated communities, are cities becoming obsolete? In this passionate manifesto, Moshe Safdie argues that as crucibles for creative, social, and political interaction, vital cities are an organic and necessary part of human civilization. If we are to rescue them from dispersal and decay, we must first revise our definition of what constitutes a city. Unlike many who believe that we must choose between cities and suburbs, between mass transit and highways, between monolithic highrises and panoramic vistas, Safdie envisions a way to have it all. Effortless mobility throughout a region of diverse centers, residential communities, and natural open spaces is the key to restoring the rich public life that cities once provided while honoring our profound desire for privacy, flexibility, and freedom. With innovations such as transportation nodes, elevated moving sidewalks, public utility cars, and buildings designed to maximize daylight, views, and personal interaction, Safdie's proposal challenges us all to create a more satisfying and humanistic environment. Reviews“Insightful and thought-provoking … required reading for anyone concerned about the decline of the American city.” “Deliver[s] an important message in suggesting that the solution to congestion, to environmental pollution and to urban decay is not more cars and wider roads but more effective planning and more responsive public transportation.” “In this unsentimental and provocative book, Moshe Safdie offers interesting and farsighted urban proposals that recognize our desire for both mobility and a real sense of place.” “The City After the Automobile is admirable for its adamant refusal to find any glamour at all in the crisis of the contemporary American city. Instead, it proposes to regard the city from the standpoint of reason, which is always the least fashionable standpoint of all. We cannot have enough of its plain-speaking, reformist spirit.” “Safdie’s book offers provocative proposals for dealing with contemporary urbanism in America and a society with a continuing desire for mobility and a sense of space. Accessible and nonacademic in its prose, this volume offers an alternative to other forms of new urbanism.” “The city of today, its center jammed and ringed by ever-more-crowded superhighways, cannot be the last word.… Moshe Safdie suggests how, through imaginative and ingenious redesign of the functions of the city and its transportation systems, we can retain the virtues of the city as a center for commerce, culture, and social life, and the advantages of personal mobility.” “Cities, and chief glory of civilization, have been sadly abused in the United States ever since Jefferson described them as sores on the body politic. Moshe Safdie and Wendy Kohn challenge this hostility to urbanism, exploring fresh ways to introduce civility and mobility to our clogged metropolises.” Selling TerritoryWorld Excluding Canada, UK & Commonwealth |
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