The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries delves into examples of urban imaginaries across multiple media and geographies: from new visions of smart, eco, and resilient cities to urban dystopias in popular culture; from architectural renderings of starchitecture and luxury living to performative activism for new spatial justice; and from speculative experiments in urban planning, fiction, and photography to augmented urban realities in crowd-mapping and mobile apps.

The volume brings various global perspectives together and into close dialogue to offer a broad, interdisciplinary, and critical overview of the current state of research on urban imaginaries. Questioning the politics of urban imagination, the companion gives particular attention to the role that urban imaginaries play in shaping the future of urban societies, communities, and built environments. Throughout the companion, issues of power, resistance, and uneven geographical development remain central. Adopting a transnational perspective, the volume challenges research on urban imaginaries from the perspective of globalization and postcolonial studies, inviting critical reconsiderations of urbanism in its diverse current forms and definitions. In the process, the companion explores issues of Western-centrism in urban research and design, and accommodates current attempts to radically rethink urban form and experience.

This is an essential resource for scholars and graduate researchers in the fields of urban planning and architecture; art, media, and cultural studies; film, visual, and literary studies; sociology and political science; geography; and anthropology.

About the Author

Christoph Lindner is Professor and Dean of the College of Design at the University of Oregon, USA.

Miriam Meissner is Assistant Professor in Urban Studies at Maastricht University, The Netherlands.

Reviews

"This book provides an important introduction to, and comprehensive overview of, contemporary scholarship on urban imaginaries. Lindner and Meissner have compiled an exciting collection of essays, connecting perspectives from the arts, humanities, and social sciences and drawing on cases from a broad range of media and geographical contexts. With its incisive analysis of the political role of the imagination in cities across the world, and an insightful focus on the crafting of urban futures, this book is likely to become a key resource in urban studies teaching and research."

Rivke Jaffe, Professor of Cities, Politics and Culture, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Book Information
ISBN 9780367733049
Author Christoph Lindner
Format Paperback
Page Count 466
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g